Process Improvement

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

Frugal Banking: An Opportunity to Create Customer Value in the Future?

Investments that are necessary to innovate and serve customers are no longer sustainable while COVID-19 hastens the need to exploit the potential of digital innovations. Serving customers accurately during unprecedented times requires a new mindset and business model innovations. If banks respond to customer requirements in completely new special situations, they can gain trust and integrity and become winners of the crisis.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:07-07:00November 11th, 2020|Categories: Trend Alert|Tags: agile methods, AI, artificial intelligence, Business Model Innovation, chaos, corporate social responsibility, covid-19, customer experience, customer journey, customer service, digital innovation, digitization, economic development, economic growth, empathy, flexibility, frugal innovation, futurology, global innovation index, investment, jugaad, lean method, lean startup, machine learning, maximum principle, mvp, quality of life, resilience, supply and demand, trust, uncertainty|

Agile Development for Manufacturers: The Emergent Gating Model

Agile is employed within Stage-Gate for new-product development by manufacturers with positive performance results; but must be adjusted from the software version of Agile – the result: the emergent Agile-Stage-Gate hybrid model.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-11-16T13:16:11-08:00November 10th, 2020|Categories: In-Depth Article|Tags: Agile, agile development, agile-scrum, Agile-Stage-Gate Hybrid Model, definition of done, feedback, gating system, hardware development, iteration plan, kanban, manufacturing, Problem Solving, product testing, protocept, retrospective meeting, scrum, Software Development, sprints, stage gate, upgates, voice of the customer|

What is a Virtual Innovation Lab?

The Virginia Department of Transportation created their own Virtual Innovation Lab, where they collaborate to solve problems related to remote work, engineering topics, safety, and more with the help of their entire distributed workforce. Learn more in this December 15th webinar!

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:09-07:00November 9th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Organization & Culture|Tags: Collaboration, Employee Engagement, innovation lab, innovation management software, remote work, SaaS, virtual innovation lab, work from home|

Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey!

In a time when uncertainty reigns, the fear of being disrupted can brutally hurt any business. Responsible leaders who dare to anticipate disruption and take steps to self-inflict it to their organization in a smart and controlled way are best positioned for the future.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:06:05-08:00July 15th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Innovation Psychology, Life Cycle Processes, Support for SMEs|Tags: agile method, breakthrough innovation, business environment, Business Model Innovation, Change Management, consistency, disruption, diversity, globalization, governance, intelligence, reflection, repositioning, reversibility, risk, risk assessment, risk management, scale, scope, self-disruption, self-disruption journey, speed, vision|

How to Digitally Spark Corporate Innovation

To maintain relevance in the global competitive market, many companies already focus on the development and implementation of innovations, even using digital tools. But, in times of crisis, this focus is most likely to be lost when most businesses concentrate on keeping the daily business running.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-22T17:13:47-08:00July 9th, 2020|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: accountability, Business Model Innovation, cloud, Communication, crisis management, digital tools, digitalization, globalization, goal setting, idea management, Ideation, innovation process, knowledge sharing, pivot, Problem Solving, resource management, risk management, Teamwork, virtual meeting|

SME Innovation: 10 Priorities for Support Post-COVID-19

Post-pandemic, public bodies must restructure SME support systems for long-term growth with well-functioning innovation systems with the right balance of instruments.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:03:52-08:00July 7th, 2020|Categories: Support for SMEs|Tags: ambition, co-creation, Collaboration, covid-19, diversity, economic growth, EU, funding, private sector, sme support, talent|

Four Ways to Innovate Right Now

While the pandemic has been difficult for all us economically, as business owners, we never run out of opportunities. No matter the business climate, there is always a chance to do something new and something better—you just have to find it.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T12:02:04-08:00July 2nd, 2020|Categories: Strategies|Tags: Business Model Innovation, decision making, long term innovation, paradigm innovation, position innovation, process innovation, product, Product Development, product innovation, thought leadership, value creation|

