miles as entrepreneurs. All too often, however, intrapreneurs' suggestions are rejected because the new products they propose either do not fit within the current business or threaten the status quo. Thus, start-ups are the main arena for innovation in the world market of information processing, even though the basic technology and product ideas often originate in a research laboratory or a large company.

As suggested above, most of this book outlines a diagnostic method that can be used to assess the health of a high-tech venture. The idea of developing a tool for diagnosing start-ups evolved over a period of nearly ten years. The possibility first presented itself when I was vice president of engineering at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). In that position, I defined rules for testing the management, team, market(ing), product position, and product development in an internal DEC guide for managers, "Heuristics for Building Great Products." Since then, I have been involved with about twenty start-ups, including Ardent Computer Corporation (now Stardent Computer, Inc.); Encore Computer Corporation; MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.; Silicon Compiler Systems Corporation (now Mentor Graphics Corporation); Silicon Graphics, Inc.; and Visix Software, Inc.

My observations in these ventures typically, from the vantage point of a technologist and product architect-have, over the course of a long collaboration, been merged with the marketing, sales, and strategic insights of Heidi Mason, founder and, until recently, chief executive officer of Acuity, a strategic marketing and public relations firm in Silicon Valley. Our research has been encapsulated into a series of guidelines, which take the form of questions or rules, known as the Bell-Mason Diagnostic.

TheBell-MasonDiagnosticconstitutesarule-based,human-applied,expertsystem.

Its more than six hundred rules are gleaned from experience and research in start-ups and established organizations. Review and feedback from peers supplemented the original work, and testing performed on high-tech companies both by ourselves and by Coopers and Lybrand provided a cross-check. Finally, the diagnostic was licensed to Coopers and Lybrand for use in assessing high-tech start-ups.

As mentioned earlier, the rules reflect the diagnostic's view of an ideal company, with which an organization can compare itself. These rules take the form of objective questions (e.g., regarding the existence and content of certain plans and processes) that can be used to gather verifiable information from key people in the company. Formal assessment of a firm includes the following elements: a review of written plans, an evaluation at the company's site (to secure more detailed documentation and simply look at the organization and its progress), analysis of the information that has been c in the firm. Such a formal assessment should be conducted by a team of two or three individuals who are familiar with the technology and the product and who have a general knowledge of marketing and sales, organization, control, and finance.