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.

Want to Drive Innovation? Talk to Your Customers

The customer is always right. The timeless aphorism holds truer now than it ever did before, as the customer truly drives the ever-changing trends and shapes the industry, with companies battling each other to stay relevant in the hearts and minds of their devoted audience.

How to Build an Enthusiastic Innovation Community

If you’re working with an innovation management platform, then you know the importance of building a community. The success of these programs is intrinsically linked to the spirit and engagement of your community: how much they participate, how they’re participating, why they’re participating.

5 Effective Strategies for Motivating Employees (That You May Not Have Considered)

There are literally thousands of articles on the internet giving advice on how to motivate employees — it’s not exactly the rarest of topics. However, this one is going to be a little different. I’m going to give you a list of five ways to motivate your employees that not only work, they’re also a little off the beaten path.

To Transform Your Business, Do This

When the Commission for Environmental Cooperation launched a challenge to the youth of North America, they received hundreds of unique, green business proposals. The young entrepreneurs competed for seed funding and came up with some truly disruptive ideas.

How to Keep Your Employees from Losing their Creativity

The most successful businesses and corporations in the world place employee satisfaction on the same pedestal as customer satisfaction. These corporations understand that without a loyal, creative, and cohesive team of satisfied employees, success cannot be attained.

5 Ways to Create a Culture That Embraces and Adapts to Change

As part of today’s changing technological landscape, it is vital to create a workplace culture that adapts to those changes. Doing so starts with having a comfortable workplace culture to begin with. Making your employees feel at ease in their current working conditions is the basis of creating a workplace that can adapt to changes.

What’s the Value of an Innovation Mentor?

When I say “innovator,” what image comes to mind? A brilliant, but misunderstood figure hunched over a drawing board by the light of a single lamp in the middle of the night – cup of coffee dwindling slowly, pages of crumpled notes on the floor?

7 Ways to Keep Your Employees Engaged All Year Round

When your employees are directly and fully engaged, you will notice that their morale and overall level of job satisfaction are high. They are motivated to work harder and smarter for your company, and the result is high productivity and perhaps less employee turnover.

Critical Steps to Validate Your Startup’s Business Model

A business plan is at the heart of every business. But instead of just writing down your business plan, your startup’s business model will require proper validation before you start doing business. If you don’t validate it, the investor simply won’t invest. You can validate your business model through three core assumptions: delivering, creating and capturing value.

Implementation is Your New Competitive Advantage

When it comes to implementation there are three things that companies ought to be thinking about in order to maintain a competitive advantage: process, feedback, and the importance of having multiple stakeholders from the beginning. Learn more in this Open Innovation Guide from IdeaScale.

Creativity is Key: Tips on Avoiding Groupthink

It’s awesome when everyone agrees, isn’t it? Yes—and no. Most of us have, at some point, fallen into the trap of groupthink to avoid conflict and promote harmony in a group, whether at school, work, or on a committee. Groupthink has its perks: everyone feels comfortable, and there’s no risk of tension among members. It’s safe. Easy. Unfortunately, it can also kills creativity and innovation.

The Importance of Diversity in Innovation: 3 Tactics to Enrich Workplace Diversity

Many of our customers have asked “what are the most important organizational values to nurture innovation?” Some of them may seem obvious or (at least) familiar: transparency, the embrace of digital solutions, the ability to celebrate failure, but we’re coming to discover that the most important value that you can embrace as part of your innovation programs is diversity.

Your ‘Innovative’ Workplace is not Enough

The term “innovative workplace culture” is increasingly clichéd, with little thought about what it means in practice. And yet a successful workplace culture is a business imperative for companies expected to lead the way in design and innovation in today’s experience economy.