How many innovators does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none. Light bulbs aren’t changed by innovators because they’re too busy solving other problems (e.g. how do we get the light bulb to change itself) and defending their solution to their peers. Traditionally, innovation is a lonely sport, filled with too many great […]
How to Manage Innovation in Your Sandbox Read More »
Jack and Kim walked back to their offices after meeting with Celia’s innovation team. They were filled with the excitement of the team, jazzed to get started. “That team is great,” said Jack. “They will have an awesome solution built in no time!” Kim gestured Jack into her office. “I think we need to be
Measuring Progress of Innovation Using OKRs 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 »
Jack and Kim walked down the hall away from their CEO’s office. They were buzzing with excitement. “Wow, I can’t believe he gave us full reign to build our innovation team!” said Kim. When their CEO had asked if their process of cycling through pain points and potential solutions with customers could accelerate innovation, their
Building a Team of Customer Problem Solvers 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 »
Jack ran into Kim in the hallway outside the CEO’s office. “You too?” he asked. The CEO had requested a meeting to discuss their proposal for investment in the winning team’s innovation challenge. “He said he wanted to do a test, see if we could celebrate a quick win,” said Jack. Kim frowned. “That’s what he
Design Thinking is not “One and Done” Read More »
Design Thinking is a methodology that has tremendous potential to provide corporate strategy development a much needed facelift, a version 2.0 for the 21st century. Yet from my experience, Design Thinking is inconsistently executed, keeping it from reaching its potential and discouraging practitioners, leading to a low perceived return-on-investment. The d.School at Stanford is the
Creating Problem Finders through Design Thinking 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 »
Celia had been thinking all afternoon about Jack and Kim’s presentation on customer-centered innovation at the leadership meeting. She was intrigued. Using the customer as the focal point for determining where to invest their innovation dollars seemed like an approach that could help their strategic decision making. How could this approach help her organization? As
Should Operations Focus on Customer Pain Points? Read More »