What is the New Model for Innovation Success?

In this series I’ve been critically examining the significant changes impacting the corporate innovation competency, which leads to how organisations drive future growth and impact.

What Impact Did 2020 Have on Innovation?

2020 revealed our fragility and our capacity for adaptation, and what IdeaScale's 2021 State of Crowdsourced Innovation report reveals is improved innovation capability from faster implementation rates to more engaged leadership. Let's look at some trends and takeaways from this year's report.

The Six Step Innovation Lifecycle

Innovation isn’t a one-time project. It’s a continuous activity. Which is why we are seeing numerous organizations adding an innovation department to their company infrastructure. In fact, in a recent survey of our client base, we were surprised to learn that almost 40% of our customers operate out of a dedicated innovation group.

How Idea Implementation is Like Legislating

In a recent audit of site content on InnovationManagement.se, site publishers noticed that although there is a great deal of information about how to architect and run idea management programs, there isn’t a whole lot of information about how to implement ideas.

Can Everyone Be Innovative?

Innovation is an integral part of many organizations today, and for good reason: it helps companies stay agile, relevant, and evolving. However, innovation is often difficult to achieve—or is even met with resistance.

Innovating Where the Business Cares: Developing Areas of Strategic Innovation

Almost every innovation manager can recount stories of great ideas, concepts and products that people love and yet they’re never implemented. The business case stacks up and is technically feasible, but finding sponsorship and a budget seems to be impossible. As innovators, we’re often subject to ongoing commercial restrictions. The fastest way to get ideas off the ground is to ensure they’re aligned to the C-Suite agenda in both the short and longer term.

Mastering the Art of Innovation

You can hardly scan the Internet or pick up a business magazine without seeing references to innovation. Companies everywhere are emerging from decades of cost reductions and are now focusing on efficiency, while looking for the next breakthrough idea… the next Post-It Note, the Frappucino or even the new Internet.

The Innovation Disconnect

CEOs talk enthusiastically about the need for innovation. Workers at the front line can see the needs and opportunities for fresh ideas. But somehow nothing happens. Ideas do not get implemented. Innovation grinds to a halt. This is the innovation disconnect and it has to be tackled head on.

Driving Collaboration – Diverse Opinion is the Key to Innovation

We know the value of collaboration in traditional innovation activities, but systemizing the process helps to increase the diversity of opinion available early on in the process. In this article we share insights on driving collaboration between your employees.

How to Pick the Right Idea?

Often times coming up with new ideas is not the hard part. In this example, a team came up with 752 new business ideas in a single workshop. But how can you pick the ‘right’ ideas? Gijs van Wulfen shares five lessons that he has learned in his innovation practice.

Harnessing the Power of Insight: Customer-Centric Innovation in a Changing World

Anyone has the raw capability to think of a great idea, but not everyone has the ability to bring ideas to fruition. It’s a process that requires vision, a strong handle on industry trends (both present and future) and risk takers willing to champion seemingly impossible feats. Most companies have innovators or teams of innovators with these qualities, but many don’t incorporate both customer feedback and customer observational research as key components for designing the next generation of product development. This article will explore the benefits of leveraging a customer-centric model to create more innovative, user-friendly devices that provide the support customers really need.

How to Effectively Manage the Fuzzy Back End of Innovation

You have doubtless heard of the fuzzy front end of innovation. It is another name for idea generation. But Jeffrey Baumgartner believes that the back end of innovation, where implementation is supposed to take place, is just as fuzzy. Many companies lack clear, efficient processes for implementing the ideas they generate.

Mind Mapping Software: A Simple Approach to Idea Management

Small to medium-sized businesses typically don't need an enterprise-level idea management system. What they need is a simple tool that enables them to capture, improve, evaluate and take action upon their best ideas. Mind mapping software is a tool that can help.

Innovation Method – Copy and Paste

One of the most common operations performed on a computer is copy and paste. We copy a section of a webpage and paste it into a document. We take it for granted. We grab an idea from one place and put it to use in another. So why not use this method for your next product or service innovation?

How to Implement Radical Business Models

To be successful in radical business model innovation requires companies to go beyond the traditional modeling: ideas are only one part of the innovation equation. Business model implementation requires structural changes in your organization; otherwise, you will just get stuck with a beautiful model on paper.