The Eight Cs of Transformational Change

Agile Innovation is an execution-based model, not a control-based model. This means that the focus is on what you do (execution) rather than on what you are instructed to do. Hence, this approach requires inner motivation, and it’s not going to thrive in environments characterized by extrinsic, hierarchical, or fear-based motivational schemes. In this final excerpt from Agile Innovation, Langdon Morris discusses approaches necessary to transform organizations to achieve innovation actions and outcomes.

Translating Unseen Needs into Innovations

The world is changing, yet people constantly assume, incorrectly, that tomorrow will be like yesterday. When business leaders make this mistake, the outcomes are generally bad because opportunities are lost. Competitive advantage is gained with the ability to transform insights into useful innovations by seeing the unseen. In this chapter excerpt of Agile Innovation, Langdon Morris explains how ethnography drives better innovation at a top-five U.S. financial services company.

Transforming How We Work

The essence of agility is the ability to respond to new and different conditions. You cannot continue repeating the same old operating formula long beyond its utility or you will be left behind. Are you prepared to adapt to the profuse variety of new circumstances with new tactics and strategies? The principles of Agile that we examine in the next three chapter excerpts of Agile Innovation will help you understand what you need to do.

Adaptability and Collaboration for Sustainable Business Growth

The four simple axioms in the “The Manifesto for Agile Software Development” express the core values for getting work done efficiently. In the last chapter excerpt of Agile Innovation we looked at individuals and interactions as well how to create a rapid working prototype. Today we’ll continue discussing the next elements: collaboration and carrying out change in a corporate setting.

Becoming Agile Rapidly and Painlessly

To take advantage of today’s and tomorrow’s unique opportunities, and to rise above the intense existential challenges your firm will face in the months and years ahead, it will be supremely helpful and confer enormous advantages if your operations embody the Agile essence: quick, responsive, dynamic, innovative. You’ve got to learn to recognize opportunities and to act on them faster than your competitors do. In this chapter excerpt of Agile Innovation Langdon Morris explores what Agile means in detail, with a focus on the roots of the Agile movement and its many insights and implications for today’s organizations.

The Secret Sauce of Innovation

Could it be that today’s pervasive bad news, the news that causes everyone else to moan and complain—the economic malaise, the chaos that the digital revolution created, the impacts of outsourcing, political instability, global competition—can offer amazing opportunities to out- distance your competition? In this second chapter excerpt from the new book, Agile Innovation, Langdon Morris explores innovation-under-duress.

Starting at Sprint Zero: A Better Way to Innovate

How is Agile changing the world? Let’s begin with a bit of background. If you are new to Agile Software technique, then the term sprint zero, as used in the title of this chapter, may not mean much to you, but for Agile practitioners it means the initial phase of work where you sort the project out to make sure you start properly when you’re about to tackle a large programming endeavor.

Agile Innovation: The Revolutionary Approach to Accelerate Success, Inspire Engagement, and Ignite Creativity

Charles Darwin said it quite well: “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” Innovation, collaboration, and improvisation are indeed essential forces shaping all of business and all of modern life, and they’ve become vitally important for the individual, the organization, and indeed for all of society.

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.

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 17

In this episode, Charlie shares with Frankie a map for how the organization might track the ideas surfaced through the Idea Mill Program. Are all ideas created equally? How might we tie the right metrics to the right ideas?

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 16

In this episode, the leaders of the Idea Mill Program for Collaborative Innovation engage Dirty Maple CEO Harry Lundstrom to secure funding for the long term. How might the organization fund a collaborative innovation program—and justify doing so? What space—physical and conceptual—does this funding open for people?

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 15

Part fifteen of the series finds our protagonist Charlie Bangbang mulling sustainability. How might he help Dirty Maple sustain the momentum generated by the launch of their first collaborative innovation challenge? What motivates people to continue to engage? Is innovation part of everyone’s day job? Is leadership?

The Dirty Maple Flooring Company Enters the Digital Age: Part 14

Part fourteen of the series finds our leader Charlie Bangbang and his team resolving their first collaborative innovation challenge for the Idea Mill Program. How did it go? What did they do? And, is it to serve mett wurst for lunch, ahead of an afternoon collaboration session?