Tag Archives | Experimentation

Innovation is About Getting Beyond the Idea

By on September 2, 2018

Thomas Edison said it over a century ago: Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. Unfortunately, no one listened. When companies launch innovation initiatives, they typically allot almost all of their time and energy to that initial 1 percent – the thrilling hunt for the breakthrough idea. The real innovation challenge, however, lies beyond […]

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Agile Innovation in a Nutshell

By on June 23, 2017

The notion of Agile seems to be on everybody’s lips these days. Studies have proven agile companies to generate above-average margins and revenues up to five times more often boost average innovation success rates to 39% from 11%, in complex projects even up to six times that of conventional approaches But what actually is Agile Innovation? Bain captures the essence in a […]

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A Model for Integrative Innovation Management

By on March 21, 2016

In previous posts, I have shared my view on important cornerstones for successful innovation management systems. As pointed out several times, balanced and up-to-date innovation management requires organizational ambidexterity, i.e. the capability to explore novel offerings and capabilities while simultaneously exploiting existing ones. In the following, I would like to summarize and complement these thoughts by suggesting an innovation management model that may help organizations to innovate more […]

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Innovation and Organizational Culture

By on February 14, 2015

Recently, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has published key findings of their latest “Most Innovative Companies 2014” survey. Beside the annual ranking, headed by the top three companies Apple, Google and Samsung, some insightful outcomes with regard to organizational and cultural requirements have striked my eye. According to BCG’s research, successfully innovating companies approach innovation as a system. The system is rooted in experimentation, […]

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Balancing Large and Small Firm Capabilities

By on March 16, 2014

As outlined in earlier posts, organizations need to balance exploitation (i.e. development of existing business) and exploration (i.e. creation of new businesses) in order to thrive on the short and long term.  The corresponding integration of incremental and radical innovation can basically be achieved in different ways:   Building ambidextrous and lean startup capabilities Established organizations with larger size usually target at extending their core business by incementally […]

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Managing Innovation Portfolios – Part 2: Operational Portfolio Management

By on October 26, 2013

This is part two of a two-parts article co-written with Kevin McFarthing from Innovation Fixer. The first part can be found here.   In our previous post, we discussed how Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) ensures that the content of the portfolio is driven by innovation strategy and associated targets. We would now like to move on to […]

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Managing Innovation Portfolios – Part 1: Strategic Portfolio Management

By on September 21, 2013

This is part one of a two-parts article co-written with Kevin McFarthing from Innovation Fixer. The second part can be found here.   Facing increasingly dynamic and unpredictable environments, firms are required to develop convenient innovation strategies, constantly adapt them to changing conditions and properly implement strategically-aligned initiatives throughout their organizations. Innovation portfolio management (IPM) can act […]

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Key Issues in Innovation Management

By on February 3, 2013

This post was co-written with Tim Kastelle from Innovation for Growth.   What are the key innovation issues facing the business community right now? When we met up in person recently we had a great talk about this question. We’ve continued the discussion over email, and these are the four innovation management issues that we […]

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Reconciling Organizational Improvement and Reinvention Through Social Business Design

By on February 3, 2013

This is the second part of a post co-written with Thierry De Baillon from Sonnez en cas d’absence. Read the first part here.   A striking change of focus in the social business arena occurred during the last five years. Despite the fact that Andrew McAfee’s original definition specified its scope as «within companies, or between companies and […]

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Business Model Innovation as Wicked Problem

By on February 3, 2013

This is the first part of a post co-written with Thierry De Baillon from Sonnez en cas d’absence. Read the second part here.   We live in an age where emergent technologies continue to have massive effects on business and society. Rising complexity requires companies and economies to cope with increasingly interlocking systems. If we […]

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