Understanding Innovation

Focused on learning about innovation as a discipline – article could be an explanation of a term or concept, for example, or an overview of how to start an innovation program.

Are You Focusing on the Right Pilot?

Piloting in business innovation means testing an idea effectively. This is not a straightforward process and requires addressing the right questions: What idea should we test? Which aspect of it? How should we go about testing? How should we measure the results? What do we allow these results to mean and what do we do afterwards?

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:20:37-08:00July 15th, 2015|Categories: Leadership, Strategies|Tags: breakthrough innovation, enterprise innovation, evaluating ideas, idea testing, Ideation, innovation portfolio, KPI, Piloting, portfolio management, prioritites|

Untapping Hidden Value: A New Partnership Model for Corporate Knowledge Management and Innovation Functions

In the current business environment, defined by some as the ‘Knowledge Age’, leadership interest is increasingly focused on Innovation and Knowledge Management development efforts. To date, these functions often operate along parallel, yet discrete, paths. As organizations seek new areas of growth, while further cutting costs there is an increasing need to build more effective partnerships in order to ensure ongoing success and drive additional business value.

Ideascale2022-01-24T16:46:03-08:00July 14th, 2015|Categories: Leadership, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: download, employee network, expertise, hidden needs, in-depth article, Innovation Management, innovation training, knowledge management, knowledge sharing, research, Teamwork, training program, unmet needs, whitepaper|

Reinventing the Consulting Business Model

The traditional consulting business model is based on two principle ideas: (1) hiring people (top talent if possible) and (2) charging clients a fee per hour or day for gaining access to this talent, its expertise and/or manpower. Depending on the type of consulting or the brand, the pendulum swings more towards focusing on providing, and buying on the customer side, the more sophisticated expertise or the simpler manpower.

Ideascale2021-11-16T13:40:43-08:00July 13th, 2015|Categories: Strategies|Tags: business model, Business Model Innovation, consulting, in-depth article, industry innovation, innovation, staffing|

How Do You Measure Innovation Fitness?

The human body serves as the perfect metaphor for understanding the innovation challenge facing today's organizations. The body is built to adapt and respond to demands that are placed upon it. The greater the demand, the stronger the response. If you and your organization are going to thrive in this world you must build and keep your innovation muscles strong. We know that only the fittest survive.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:02-07:00July 7th, 2015|Categories: Idea Management, Organization & Culture|Tags: accountability, adaptation, collaborative innovation, Communication, Employee Engagement, enterprise innovation, Ideation, innovation challenge, Innovation Leadership, Innovation Management, Innovation Strategy, innovation tools, innovative people, inspiration, measure innovation, measuring innovation, Open Innovation, Stakeholders, Success, training|

Taking the Guesswork Out of Innovation

Innovation has become a bit of a business buzzword. Every CEO and CIO worth their salt wants to be seen to be on the forefront, bringing new products and services to a market. However, it doesn’t always go to plan, and rushing in to things head first without the proper due diligence can land a company in hot water.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:03-07:00June 29th, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors, Idea Management|Tags: Change Management, crowdfunding, Crowdsourcing, Employee Engagement, gamification, incremental innovation, innovation program processes, SaaS|

Disruptive Innovation Methodology: K³.P.I.

How does the disruptive machine work? In this article Alex Chenevier offers a consolidated view of his previous publication, (before introducing his disruptive innovation methodology) by recording his research itinerary and extracting three intertwined progresses (the knowledge space, the path dependency and knowledge fusion), ultimately surfacing a unified model. The scientific equation of K³ey Performance Indicator℠ is perhaps the first definite, quantifiable and measurable model, and therefore applicable in business terms.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:04-07:00June 18th, 2015|Categories: Strategies|Tags: disruption, disruptive innovation, in-depth article, innovation data, Innovation Management, key performance indicator, KPI, measuring innovation, methodology, research, strategy|

Innovation Without Borders: Six Best Practices to Improve Innovation Success Rates

While innovation is crucial for driving customer engagement and increasing share of wallet, companies continue to struggle with the “what” and “how” of it. For each best-practice organization that has streamlined its innovation processes, there are many that are still paralyzed by their haphazard approach toward identifying and evaluating ideas. Evalueserve interacted with many of its Fortune 100 clients and identified six strategies that enhance the likelihood of developing successful innovation programs.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:04-07:00June 17th, 2015|Categories: Blog Archive|Tags: case study, customer engagement, download, in-depth article, Innovation Management, report|

