DOUG COLLINS

Doug Collins serves as an innovation architect. He helps organizations such as The Estee Lauder Companies, Fidelity Investments, Johnson & Johnson, Novo Nordisk, and The Procter & Gamble Company navigate the fuzzy front end of innovation.

Doug develops approaches, creates forums, and structures engagements whereby people can convene to explore the critical questions facing the enterprise. He helps people assign economic value to the ideas and to the collaboration that result.

As an author, Doug explores ways in which people can apply the practice of collaborative innovation in his series Innovation Architecture: A New Blueprint for Engaging People through Collaborative Innovation. His bi-weekly column appears in the publication Innovation Management. Doug serves on the board of advisors for Frost & Sullivan’s Global community of Growth, Innovation and Leadership (GIL).

Today, Doug consults with a range of clients as senior practice leader at innovation management company Spigit. He helps clients realize their potential for leadership by applying the practice of collaborative innovation.

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Navigating the Make versus Buy Decision: A Crowd Sourced Check List

Product managers facing the make versus buy decision for their organization have a lot to consider. Biases abound. In this article, the innovation architect Doug Collins shares what was on the minds of senior product management leaders on this topic when they convened, recently. Their top 10 factors follow below.

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.

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.

2021-12-07T15:42:48-08:00December 22nd, 2015|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: , , , |

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.

Collaborative Innovation in Advanced Manufacturing: Just Getting Started

Advanced manufacturers—people who make “things”—face the same challenges in the Digital Age as their counterparts that traffic wholly in bits and bytes. Relentless immediacy. Increased transparency. In this article, the innovation architect Doug Collins reflects on the results from a survey that the analyst firm Frost & Sullivan conducted as part of the Manufacturing Leadership Council. What are the more advanced of the advanced manufacturing thinking these days about the practice of collaborative innovation? Are they on track?

Going Once, Going Twice, Going Three Times: Selling Your Idea

People cannot appreciate the value your idea offers if you fail to convey its relative advantage. In this article, the innovation architect Doug Collins shares a simple, good example of telling the right story at the right time to the right audience. Save this one for your clip file.

Innovation Decimation: Refined Sugar and the iPhone

I see no value in waiting until New Year’s Day to resolve to improve myself. “Now is as good as time as any,” makes more sense to me. Last month I resolved to make two changes which, if I succeed in maintaining the alterations, promise to benefit me. In this article, I share my view on these changes, the immediate effect they have had on me, and their relation to the practice of collaborative innovation.

Challenge Question Formation for Crowdsourcing

Organizations that pursue the inquiry-led form of collaborative innovation often have an outcome in mind. They may seek the “low-hanging fruit” of immediately actionable ideas. They may seek ideas that help to re-envision the business. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins reflects on how the savvy practitioner manages the challenge question formation process to help the sponsor achieve their desired goals. The key? Knowing how to dial up and dial back the level of transformation incumbent within each question.

In Pursuit of “Actionable” Ideas

Engagement matters on the front end of innovation. Tangible results matter on the back end. Organizations that pursue the practice of collaborative innovation seek, ultimately, actionable ideas: ideas whose implementation yields benefits.

Retrospective on the Dirty Maple Flooring Company

Our columnist Doug Collins began the Dirty Maple Flooring Company tale last fall. Twenty episodes later, the story in which Dirty Maple embraces collaborative innovation has come to an end.

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 20

Chief strategist Charlie Bangbang has experienced the first evolution of his practice of collaborative innovation at Dirty Maple by applying the blueprint. What lessons does he take about innovation management? About crowdsourcing? About leadership?

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 19

How might we measure our practice of collaborative innovation? What story do we tell by the factors we identify and the indicators we track? Does the plot interest our audience?

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 18

What might a virtuous circle of collaborative innovation look like? In this episode, our protagonists Charlie and Frankie review how the design of their practice reinforces itself from strategy to planning to execution to governance.