The Bell-Mason Venture Development Framework

To facilitate the science of venturing, Heidi Mason* and Tim Rohner, in their corporate venturing practice at DiamondCluster International, use the Bell-Mason Development Framework. It is an objective means to chart the course and evaluate the progress of early-stage ventures by using hundreds of questions on best practices derived from direct experience with hundreds of companies. Above all, this methodology creates a smarter, more efficient investing and building process for corporations. It includes four key elements:

1.	Twelve dimensions or categories of analysis that can characterize any venture. The venture team must analyze progress in each dimension independently to reliably define and calibrate it. Twelve Dimensions of the Bell-Mason Model
2.	Four well-defined stages of development (explored at length in The Venture Imperative) which chronicle the evolution of the venture over time: Venture Vision, Alpha Offering, Beta Offering, and Market Calibration and Expansion. Four well-defined stages of development
3.	Quantification of a venture's progress, in each stage, via key milestones and incremental performance measures. (This analysis is especially useful for investors doing due diligence or providing board-level advice and counsel, or as an internal review for a venture's team at end stage.
4.	Spider graphs, or Kiviat diagrams, that depict the ideal state of venture evolution across the four stages, and provide a means to compare the real venture again the idea.

Ideal States for the Bell-Mason Model

The power of the graphical component of this framework becomes readily apparent when comparing actual performance against ideal performance.

The following graph depicts the results of a concept state diagnostic performed on a recent corporate venture. The spikes in the idea graph indicate the relative importance of that dimension in that stage. When actual performance is falling short of ideal performance on a spike, the issues are extremely serious and must be addressed immediately.

Concept Stage of the Bell-Mason Model