Systematizing Breakthrough Innovation: Study Results

Most companies recognize the need for breakthrough innovation – it can change the fundamental bases of competition, “rewrite the rules” of an industry and transform the prospects of the successful innovator. There is no one-size-fits-all model for how best to respond to this challenge. Arthur D. Little surveyed over 80 large organizations to explore how to deliver a consistent pipeline of radically new products, performance features, business models and market space.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:14:40-08:00May 27th, 2015|Categories: Organization & Culture, Strategies|Tags: accountability, breakthrough innovation, business model, Business Model Innovation, ecosystem, Failure, implementation, in-depth article, Innovation Strategy, intrapreneur, leadership, lessons learned, Product Development, radical innovation, report, strategy|

The Value of Incremental Innovation

In my first article in this series, I talked about the continued, and often misplaced, focus of corporate innovation leaders on developing disruptive innovation efforts. My basic argument within the article was the while “Big I” innovation can be a valid driver of growth. However, few companies are in the right position or have laid the appropriate groundwork to support and develop new, groundbreaking ideas, especially in the context of the existing organizational culture.

Ideascale2022-01-24T16:46:27-08:00May 13th, 2015|Categories: Idea Management, Strategies|Tags: company culture, incremental innovation, innovation challenge, Innovation Culture, innovation leader, pipeline management, pressure, product pipeline, SaaS, Stakeholders|

Do You Really Want Disruptive Innovation?

What company wouldn’t want to come out with the next iPhone, online bookstore or Swiffer mop? In the right circumstances disruptive innovation can be a valid path to drive the long-term survival and growth of a mature organization. But Anthony Ferrier argues that most companies are not in that environment. They talk (a lot) about pursuing disruptive innovation, but the reality is that they don’t really want, or are able, to support it.

Ideascale2022-01-24T16:46:36-08:00April 29th, 2015|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: clayton christensen, company culture, Competition, disruptive innovation, Employee Engagement, Innovation Culture, leadership, pressure, SaaS, status quo|

How to Avoid Robot-Zombie Innovation

In order to create Breakthrough Innovations, you need to abandon the corporate robot-zombie talk, says Andrew Benson. By cultivating an open and free form innovation culture organizations can avoid the idea logjams created by formal innovation processes.

Ideascale2021-12-07T15:11:42-08:00April 22nd, 2015|Categories: Organization & Culture|Tags: apple, breakthrough innovation, Collaboration, company culture, front end of innovation, fuzzy front end of innovation, incremental innovation, Innovation Culture, innovation process, market research, Problem Solving, Product Development, steve jobs|

New Report: Leaders Driving Innovation in the Enterprise

Imagine if you could listen to the daily conversations of world-class innovation program leaders. How would you use that information to deepen your thinking about innovation and what it takes to really implement it, organization-wide?

Ideascale2020-07-11T07:21:53-07:00April 1st, 2015|Categories: Interview, Leadership, Report|Tags: case study, download, in-depth article, Interview, report, social media|

Hyperselect – Identifying Top Ideas and Projects with Higher Precision

Clear separation of top ideas from mediocre and weak ideas is essential, before financial and other resources are allocated. The Hyperselect method provides a new, sound and improved way to fulfill this task. Moreover it reveals, that hyperbolas might be “the better matrix” in quite a lot of methods for prioritization and beyond.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:19-07:00March 19th, 2015|Categories: Strategies|Tags: evaluating ideas, evaluation of ideas, front end of innovation, hyperselect, idea management, Ideation, Product Development, project management, resource management, strategic innovation|

Innovation Enablers

They say variety is “the spice of life” – but in our working lives, it’s the spice, ingredients and a good portion of the kitchen equipment too. In striving to build comprehensive and sustainable enterprise innovation programs however, too often I see companies then ignoring the need for diversity – both in the reach and composition of their programmes. We are long past the days where a company’s growth can be sustained with innovation from a few solitary individuals in a lab or conference room. Innovation nowadays needs to be a singular mindset across the entire company – with executives not just asking, but instead requiring collaborative input from across the organisation as they look to solve the strategic and tactical problems that stand in the way of progress.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:20-07:00March 16th, 2015|Categories: Enabling Factors|Tags: Collaboration, Competition, drivers, enabling factors, engagement, gamification, Innovation Culture, motivation, reward, value|

Overcoming the Challenges to Successful Open Innovation

Before any organization can reap the economic benefits of open innovation, it must overcome a number of legal, operational and cultural challenges. In this article Peter von Dyck addresses the top three obstacles to open innovation: managing intellectual property issues and other legal risks, processing ideas quickly and establishing an efficient internal structure.

Ideascale2019-10-15T15:21:21-07:00March 3rd, 2015|Categories: Idea Management, Open Innovation, Strategies|Tags: Henry Chesbrough, idea management, Ideation, innovation challenge, Innovation Culture, intellectual property, IP & patent, Open Innovation, Problem Solving, risk management, structure|