The Lean Startup Framework is the brainchild of Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses". It is a very popular framework especially among software startups. The core tenets include reducing waste by building the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - the smallest possible thing that can enable you to test your idea in the field, and then doing multiple build-measure-learn loops and iterating your way to product-market fit.
The framework is very good for software projects, with two caveats: First, the framework assumes you have chosen a beachhead market. A small amount of strategic thinking before you enter the build-measure-learn iterations will help you make sure you are iterating in the right area of interest. Second, the framework needs significant adaptations for non-software products that have either a high development cost to create prototypes, or a long lead time for each prototype due to procurement lead times, or both. This means hardware products naturally will take longer to complete each build-measure-learn loop than hardware products. Medical devices take even longer due to the regulatory approval cycle. Pharmaceuticals have a different cadence and don't really apply here.
The general principles of not scaling prematurely and spending time in the field continuously testing and refining the product still holds.
This article builds on content developed by the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship for MIT's Orbit Knowledgebase and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.