Celia was at her desk late that night. She was full of ideas for how to implement their winning innovation challenge, but she knew that starting with a solution was the wrong way to go about it. As the leader of the team, it was important that she set the right expectations for the project. […]
The Beginner’s Mind Read More »
In 2004 I was the co-founder of a business at Hewlett Packard that crafted a customer experience from the ground up. Granted, I worked with some of the best experience designers in the world – Dreamworks Animation – who taught me a great deal about delivering an exceptional experience. They taught me how every detail
How Exceptional is your Customer Experience? Read More »
As operations manager, Celia’s responsibilities included customer service and the customer call center. Her customer service department often delivered delightful experiences to their customers, and she loved being in the driver seat. However, when one of her peers from the leadership team mentioned customer experience, they assumed that only her service department was responsible for
Designing Customer Experience Read More »
Your mission as a corporate entrepreneur is to find new customer problems that your business is uniquely positioned to solve. Unlike a startup, you are not alone in this endeavor. There is a whole organization full of smart, passionate people for you to tap into. This is where Design Thinking is the corporate entrepreneur’s friend
Tips for Building an Innovation Culture based on Design Thinking Read More »
Employees in large organizations in both the public and private sector have “Strategy du Jour” fatigue. Every year, they’re hit with new strategic directions that involve changes in the way they work without any clear impact on the things they care about, like the work they do and the customers they serve. This starts to breed
Four Design Thinking Tips to Achieve Strategy Change Read More »
Celia knocked on Kim’s door. “I’d like to use the ‘customer pain point’ approach for our operational improvement efforts,” she said. As the VP of operations, Celia had to sort through competing opportunities with no clear data that would help her prioritize. More often than not, this meant funding the squeakiest wheel. She thought customer
Design Thinking: Developing a Culture of Customer Problem Solving Read More »
As someone always looking for more efficient ways to do things – everything from running meetings to shopping for groceries – I love the Lean process improvement methodology. It allows me to scrutinize the way I accomplish a task, and then look for waste that I can reduce or eliminate. Lean is an iterative approach,
5 Tips for Increasing Customer Value with Lean Read More »
Do you ever get the feeling that brand is something that is tacked on at the end of innovation efforts? Like the wrapping on a present, brand is perceived as just the way things are presented and sold. In my experience, this undermines your innovation. It keeps a business’s relationship with its customers transactional, and
Embed your Brand in your Innovation Sandbox Read More »
Jack returned to his office after the leadership meeting. He felt exhilarated – he and Kim had actually pitched a new approach to innovation that started with the customer instead of the idea. And while they only got a lukewarm response … and a lot of skepticism … from the rest of the team, they
Aligning Innovation Investment with Your Brand Read More »