How to Become a Business Linchpin: The Desirable Skills and Tools of Successful Workers

Some years ago, I had read Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin, which detailed the importance of becoming a critical component of the workplace environment. I’ll spare you the details, but the idea was to learn and apply as much as you could so the business was reliant on your efforts.

How do You Develop Standards for Innovation Management?

ISO is an independent, non-governmental international organization with members in 163 different countries. Through its members, it brings together experts to share knowledge and develop voluntary, consensus-based, market relevant International Standards that assist particularly in facilitating international trade.

6 Project Management Tools Every Company Should Use

Besides being the single most complicated facet of business, it can be said that project management is also the most perplexing one. Not only that it demands a flawless cooperation of multiple employees, teams and even departments, unfailing organizational strategies and uninterrupted workflow, but it requires an absolute absence of standstills, inaccuracies and slips as well.

Innovation Tautogram — A Simple and Powerful Innovation Tool

The human vocabulary with millions of words is adequate to explain all of our expectations and experiences, even those which are imagined. Why not harness the power of language to discover new products and services? Author Shanta R Yapa shares the Innovation Tautogram technique, which can be used as an individual or a group exercise.

Survival of The Fittest

Based on our work with pioneering enterprises in Silicon Valley and around the globe we have learned a great deal about what makes innovation prosper. This article reveals some surprising insights on how prepared our institutions are to successfully compete for the future.

Enhancing a Startup Culture in a Corporate Environment

There is little doubt that startups are dominating leadership discussion in many sectors of the economy, and have even become a source of admiration in popular culture. Whether driven by the hopes of “unicorn” valuations and lucrative exits or by the desire for more informal, collegial working environments, startups are more prevalent and attractive to existing and potential employees than ever. In fact, in a recent Accenture survey, only 15% of the class of 2014 would “prefer” to work for a mature, established organization.

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.

To Approach Change Differently, Change Your Approach

Why do so many corporations operate under the assumption that change initiatives must come from the top down? Mandated change is often out of touch with the everyday work of employees, so it’s met with resistance as they immediately anticipate the additional work these programs entail.

Developing an Innovation Toolbox

InnovationManagement spoke to Alexander Osterwalder, sought-after author, speaker, workshop facilitator and adviser on the topic of business model design and innovation. Find out more about his views on innovation management, what projects he is currently working on, and why big organizations should enable their creative innovators.

Understanding the value of a strategic innovation approach

For companies desiring organic growth and whose innovation efforts are not yielding the results demanded, using a Strategic Innovation approach using structured tools and methods will produce higher value products, services, systems, and environments that will resonate deeper with people to encourage them to become loyal customers. This approach delivers better solutions that are feasible to build, viable for profit, and desirable to the user.

How to Align Innovation with Your Corporate Strategy

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.

How to Increase Your ROI by Measuring and Managing Your Innovation

Studies have shown that companies’ return on innovation (ROI) or hit rate is somewhere between 2-10%. That is another way of saying that around 90% of all innovation efforts are never commercialised or used in general. Jørn Bang Andersen, senior advisor to the Nordic Innovation Centre (NICe), presents a NICe case study on possible ways to dramatically change that.

Questioning: An Underutilized Innovation Strategy

One of the most powerful innovation tools available to every member of a group - be it a team, a company division or an organization - is a tool that those individuals are often reluctant to use. The tool I am talking about, of course, is: questioning.