Innovation

14th Apr 2016

When you’re tasked to innovate faster and smarter, and to deliver a greater return on innovation investment, you can feel under pressure.

Then when you try to up your team’s innovation game by developing their innovation skills, you can quickly become bogged down in the learning and development options for innovation; course type, course length, how it’s delivered, who it’s targeted at, how the learning will or will not integrate into your organisation’s established processes...

3rd Oct 2015

Part 1 of this topic discussed how research* has shown that 85-90% of innovation portfolios are made up of low risk projects. As there's a strong correlation between risk and reward, it is likely therefore that most companies are not maximising the return on their innovation investment.

This may be because the leadership team and the organisational culture are risk-averse.

In part 2, we explain more about the nature of  risk in innovation and suggest more ways to manage it.  When teams are confident at managing risk in innovation, they can get greater rewards on their innovation efforts by including some riskier projects in their portfolio.

12th Nov 2014

So you’ve managed to get a budget to develop further the skills of your innovation team. Well done!

Now, how  do you ensure that you purchase the type of innovation training that’s going to produce an excellent return on your organisation’s investment?

6th Aug 2014

If you think that innovation training is only about learning how to develop new products and services then think again.

Innovation training is much more. In fact, it’s so important that it can literally save jobs and organisations.

Not convinced? Then read on.

16th May 2014

Under pressure to innovate faster and smarter and deliver more innovations of higher quality?

Maybe it’s time to develop the innovation capability of your teams to an even higher level.

...But how can you ensure you get the optimum return on your investment in people development?

15th May 2014

In 1961 John F Kennedy, set forth his vision for the United States to put a man on the moon within the decade.

At the time, none of the powerful rocket engine and computing technologies required to fulfil his ambition existed. Nevertheless, nine years later his vision had become reality.

By the very fact of sharing and committing to his bold vision, JFK was mobilising huge resources towards his innovation project. These resources include the creativity and enthusiasm of all the team members at NASA and all the other science, technology and engineering bodies who could play a part in delivering JFK’s vision.

6th Dec 2013

“We come up with some good stuff in our innovation meetings, but then we don’t find it easy to progress the follow up actions”.

“We struggle to review and select our ideas because they seem to be at radically different stages of development."

“When we re-group after initial idea generation, each of us has a radically different idea of what the concept actually is.”

Just some of the comments that we hear from teams who are working hard on innovation projects, but not achieving everything they want to achieve.

14th Jun 2012

Design thinking has been an innovation buzz phrase for the last few years.

Designing for Growth promises to ‘demystify design thinking by translating “design” from an abstract idea into a practical tool any manager can profit from’. The authors also promise that they will use ‘business language to unpack the mysterious connection between design thinking and profitable growth’.