Opportunities for Product Management to Embrace Collaborative Innovation
What is top of mind in the world of product management? What does the product manager seek? How might the practice of collaborative innovation help the product manager achieve their goals? The innovation architect Doug Collins shares his perspective on these questions based on his recent participation in a product management summit.
5 Ways to Create a Successful Innovation Program
You’ve heard it a thousand times: companies need to innovate in order to survive. The Googles and the Apples of the world are doing it- Google famously used to require employees to dedicate 20% of their time to innovation. But what exactly does it take to create a sustainable innovation program, especially if you are in an industry that is traditionally risk averse?
A Compelling Value Proposition: The Missing Tool in Your Lean Startup Kit
Eric Reis first introduced the concept of Lean Startup in 2008. Today Lean Startup is deployed far beyond entrepreneurial circles and is taking root in large, complex organizations looking to improve their new product success rates – and in the process build lean cultures. This is very good news. Too often the processes corporations use in pursuit of innovation can actually erode their capability to innovate. Still, when applying the principles of “Build – Measure – Learn” to initiating Lean practices in corporations, there is room for improvement…and possibly even for a pivot.
How to Achieve More Effective Performance Appraisals
Roughly only half of all companies conduct annual performance reviews. Of the fifty percent of companies that do tend to provide consistent and reliable feedback to their employees. However, it can be awkward at times to tell someone on your staff that they aren't doing a good job or attempt to offer constructive criticism without sounding condescending. What are some ways to make a performance appraisal more effective and less awkward for yourself and the employee?
Shouting the Innovation Message (Finally): The Growing Importance of Internal Communication Planning
In the past year or so corporate innovation leaders have clearly taken an “ecosystem” perspective to their innovation activities. What this ultimately means is that they view all of their program’s activities as a connected whole and driving towards higher-level goals, often aligned with broader cultural change.
Clear the Mystery Around Innovation Crowdsourcing: Learn from the Pros
So you’re thinking of tapping your employees or customers for ideas. You’ve read some exciting crowdsourcing case studies and it seems like a no brainer. Or you’ve used a consultant but now want to go it alone? What could possibly go wrong? If you’re like a lot of first timers, you’ll get the software all set up, announce the challenge, and sit back with great expectations!
Let Creativity Reign When Appreciating Employees
Everyone likes to feel appreciated at work. In fact, studies have shown that employees are motivated to work harder when their boss shows appreciation for their work. For most employers, showing appreciation might mean promotions and pay raises, but those opportunities don't come along as often as we'd like to think.
Should You Invest in Workplace Training?
‘Workplace training’: two words which are liable to send shivers down every manager’s spine. Not because they’re against their employees learning, of course not; but that it eats up hours upon hours of time and can cost a lot of money. Yet there’s no disputing the benefits of workplace training in terms of staff retention, filling skills gaps, improved productivity and competitive edge.
Coach@设计思维
设计思维教练是设计思维工作坊的灵魂人物。在工作坊中教练不是最终给出解决方案的人，所有的决定都是由不同背景组成的团队自己决定，每个人都贡献着自己的创意和经验。身为设计思维教练，要信任自己的团队一定可以做出好的东西，并且要不断不断地去激励团队中的每一个成员协作，分析并提炼出观点，最后做出一个解决方案的原型...
Knowing You, Knowing Me: Innovation as Transparency
What is happening in the world of innovation these days? In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins reflects on what he heard and learned at the Chief Innovation Officer Summit in New York this month. In short: do not underestimate the value of transparency that the practice brings.
设计思维，遭遇真实的世界
“ 我喜欢设定字体，我喜欢撰写代码，我喜欢解决问题、面对挑战…… 但在2014年，设计者之间90%的.文化都让我想呕吐。向别人介绍自己是一位设计师时，我畏缩不前。这真的让人崩溃…… 总的来说，目前的设计文化让我受挫的原因在于设计很少面对真实世界的问题，更多是在编织神话和讲故事。”
Getting From Ideas to Products
In a time when innovation and new product development are vital to remain competitive, large organizations are looking for ways to generate and execute new product ideas while mitigating risk. Increasingly, these companies seek to create a startup culture as a means to generate innovation.
