Month: September 2010

Grounding innovation through convergence and intersections

Jobs-to-be-done seems to be a real convergence point for many innovation thinkers. This needs to be more central in our innovation thinking it seems to me.

Discovering intersections is where ideas collide, according to a theory brilliantly put together in a book some years ago by Frans Johansson called “The Medici Effect”. Johansson recommends we step into these intersections and then you can see how different thinking can meet head to head, as in this case from numerous innovation experts, to give you a deeper insight into your own innovative thinking.

I often have a habit of opening up a file on a subject when I feel it needs further exploring and jobs-to-be-done has become one of these. It is the convergence of many experts repeating sometimes their personal mantras has finally given me a growing realisation on how important this understanding of satisfying these jobs-to-be-done becomes too successful innovation.

Now this ‘light bulb’ moment of mine may not come as such a great surprise to some of you selected few but I’d argue it might be worth reflecting upon by taking a fresh look at this ‘idea’ of jobs-to-be-done a little deeper in your thinking also. There are many who tell you we should.

The power of many innovation thinkers Continue reading “Grounding innovation through convergence and intersections”

Business model innovation can really help Venture Capital assessment

I believe the Business model canvas, presented by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur in their book “Business Model Generation”, holds a very powerful way for Venture Capital to use in their assessments of promising ventures they are considering for investment.

Traditional pitches to VC’s are loaded with financial numbers, providing crisp, well written business plans pitched by teams oozing with optimism but much of this is still highly intangible in reality. There is often a decision made on the people’s chemistry more than anything else.

There is nothing wrong with that if you are the lucky ones, but tough on the countless thousands that face rejection after rejection for their ideas to attract the necessary funding needed to move their business forward.

Where the Business model canvas can fit in the VC pitch. Continue reading “Business model innovation can really help Venture Capital assessment”

The systematic understanding of Business Model Innovation design

Business model innovation is shaping up to be one of the most challenging aspects of leadership of existing businesses and aspiring leaders do need to fully understand how to map out the business value.

The question today being faced by many is how to transform existing business models so as to avoid that race to commoditization and decreasing shareholder value and so to provide improved value.

Equally business model innovation increasingly needs to be able to reduce the threat of new competition that is constantly finding ways to undermine your present business. The Entrepreneur is snapping at your heels like never before.

Leaders need the tools, skills and experience to envision, test and implement new business models more than ever and certainly faster than ever.

The worrying aspect today it seems is that many leaders are still not knowing what it is within their existing business model that ‘combines’ to make the existing profit engine of the business, those ‘value points’ that really provide the innovation opportunity to sustain or challenge their existing business models.

So what is Business Model Innovation? Continue reading “The systematic understanding of Business Model Innovation design”

The Pathway Curve of Innovation Understanding

The pathway curve methodology is a well structured way to move up in innovation understanding.

One of my recent articles outlined a three horizon framework for innovation, let me extend this a little further into a pathway of innovation understanding.

I’m sure we all agree Innovation needs to be worked, it needs to be understood and often many people do get confused by not taking a more measured approach to the need to break innovation down into its manageable parts.

Innovation does not just have a time axis that the three horizons framework refers to but it has a complexity and scope axis in learning as well.

By taking a more systematic approach to any innovation you achieve a greater understanding over time of what is involved. Continue reading “The Pathway Curve of Innovation Understanding”

The Three Horizon Approach to Innovation

The three horizons for innovation thinking

Thinking through the management of innovation have you ever considered the Three Horizons approach?  It is likely through this approach business leaders can adopt an evolutionary perspective across the entire innovation business portfolio.

If you are using a three horizons type approach to innovation, it becomes clear that you need to continue investing in innovative activities across all three time horizons, even if you’re in the middle of a present day crisis. To do this effectively, you need to have some idea of where you’re heading in the future, and that’s why I think it’s a useful tool for linking innovation to strategy. Continue reading “The Three Horizon Approach to Innovation”

Drawing fresh innovating oxygen into the body

This must be the time of year for all those innovation reports to resurface for fresh innovation thinking. Recently I went back to the OECD report (opener here. http://bit.ly/buIiv8) and began to breathe in more innovating air.

Not bad from the OECD but that is one of their purposes in life I suppose. Why? A number of points stand out and using OECD summary headings, these were:

Policies need to reflect innovation as it occurs today.
We all do get stuck in repeating old ways yet the world and how it explores, experiments and investigates is constantly changing. It has become highly interactive and a multidisciplinary process with so much more need for collaboration across a diverse network of stakeholders.

Although it is getting more complex focusing on performance through innovation is very much a today thing.

People should be empowered to innovate Continue reading “Drawing fresh innovating oxygen into the body”

Will we ever learn to manage innovation to make progress?

I was asking myself when are we ever going to really learn about how to manage innovation as we seem to make so little progress?

Reading through the latest global survey results from McKinsey entitled ‘Innovation & Commercialization, 2010’ at http://fwd4.me/cRK and you must wonder with all the activity (and hype) surrounding innovation why we do not make the type of positive progress you should expect in innovation management.

There are very positive signs innovation is emerging stronger than ever from the recent bout of economic ‘flu’ we all have been going through. The report starts on a high note “84% of all executives say innovation is extremely or very important to their companies’ growth strategy”- yippee!

The darker side is the ‘but’- “little has changed in the way they generate ideas and turn them into products and services plus many other challenges remain remarkably consistent”- oh dear!

Do we ever learn? Continue reading “Will we ever learn to manage innovation to make progress?”