Process Improvement

Interested in improving already-existing processes – refining, redefining, etc. – can also apply to reconfiguring departments or teams

Launching an Innovation Program: What You Don’t Know

Although innovation programs are becoming more and more embedded within the enterprise, it is still very common to find organizations that are just starting to experiment with formal, continuous innovation programs. Many IdeaScale clients that come to us are quietly launching pilot programs as proof-of-concept initiatives that will confirm innovation value for senior leadership.

Rob Hoehn2021-12-07T15:58:15-08:00August 3rd, 2016|Categories: Life Cycle Processes, Strategies|Tags: contest, continuous innovation, goal setting, goals, IdeaScale, innovation process, innovation program, innovation program processes, intrepreneur, KPI, launch strategy, process improvement, roadmap, strengths and weaknesses, value|

From Bankruptcy to Industry Leading Success – The LEGO Story

LEGO has earned the right to celebrate. Not only are kids playing with more mini LEGO people than there are human beings on the planet (Delingpole J, 2009) but in 2015, they were nominated by Forbes as the most powerful brand in the world. For a company which was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2004, the toy maker has made an amazing turnaround. They restructured, hired a new CEO, and forged more licensing partnerships than ever before. Most importantly, they discovered the secret to some of the world’s most successful, low risk innovation strategies.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:57:54-08:00July 11th, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: case study, Crowdsourcing, enterprise innovation, innovation success, LEGO, software|

Avoid Innovation Paralysis – Why all Companies Can and Must Embrace Change

Someone once told me this: “Innovation is like an apparition of the Virgin Mary: one person saw her, but everyone talks about it.” Although funny, the quote aptly captures an attitude towards innovation that exists in many companies today. Innovation – and the skills that enable it – are sometimes considered as mystical gifts, preserved for the chosen few. In other cases, innovation is feared, because it involves unregulated processes, risk taking and investments with unpredictable outcomes. In this blog post, I’d like to make a case against this kind of innovation paralysis. Every company must innovate, and with the right understanding of the word ‘innovation’, every company can.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:54:16-08:00July 4th, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors, Life Cycle Processes, Strategies|Tags: Change Management, Failure, innovation paralysis, Innovation Strategy, innovation success, market research, operational process, Problem Solving, Product Development, solutions|

Are Results Based Work Environments the Future or Fantasy?

Results-based work environments, also known as results-only work environments (ROWE) aim to increase productivity by giving employees the freedom to work in the manner that suits them best as long as they produce results. The old paradigm of coming in to work at a set time and leaving at a set time hasn't been the standard for quite some time. Employees regularly have to work long hours, and there is research that shows these long hours may be better spent working from home. The Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College notes that this shift represents a dramatic change from the traditional 40-hour work week.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:54:03-08:00June 23rd, 2016|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: company culture, Employee Engagement, employee satisfaction, HR, intrapreneur, productivity, results, results-based work, ROWE, silicon valley, talent management|

Behavioral Innovation: The Need to Pivot, Why We Don’t and What We Can Do About It

When was the last time you seriously thought about your blue chip investments going broke? At what point will those shares be worth nothing? Although it may sound ridiculous, the question is serious because at the current rate of disruption, half of the Australian Stock Index S&P 500 will be replaced over the next 10 years (Anthony S D et al, 2016). Where does that leave your investments?

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:53:55-08:00June 16th, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors, Innovation Psychology, Support for SMEs|Tags: behavioral innovation, business development, Business Model Innovation, Change Management, company culture, disruptive innovation, economics, entrepreneur, pivot, process improvement, scaling up, startup, vision|

Platform Disruption Wave

In the new global environment innovation is tending towards Platform Disruption, and is more focused on waves of change than single technology disruptions. The competitive capability of different innovation cultures, rather than technology, therefore becomes the critical success factor. In this article, Haydn Shaughnessy examines product and service platforms as the new organisational form and suggests that modern enterprises need to take the leap to a new way of business.

Ideascale2019-11-28T09:19:43-08:00May 18th, 2016|Categories: Strategies|Tags: case study, Change Management, china, clayton christensen, Competition, digital innovation, digital platform, disruption, disruptive innovation, global market, in-depth article, industry innovation, Innovation Culture, innovation history, Innovation Management, IP & patent, leadership, mobile, P2P, platform, Platform Disruption, platform innovation, Problem Solving, research, risk management, Samsung, scaling up, Technology, uber|

