Project Management

Anything relating to basic project management, including the triangle of constraints (scope, budget, time)

Bringing Your Balanced Scorecard Alive with Collaborative Innovation

Robert Kaplan and David Norton popularized the Balanced Scorecard twenty years ago. Its simple, visual framework helps organizations depict linked sets of goals that define strategy. Today, with new mindsets, practices, and technologies, people have more opportunities to engage in helping their organizations envision the future. The scorecard, however, can at times seem like an Easter Island statue, offering mute, impenetrable witness to firm performance. In this article Doug Collins explores opportunities for people to bring alive the scorecard by applying the practice of collaborative innovation.

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:36:43-08:00November 29th, 2011|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: balanced scorecard, collaborative innovation, defining success, goals, strategy, Success|

How to Keep it Simple and Generate Better Results

You can make it as complex as you like, but what really matters in innovation is the simplicity of management and only a minimum amount of bureaucracy. Innovation management is in many aspects different than regular business operations (less predictable, riskier), but in many aspects it is very much alike (basic management practices).

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:33:33-08:00November 16th, 2011|Categories: Evergreen|Tags: business management, competitive edge, Innovation Management, leadership, process improvement, simplicity, simplifying|

Devising a Communications Plan for Collaborative Innovation

Members of a community engaged in the practice of collaborative innovation gain tremendous insights as they pursue that practice through the phases of an enquiry-led campaign. What ideas and insights do we contribute to the question at hand? What have we learned about the practice itself? One commitment that campaign teams make to the community is to create forums and provide the resources to share these insights. In this article Doug Collins suggests an approach by which the campaign team can build a basic communications plan to meet their commitment for sharing relevant information at each phase.

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:33:27-08:00November 15th, 2011|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: audience insights, collaborative innovation, Communication, communications, communications campaign, Crowdsourcing, marketing, marketing campaign, Stakeholders|

Use Front and Back End of Innovation Skills

With a front-end that's fuzzy and a back end that isn't very effective, no wonder creating new products and services isn't easy. Gijs van Wulfen explains why connecting the two can enhance inspiration and smooth the innovation implementation process.

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:30:32-08:00November 8th, 2011|Categories: Front End of Innovation|Tags: back end of innovation, creative thinking, Creativity, front end of innovation, fuzzy back end of innovtaion, fuzzy front end of innovation, Innovation Management, organizational innovation, Problem Solving|

How to Solve 7 Challenges in Employee Driven Innovation

The collective wisdom of your co-workers is a huge asset in the fuzzy front end. But which challenges do you need to address and solve in order to create a structured and effective employee driven innovation process? Read more about a method using idea markets as a powerful incentive. And it has already proven its worth in a number of large Scandinavian companies.

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:24:26-08:00October 20th, 2011|Categories: Strategies|Tags: Best Practices, company culture, cross-communication, employee driven, employee driven innovation, Employee Engagement, employee motivation, front end of innovation, HR, idea campaign, idea evaluation, idea management, Ideation, Innovation Culture, Innovation Management, innovation metrics, innovation success, measuring innovation, motivation, performance, Problem Solving, team management|

Seven Managers Struggling with Innovation

Managers may come in all shapes and sizes, but almost all of them struggle with innovation or the lack there of in their organization. Gis van Wulfen introduces us to seven different managers who explain their views on innovation. Do you recognize any of them?

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:10:23-08:00September 13th, 2011|Categories: Front End of Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, front end of innovation, Innovation Leadership, Innovation Management, leadership, marketing, Product Development, R&D, sales|

Framing the Critical Question: Insights from Survey Research

Campaign teams cover a lot of ground as they work with the sponsor of a collaborative innovation challenge. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins makes the case that campaign teams should focus their energies on helping the sponsor develop the critical question that serves as the basis for convening the community. Forming the powerful question—the question that accurately reflects the sponsor’s intent and that resonates with the community—yields the greatest return on time spent in developing the campaign, relative to its ultimate success.

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:06:58-08:00September 6th, 2011|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, co-creation, Collaboration, collaborative innovation, innovation campaign, Innovation Management, innovation team, leadership, project planning, research, research methods, survey, team development, team management|

25 Inspiring Innovation Quotes

Gijs van Wulfen shares 25 of his favorite motivational quotes to jump start innovation. Do you have more?

