Forget your innovation strategy if the HR Department is not on board
Financial resources, know-how, assets, they are all created by the human resource of the company. People are behind the success or failure of any initiative in a company — this comes as no surprise. But people are unique based on their background, what motivates them, what fears they have and what they aspire to become. […]
Lessons From Kodak’s Bankruptcy, How Can Large Companies Sustain Innovation?
Five years ago Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This was not only an economic tragedy for one of the great companies of the last century, it was devastating for the city of Rochester, New York, where the company was based. Kodak was once a household brand whose dominance in the photographic film business was unparalleled. […]
Innovation Is Management
Every entrepreneur wants to be Steve Jobs. But the Steve Jobs they want to be is the Steve Jobs on stage presenting the new iPhone at an Apple event. Not many entrepreneurs want to learn how to be Steve Jobs the day-to-day innovation grind. Innovators in large companies are not any different. I have found […]
3 reasons why having ‘legal’ on a lean startup experimentation team is a good idea
Most of the time, when you mention ‘the legal department’ to a product team doing lean startup experiments you feel the mood in the room deteriorating (at least to say). The situation is even worst in highly regulated industries, where, product teams are already numbed from the fear of ‘persecution’ for even thinking about business […]
Eight Ways To Manage Innovation Experiments Without Hurting Your Company’s Brand
Unlike startups who are usually just starting out in business, large companies tend to have trading histories and reputations to protect. Part of this reputational equity is captured in the company’s brand. At the same time, innovation involves experimenting with ideas and building minimal viable products. This tension between running innovation experiments and protecting the […]
Five Reasons Your Boss Was Right To Shut Down Your Innovation Lab
Innovation labs are all the rage these days. Most companies have one, are thinking about creating one or have had employees pushing management to start one. There are several innovation labs being launched monthly to great media fanfare. To name a few examples from last month (August 2016); Paypal launched a fintech innovation lab in Singapore; NCR […]
Innovation audit
Prescribing what the ecosystem needs not what it wants There are currently over 6,000 drugs approved by the FDA in the United States. You can only be bewildered if upon entering a doctor’s office and even before stating your symptoms, the medic hands you a prescription containing the most commonly prescribed drugs from the FDA […]
Why R&D Spending Is Not A Measure Of Innovation
Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg When it comes to R&D spending, corporate leaders often want to know what others are doing. How much are other companies in different industries spending on R&D? Leaders want to know the level of spending in absolute terms (i.e. total expenditure), and also as a percentage of revenue. The presumption is that […]
Five Principles for Building Corporate Innovation Ecosystems
It is undeniable that the world around us is changing. Technology and software have transformed large parts of business; and continues to do so in more and more dramatic ways. Corporate leadership would have to be in a special kind of denial to not see how these changes in technology and economics are impacting their […]
3 Reasons Why Practice Doesn’t Trump Theory
The Praxis Wheel. Art by Joshua Kahn Russell Over the last few years I have been traveling the world advising large companies on how to implement lean innovation methods within their companies. This work has led me to run innovation workshops, design innovation frameworks, work with management team on strategy and coach product teams in […]