What you'll learn
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The pre-mortem to surface real risks by imagining the concept has already failed, before anyone is invested in defending it.
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The reverse income statement to work backward from the number a concept must hit, using discovery-driven planning.
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A ranked assumptions checklist that sorts assumptions by how essential, uncertain and cheap to test each one is.
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Genuine test design that can actually invalidate an assumption, not just confirm what you already believed.
Look Outward to find who has already solved part of the problem through open innovation before you build it yourself.
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Honest kill criteria and the go, adjust or kill decision, set in advance and actually honoured.
The ten modules
The certificate teaches PROVE, the validation method behind Nemetan's Value Discovery Workshop: Pre-mortem, Reverse the income statement, Obligations, Verify, Evaluate. Two modules per stage take you from the discipline behind each stage to its live application.
P
Module 1 · Why Validation Must Start With Imagined Failure
Pre-mortem
Why a genuine pre-mortem must run before any planning tool is opened, and why skipping it breeds false confidence.
Module 2 · Running a Real Pre-mortem Session
Facilitate a pre-mortem with a group defending its own idea, and tell a real answer from a polite one.
R
Module 3 · Working Backward From the Target Outcome
Reverse the Income Statement
Why starting from the number a concept must hit produces sharper questions than a forecast built forward from an assumption.
Module 4 · Building a Complete Reverse Income Statement
Build a full reverse income statement, with a real, testable assumption behind every line.
O
Module 5 · Surfacing the Assumptions Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud
Obligations
Identify the assumptions a group would rather leave unspoken, and see why naming them is the point of this stage.
Module 6 · Structuring and Ranking a Rigorous Assumptions Checklist
Turn a raw list into a ranked, testable checklist, testing the essential, uncertain and cheap ones first.
V
Module 7 · Designing a Real Test, Not a Rationalisation
Verify
Design a genuine test for an assumption, distinct from an exercise that quietly confirms what the group already believed.
Module 8 · External Evidence and the First Look Outward
Gather real external evidence, including an early open-innovation scan for who has already solved part of the problem.
E
Module 9 · Building Honest Kill Criteria
Evaluate
Set kill criteria in advance that a group will actually honour, not criteria vague enough to be argued around later.
Module 10 · The Go, Adjust, or Kill Decision, the Deep Look Outward, and Capstone
Run the full go, adjust or kill decision honestly, search outward for partners, and complete the certification capstone.
How it works
FORMAT
Fully online, self-paced
EACH MODULE
A half-hour video with supporting documents
ASSESSMENT
A practical applied capstone
STRUCTURE
Ten stage modules
LIVE SUPPORT
A monthly one-hour live session
OUTCOME
A certificate, and a method you can reuse.
Who it's for
Sustainability, strategy and innovation professionals who need to test a concept before backing it, whether it came from a SPARK session or anywhere else. It follows naturally from the Certificate in Sustainability Ideation, though you can take it on its own. No prior training is assumed: the method is built to be systematic and teachable, so you leave able to run it yourself.