With the increase of, and dramatic improvement in, mind mapping software and its emergence as a value-adding toolkit conveniently available for use on our computers, laptops, tablets, etc. signifies that mind-mapping can be used within an every-day working environment. Jamie MacDonald takes a closer look at six uses for mind mapping in business situations that most of us engage in on a frequent basis.
Often the tasks at hand take our focus off of the big picture. In new product development (NPD) and R&D portfolio management, there are several “givens” that may seem obvious when stated but are often overlooked. Bring your attention back to these eight tried and true ways to improve your portfolio management and increase your product development productivity.
Is your workplace cluttered? Not in the physical sense, but the figurative one. Do you have a bunch of old tasks and procedures taking up space without adding much value? Just like you have to dig through your closet every so often and get rid of questionable items that you once thought were good purchases, sometimes you have to assess the mental clutter that has built up in the workplace over time and recognize when policies have gone out of style. Tasks and rules that were once must-haves can build exponentially and increase complexity until employees have time for little else, like 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.
You want to be perceived as a good innovation project member, to be appreciated for your achievements – and just to safeguard that notion some of what you do leads to a success in time – you do multiple projects in parallel. But is this really efficient and effective? Check out Bengt Järrehult’s somewhat mathematical look at multi-tasking, where the exercise of putting numbers in leads to a result that may surprise you.
Browsing through these paragraphs will take you approximately two minutes. If you read them more carefully, four perhaps. Not a lot of time or investment. In this blog Susanna Bill reminds us why time is key for innovation and organizational change.
What does it take for companies to market new, innovative capabilities as a service? The challenge to expand beyond products is daunting, but as market exemplars show, the returns on the investment can be worth it. The case studies explored in this article illustrate the extent to which services demand a premium in the market, drive differentiation from the competition, and build loyalty.
The level of innovation capability within organizations is connected to the ability of making the right sense of collective experiences, especially in uncertain or ambiguous times. In this post Susanna Bill delves deeper on the importance of sense making and the effects it has on the level of innovation capabilities. And addresses a personal dilemma.
Innovation never takes place in a vacuum cut off from other initiatives to improve performance. Doug Collins takes a look at how to team up with people in the Lean and Six Sigma processes.
Since 2009 we have been suffering a serious global economic crisis and the situations in most small countries, including Denmark, has been very difficult due to growing unemployment and unsustainable public finance deficits. This crisis has occurred at a time of structural problems related to an ageing population. InnovationManagement interviewed Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Professor in the Department of Business Studies at Aalborg University, on the role of innovation and innovation policy in this context.
According to the Gartner Hype Cycle model, media coverage of a new technology goes through five distinct phases. Graham Horton has discovered that the way media treats innovation follows a similar pattern.
This is the first in a series of articles that take the need of Innovation under the loop and share some of the imperatives, must have’s if you will, to create and sustain “NEW” in business or organizations. The material is based on 25 years of hands on experience in the innovation space and the recently published book “Robert's rule of innovation”.
When building a team it is critical to first understand what the group is expected to deliver, then take a deeper look into who is selected and how they are expected to work together. Purposefully balancing the right type of people for the job will go a long way toward making the team more effective, productive, and successful.
Did you learn all you really need to know about innovation in kindergarten? Michael Dalton learned an important innovation lesson by visiting a kindergarten class taught by his wife.
Constructive criticism from managers can take the wind out of employees ideas and can undermine your organization's innovation efforts, warns Carol Franczek. Here is a four-step process that supports more productive conversations, and creates space to both support ideas and raise issues that need to be addressed about them.