Six Levers For Solving The Corporate Innovation Problem – Part 3

This is the third part of a three-part article series. We are investigating why – despite all the investments made into the early phase of innovation – innovation results remain disappointing. We call this the “corporate innovation problem”. In the first part we illustrated that companies are investing heavily into the early phase of innovation. In the second part, we provided some metrics on the corporate innovation problem and found that the corporate innovation problem actually consists of a “complexity” problem” and a “system problem”. In this article, we show six levers to change the “system problem” and think this is the way to solve the corporate innovation problem – and ultimately to increase innovation performance.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:07-07:00May 2nd, 2016|Categories: Leadership, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: back end of innovation, benchmarking, Change Management, customer engagement, data, evaluating ideas, front end of innovation, fuzzy front end of innovation, goal setting, in-depth article, innovation challenge, innovation investment, Innovation Management, Innovation Strategy, innovation success, management, Open Innovation, Problem Solving, system problem, vision|

Six Levers for Solving The Corporate Innovation Problem – Part 2

This is the second part of a three-part article series. In the first part we illustrated that firms are investing heavily into the early phase of innovation. In this second part we show that despite of all these investments, innovation results remain disappointing. We call this the “corporate innovation problem”. We provide some metrics and find that there are two root causes. In the upcoming third part we will suggest that six levers can be used to address one of the root causes. We believe that moving these levers can provide a solution to the corporate innovation problem – and ultimately lead to increased innovation performance.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:50:09-08:00April 25th, 2016|Categories: Leadership, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: analytics, back end of innovation, benchmarking, Change Management, customer engagement, data, evaluating ideas, front end of innovation, fuzzy front end of innovation, goal setting, in-depth article, innovation challenge, innovation investment, Innovation Management, innovation metrics, Innovation Strategy, innovation success, management, metrics, Open Innovation, Problem Solving, system problem, vision|

Six Levers for Solving the Corporate Innovation Problem – Part 1

Innovation is at the top of the Management Agenda for many companies. For excellence in innovation, companies have to master the chain of activities from discovering valuable insight into unmet customer needs to successful market adoption. However, despite large and growing investments into innovation, results remain disappointing. We call this the “corporate innovation problem”. In this 3-part article series we dig deeper into this problem and find that there are actually two root causes for it. We focus on one of the root causes – the “system problem” – and work out six levers of improvement. Acting on these levers offers a solution to the corporate innovation problem and ultimately increases innovation performance.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:10-07:00April 18th, 2016|Categories: Leadership, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: back end of innovation, benchmarking, Change Management, customer engagement, data, evaluating ideas, front end of innovation, fuzzy front end of innovation, goal setting, in-depth article, innovation challenge, innovation investment, Innovation Management, Innovation Strategy, innovation success, investment, management, Open Innovation, Problem Solving, system problem, vision|

What Effect has Digital Innovation had on the World and your Business?

The Internet has forever changed how we work with innovation. Author Marta Domínguez spent the last five years observing the causes and effects of the digital wave and has gathered a list of 22 impacts on the world and your business.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:11-07:00April 5th, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors, Idea Management, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: business model, Change Management, Competition, competitive advantage, design, digital innovation, evaluating ideas, idea management, Ideation, pivot, startup, Technology, trend, trends, unicorn, value|

How to Turn a Failure into a Wild Success

After six months of hard work, we were sitting together on a warm spring afternoon enjoying a beer in one of Melbourne’s new hipster bars. We had learned a lot, traveled all over Australia and met amazingly passionate people. We’d put together a lean startup with a focus to test a simple business idea and we’d heard countless times how much our tools were needed. There was only one problem. We had failed.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:12-07:00March 21st, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors|Tags: entrepreneur, Failure, lean startup, lessons learned, risk management, startup, Success|

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.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:16-07:00February 16th, 2016|Categories: Strategies|Tags: Communication, competitive advantage, Crowdsourcing, decision making, Employee Engagement, enterprise innovation, Open Innovation, Product Development, product management, resrouces, strategic partnership, time-to-market, venture innovation|

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.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:19-07:00February 2nd, 2016|Categories: Enabling Factors|Tags: automotive industry, collaborative innovation, Crowdsourcing, customer engagement, diversity, Innovation Management, Product Development, Sensing|

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.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:22:25-07:00December 4th, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors, Idea Management, Leadership, Strategies|Tags: back end of innovation, Best Practices, Business Model Innovation, customer engagement, Failure, fuzzy front end of innovation, goal setting, habits, Ideation, innovation, innovation process, Innovation Strategy, innovation success, invention, lessons learned, mindset, motivation|

Make Better Decisions at Work and in Personal Life

Ever wondered why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same grey shirt every day?‎ The answer can be found below. But here’s a little spoiler: his job is to make decisions. If you’re a manager, freelancer or anyone making important decisions on a daily basis – this article will help you make better decisions, with a few simple psychological tools.

Ideascale2019-11-28T09:24:00-08:00November 10th, 2015|Categories: Innovation Psychology|Tags: decision fatigue, decision making, efficiency, ego depletion, leadership, Mark Zuckerberg, meetings, personal development, routine, Roy Baumeister, work environment|