Validate Your Pivot with Innovation

When planning or navigating a pivot, how do you know if you are pivoting in the right direction? Answer simple questions to validate your pivot and execute on four actions to help create speed-to-market.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:58:46-08:00June 12th, 2020|Categories: Life Cycle Processes|Tags: Change Management, market pivot, organization pivot, pivot, product pivot, speed to market|

The Skills Most In Demand for Management Consultants to Spur Knowledge and Innovation in Companies

Executives today are more focused on strategic management decision-making due to the hypercompetitive global environment as well as public and private sector evaluation and opinion. Public organizations are attempting to function as private profit-wise, while public companies have the Wall Street analysts continuously evaluating their every strategic move. It is important for management consultants to build a climate of openness for individuals to exchange ideas.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:52:55-08:00May 18th, 2020|Categories: Organization & Culture, Training & Education|Tags: consulting, knowledge integration, knowledge management, knowledge sharing|

The World has Changed: Is Your Organization Ready?

The COVID-19 epidemic has had a tremendous effect on many aspects of our lives and resulted in a significant change in the workforce, and on the very way that individuals and organizations work. Suddenly, without warning, it seems that the entire business world shifted to Zoom and its competitors in a day, since it offered a concrete solution to the challenges raised by the current crisis.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:52:33-08:00May 13th, 2020|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Organization & Culture, Trend Alert|Tags: adaptation, coordination, coronavirus, corporate adaptation, covid-19, flexibility, process improvement, remote work, technological adaptation|

Why Your Innovation Process is a Recipe for Failure

Having a process for the front end of innovation is necessary but not sufficient. It also requires proper levels of funding, and a governance structure to support it. In this article, we'll look at how these aspects tie together, and how your company can support your full innovation lifecycle.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:50:15-08:00May 7th, 2020|Categories: Front End of Innovation, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: Ideation, innovation funding, innovation portfolio, innovation support, innovation team, investment, Product Development, risk tolerance, venture board, venture capital|

The Essential Skills to Teach Intrapreneurs

At JR Simplot, a new cross-functional innovation initiative recently formed looking for ideas that would help optimize company efficiency, improve training programs, and more. And when they built this team, they realized that a big part of launching an innovation initiative was education. Learn more in this podcast.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:49:03-08:00April 20th, 2020|Categories: Organization & Culture, Training & Education|Tags: Best Practices, brainstorming, business case development, design thinking, education, efficiency, employee education, Employee Engagement, employee incentives, employee training, leadership, pitch coaching, problem definition, professional development, prototyping, recognizing talent, training programs|

3 Knowledge Management Practices Every Executive Should Measure In Their First 30 Days

Many executives see organizational effectiveness as an outcome of various factors such as knowledge management within companies. Every executive is held to the grindstone of maximizing financial measures---their careers are tied to financial performance measures. Every executive also knows that financial measures can illustrate whether knowledge management is contributing to bottom-line improvement.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-03-24T19:37:34-07:00April 14th, 2020|Categories: Support for SMEs, Training & Education|Tags: Collaboration, financial performance, knowledge accumulation, knowledge management, measuring success|

Digital Transformation and Its Impact on New-Product Management for Manufacturers

For the manufacturer undertaking new-product development, Digital Transformation means smart new products with embedded software. Digital products in turn require software and hardware development teams to work together – a hybrid project – which ultimately leads to combining software development methods with the more traditional gating process that manufacturers use.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:36:08-08:00March 11th, 2020|Categories: In-Depth Article, Life Cycle Processes, Strategies, Training & Education|Tags: agile development, agile-stage-gate, case study, competitive advantage, development process, digital transformation, hardware, Ideation, in-depth article, Product Development, R&D, software, stage gate|

What Makes You a Great Product Manager? 4 Tips and One Extra

For the past 11 years, we’ve worked with product managers and helped them to perform better. We know their challenges and we know their worries and needs. For this reason, in this article, we want to share some tips that make their life a lot easier.

Sarah Vandenberg2021-12-20T11:34:17-08:00March 5th, 2020|Categories: Strategies|Tags: customer needs, innovationroadmap, job to be done, measuring innovation, measuring value, outcome-driven innovation, Product Development, product manager, product vision, team engagement, value|