Ideascale2021-11-16T13:43:22-08:00August 16th, 2011|Categories: Front End of Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, Innovation Management, inspiration, quotes|

5 Ways to Bridge the Implementation Gap

Ideas may be plentiful, but getting the good ones to market can be difficult, if not impossible.Why are some companies able to achieve this task better than others? Harvey Briggs takes a look at five traits observed in companies that are highly effective at executing their innovation plan.

Ideascale2021-12-02T16:02:46-08:00August 11th, 2011|Categories: Evergreen|Tags: Employee Engagement, expectations, front end of innovation, idea execution, idea implementation, Ideation, implementation, innovation execution, Innovation Management, innovation planning, marketing, process improvement, team building, trends|

10 Mistakes at the Start of Innovation

Do you find that good ideas get trashed because of mistakes made in the organization's handeling of the creative process? Gijs van Wulfen outlines 10 common innovation blunders. Do you have more?

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:55:08-08:00July 19th, 2011|Categories: Front End of Innovation|Tags: front end of innovation, Ideation, Innovation Management, lessons learned, mistakes, process improvement|

Four Points to Consider as the Business Sponsor of an Ideation Challenge

Your organization holds you accountable for the profit or loss of one of its brands, channels, or regions. Maybe you oversee the business as a whole. You have an opportunity to apply collaborative innovation as a means to engage a wide swath of colleagues on resolving a critical business question with you. Should you proceed? If you do proceed, what points should you keep in mind to ensure you make productive use of your time and the time of your community members? In this article, community architect Doug Collins covers the four critical points to consider as the potential business sponsor of an ideation challenge.

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:51:59-08:00June 28th, 2011|Categories: Collaborative Innovation|Tags: Best Practices, business development, Collaboration, collaborative innovation, corporate sponsor, creative leadership, Crowdsourcing, Ideation, ideation challenge, innovation challenge, innovation challenge sponsorship, Innovation Management, innovation team, leadership, Open Innovation, sponsor, sponsoring, team roles, Teamwork|

How to Communicate the Value of Idea Management

The success of an organization's idea management program is at the mercy of its supporters - the employees. The innovation team and top management must effectively communicate their goals to employees so they understand what's expected of them and feel confident that their ideas will be taken seriously. Enno Scholz walks us through this communication process.

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:48:23-08:00June 20th, 2011|Categories: Idea Management, Leadership, Organization & Culture|Tags: advertising, branding, Collaboration, collaborative ideation, collaborative innovation, Communication, creative leadership, idea management, Ideation, innovation champion, leadership, marketing, Teamwork, value|

Action Plan for Rapid Innovation – Part 2

At Orange, the international mobile and fixed carrier issued from France Telecom, there is a strategy to diversify the services it offers to its users and has set up Orange Vallée as an external entity to drive innovation. Nicolas Bry tells us more about how the system works.

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:20:56-08:00June 2nd, 2011|Categories: Strategies|Tags: creative thinking, customer engagement, engagement, framework, goals, impact assessment, innovation drivers, innovation goals, Innovation Management, innovation method, innovation metrics, innovation networks, innovation planning, Innovation Strategy, innovation timeline, measuring innovation, methodology, Open Innovation, project management, rapid innovation, rapid innovation cycle, speed of innovation, strategies|

Modeling the Resource Requirements for your Collaborative Innovation Program

The cost of doing innovation is a key factor in enterprise decision making but open innovation and collaborative innovation have a short history – so how do you go about modeling the cost of launching a collaborative or open innovation program? Doug Collins lays out the territory.

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:17:04-08:00May 17th, 2011|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Life Cycle Processes, Open Innovation|Tags: challenge driven innovation, collaborative innovation, community, cost of development, Crowdsourcing, Ideation, ideation challenge, innovation challenge, innovation champion, innovation costs, Innovation Management, innovation success, measuring innovation, Open Innovation, resource management, resources, supply and demand|

How To Make Your Ideas Actually Happen

Over the past three years companies have invested heavily in generating new ideas. So how do you make new ideas happen? Scott Belsky shares some of the secretes of successful rainmakers.

Ideascale2021-12-02T15:14:18-08:00May 9th, 2011|Categories: Life Cycle Processes|Tags: action, brainstorming, creative process, Creativity, deep thinking, idea development, Ideation, innovation life cycle processes, proactive, project management, project planning|