Team diversity is conducive to innovation. When R&D project teams are composed of people with different skills, competencies and knowledge, the likelihood for new thinking and innovative solutions increase. However, too much diversity may lead to breakdown in communication and ensuing conflict. There is a sweet spot in how much diversity R&D teams should have.
Challenge Driven Innovation enables companies to tap into diverse perspectives and talent to solve problems faster, more cost-effectively and with less risk, ultimately resulting in accelerated innovation outcomes and improved business performance. In this article Steve Bonadio introduces the concept of “Challenges” and their role in the emerging innovation management framework called Challenge Driven Innovation (CDI).
For years, management and business schools have vastly exaggerated the importance of tools and theories in delivering innovations to the markets effectively. As common sense indicates, the overwhelmingly important predictor of success for an innovation is not the use of tools, “innovation frameworks”, or handbook of rules, but the quality of leadership of the project and the talent and motivation of the staff carrying it out. In innovation management, we need to go back to basics.
Why does gender diversity matter when it comes to product and service innovation? What has research shown? And what does hard-won experience tell us? This article shows how businesses gain a competitive edge by integrating a gender perspective into their innovation work – a much needed boost as global competition becomes increasingly tough.
Open innovation may seem to be the preserve of big business. After all, it is often associated with long established monstrosities like Proctor and Gamble and IBM. But it is an approach that can be used by all companies, especially start-ups and small businesses, explains Jeffrey Baumgartner.
To creatively prepare for the future in an era of great transition, we need to pay attention to weak signals and look for conections in everything, says futurist Rick Smyre.
Here are lessons learned from 12 years of creative facilitation in business, from creativity expert Michelle James.
Here are 10 steps you can take to turn your company into an innovation leader that races forwardswith new products, services and improved processes while your competitors remain far behind with outdated products, limited services and inefficient processes.
Stephen Shapiro explains the thinking behind open creativity and why he wrote a book and created a card deck called Personality Poker.
Twitter is a great tool for serendipity. How can you increase your odds of bumping up against great ideas there that you can potentially use in your business?
There is a right way and a wrong way to run a brainstorm or ideation meeting. A little preparation pays dividends. It is very important to separate the two phases of the meeting, recommends Paul Sloane.
Free Thinking Mode is a collection of best practices shared by the most creative companies and people Michelle Conrad and her team have come in contact with.
Everyone needs to be responsible for innovation. It doesn't matter what your job is. It's still part of your work to improve things and even invent things, says author and creativity expert Gregg Fraley in the latest Creativity in Business interview.
Open innovation is one of the hottest issues in the world of innovation today, but also perhaps the least understood. Jeffrey Baumgartner shares a simple framework for thinking about open innovation, its pros and cons, and how you may be able to utilize it to help spur innovation in your organization.
For any corporate innovation initiative to succeed, it is important that it is aligned with corporate strategy. Jeffrey Baumgartner shares a simple three step approach to help ensure that this happens and to avoid common pitfalls.