火鸡与原始人的创新决断
创新意味着放弃安全感。每个幸存的具有一定规模的企业，好像中年职业人，有着自己知识路径、坚持与骄傲。创新颠覆意味着摧毁他们多年经营的庇护所。物理上的山洞消失了，还存在着心理上“老窝”。好比流浪在旷野的原始人爸爸Grug，仍然习惯性地新的山洞。
Communicate to Innovate: Tips from the World of Improvisation
Effective communication is at the heart of innovation: harnessing insights from customers, partners and co-workers, sharing ideas, building upon points of view, advocating and gaining support for one’s innovations all require razor sharp communication. Interestingly enough, communicating effectively is a two-way street. The sender and receiver of information are both responsible for landing it appropriately, and both sides need to actively participate. Two simple, but powerful behaviors that can help increase the efficiency of communication are listening and declaring.
做自己人生的设计师
如果你在 google中搜索在中国或美国的工作满意度，出来的结果无一例外——“不满意”、“只有 6%的中国劳动者表示对他们的工作上心”、“ 80%的美国年轻人（ 20~ 30岁）表示不愿继续从事当下的工作”……
Survival of The Fittest
Based on our work with pioneering enterprises in Silicon Valley and around the globe we have learned a great deal about what makes innovation prosper. This article reveals some surprising insights on how prepared our institutions are to successfully compete for the future.
Applying Collaborative Innovation in Advanced Manufacturing: an Example of Lean
Achieving authentic transformation across the manufacturing enterprise can seem as challenging as playing a competitive game of Jenga® in woolen mittens. In this article the innovation architect Doug Collins explores the role that collaborative innovation can play in realizing meaningful change. He grounds the exploration with an example from lean.
Toward a Coherent and Self-Sustaining Innovation Framework
Innovation leaders today don’t have an easy job. Tasked with bringing Innovation to their organization, they often face a variety of interpretations of innovation throughout the organization, a lack of comprehensive understanding of what innovation really entails, and what it requires to truly embed innovation in a way that it sustains itself.
10 Ways to Reduce the Innovation Failure Rate
You are not able to stand still in this fast paced business environment, but most of the time innovation fails. Innovation process-expert Robert Cooper shows that of every seven new product/service projects, about four enter development, 1.5 are launched, and only one succeeds. Innovation is so difficult to master, indeed. I love to share with you five reasons why innovation goes wrong and give you ten ways to reduce your failure rate of innovation.
The True Value of Your Ideas
The mantra of ideas being worthless can be heard from all corners of the globe. Venture capitalists back founders and not ideas. In 2009, the entrepreneur and author Seth Godin got the nine of his alternate MBA students to come up with 111 ideas each to create 999 business concepts (Godin 2009). The point? To prove that “Ideas are a dime a dozen. The money is in the execution.” But is this correct? Your gut feeling demands that your best insights are worth more than nothing, right? Right.
Diversity and Innovation – A Perfect Team
Please, not another business imperative! Every time I open a journal or glance at a blog it seems as though the panacea to all business ills has just been discovered and is waiting for me to embrace it! One minute I’m being told to hire for cultural fit, the next to increase diversity. It’s no wonder that employee engagement is falling because if I’m being pushed from pillar to post then it’s not surprising that my people are confused……
50天50个设计挑战：走出去，让手变脏
年轻的英国设计师Peter Smart 用五十天时间，在欧洲旅行2517英里，发现并尝试解决五十个日常生活中的设计问题。他以24 小时为一个周期，观察、思考、提出解决方案，并据此制作了“50天50个挑战” 网站(50problems50days.com)。Peter Smart以设计挑战自我，创造独特的人生体验。他的思考也为“设计思维”的学习提供了启发。
5 Management Mistakes You Don’t Realize You’re Making
The dictionary defines management as, “the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.” Sometimes, managers don’t understand why their team does not function cohesively. Below are five management mistakes managers don’t realize they’re making and tips to avoid these missteps.
Innova：爱立信如何激励和管理创新
我们采访了爱立信东北亚区研发中心张正明先生。在爱立信，他们正在使用一种名为Innova的系统化的创新平台，初衷是要培养和释放员工的企业家精神。如今，这一平台已经拥有6000名企业内部用户，催生了超过4000个创意，其中超过450个创意获得平台提供的第一轮资金支持，45个获得第二轮资金支持。已经有5个创意变成了公司的产品功能，为公司创造了巨大的商业价值。