Open Innovation

Open innovation is oftentimes the key to harnessing and managing the best ideas. It’s also one of the latest tools for effective research and development, and it dramatically levels the playing field between companies of all sizes. Open innovation allows organizations of all sizes to access new ideas, evaluate and put them into action. (8/17)

Innovation Fitness

Getting fit as an organization has many benefits, and innovation is one of them. An assessment can help you understand areas where you need improvement so you can predict and prepare for the challenges ahead. If your organization wants to compete for the future, you need to implement innovation fitness. This resource will help you do just that. (2/17)

Annual Innovation Strategy

It’s vital to create a comprehensive annual innovation strategy well before the new year starts. A written, well-thought-out innovation strategy is more than a list of best practices you try just to see what sticks. When you have an end-to-end innovation strategy for each year, you ensure that mistakes of the past aren’t repeated and plan carefully for the future. This type of planning makes innovation projects more effective and helps ensure ongoing support from leadership. (1/17)

Nurturing a Diverse and Innovative Workforce

New research indicates that nurturing a diverse workforce for innovation drives market growth. Employees at companies with diversity are 45% more likely to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year and 70% more likely to report that the firm captured a new market. Nurturing a diverse workforce isn’t just a politically correct practice; it’s a real concern in businesses across the country, and the lack of it may impact your innovation efforts. (12/16)

Crowdsourcing and Technology

Innovation is vital for every company, but it’s even more important if you’re a technology company. You need new, unique ideas and the ability to bring them to market before thecompetition. You likely face a variety of challenges with innovation. From mindset and culture to budget and resources, there’s a barrier at every corner. These challenges contribute to technology companies innovating far less than they need to remain competitive. Fortunately, that can be different for you – simply by incorporating crowdsourcing into your innovation efforts. Not only can crowdsourcing reduce the common roadblocks discussed above, but it can also help you iterate quickly, and perhaps reduce your speed-to-market. (11/16)

Crowdsourcing and Nonprofits

The crowd is a diverse group of capable individuals who can make a significant contribution to your nonprofit organization. Crowdsourcing is community engagement at a much larger scale, and for nonprofits it goes far beyond raising money. From pooling knowledge to micro-volunteering, consider taking advantage of the specific ways you can use crowdsourcing effectively. This white paper about crowdsourcing and nonprofits can help. (10/16)

Crowdsourcing for Small Business

Crowdsourcing is a vital part of getting innovative new ideas – especially in small businesses. However, many small business owners are simply unaware of the many uses of crowdsourcing in small business. After reading this white paper, you’ll be well-educated about the many ways that crowdsourcing can benefit your organization. (8/16)

Cisco Ignites Companywide Startup Culture

Cisco’s Corporate Strategy Innovation Group and 16 “co-conspirators” mapped out “My Innovation,” a grassroots movement evolving on several fronts. Collectively, they jumpstarted the revolution with the rollout of the Innovate Everywhere Challenge, which is disrupting the company’s global workforce of 72,000 from within. For the first time in the company’s 30-year history, the Innovate Everywhere Challenge urged every single employee to “team up, disrupt, and innovate.” This was an ask beyond their day jobs designed to tap into their biggest dreams and vision for market opportunity. (6/16)

Crowdsourcing in Finance

The financial landscape in the United States and abroad has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. The Great Recession and housing bubble from 2006–2008 has had long-lasting effects – not just on our economy, but also on the attitudes that people have about finance. In examining how crowdsourcing can be applied to the financial industry, it’s important to take recent changes into account and understand how to approach customers and potential customers with financial services today. (5/16)

Crowdsourcing in Education

Changes in technology, society, and the seemingly never-ending trend of rising educational costs are culminating in a rapid transformation of the entire educational sector. Enrollments continue to decline for the fourth straight year leaving educational institutions with the difficult task of reversing this trend. Innovation that extends beyond research laboratories is happening at a global level and helping primary and post-secondary education attract and retain students. (5/16)

The Urgent Intrapreneur Opportunity: An Introduction For Corporate Leaders

As leaders of established companies once again focus on attracting, retaining, and driving value from employees, intrapreneurship provides an approach to capture the enterprising spirit typically associated with younger ventures. This document outlines different types of intrapreneurs, the value they add, and tactics for support. (9/15)

Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts

In fields as diverse as technology entrepreneurship and the arts, crowds of interested stakeholders are increasingly responsible for deciding which innovations to fund, a privilege that was previously reserved for a few experts, such as venture capitalists and grant‐making bodies. Little is known about the degree to which the crowd differs from experts in judging which ideas to fund, and, indeed, whether the crowd is even rational in making funding decisions. Drawing on a panel of national experts and comprehensive data from the largest crowdfunding site, we examine funding decisions for proposed theater projects, a category where expert and crowd preferences might be expected to differ greatly. (8/15)

Outside / Inside Innovation: Combining Open Innovation with Employee Networks to Drive Success

As business leaders seek additional impact from Innovation Programs, new ways to leverage and scale existing resources are being explored. One approach is to link externally sourced ideas with networks of innovation-minded employees, to generate additional business impact. (2/15)

The Future of Innovation Management: Five Key Steps for Future Success

Looking back is a natural as we look to learn lessons from past activity. But perhaps more interesting is to look forward. In this article Rick Eagar draws on the results from recent research that surveyed the opinions of global Chief Technology Officers and Chief Information Officers and identifies key changes in five distinct but interrelated innovation management concepts as being important for the years ahead. (10/11)

Open Innovation Issues & Roadblocks

To help innovation practitioners understand the common challenges of open innovation, Dr. Brian Glassman and Dr. Abram Walton have written this comprehensive report. (12/10)

How to Lead Your Creative People

Being creative drives business. It adds real value to a business, value to its people, value to its customers, and value to its bottom line. But there’s a gap between the value an organization places on being creative and its ability to tap into its creative resources to fully use the talents of its creative people, according to this report from Nigel Collin. (2/10)

Creating an Innovation Portfolio: Building a Holistic Approach to Innovation

Smart investors create a portfolio of investments that balance out – so if one investment isn’t performing, others can offset the loss. The same concept could be applied to the way you innovate in your organization, according to Jim Schwarz of TQS Systems. (1/10)

Metrics for Idea Generation

Metrics are one of many tools to monitor the performance of a process. For idea generation there are no general metrics which span across industries. Instead, an innovation manager must select idea generation metrics based on the strategy of their company and their current idea needs, according to Brian Glassman’s research. (10/09)

Disruptive Innovation for the Non-Profit Sector

The nonprofit sector is ripe for disruptive innovation, according to innovation expert Braden Kelley. (6/09)

Innovation Growth Platforms

An excellent approach to identifying and meeting new opportunities lies within growth platforms. Growth platforms can be the basis for pulling structured innovation planning components together to realize an innovation strategy. This report by innovation consultant Roy Luebke explains what growth platforms are and how to create them. (3/09)

Innovation in the Fast Lane: The Speed Pass Approach to Improving the New Product Process

New product development at many firms tends to get bogged down by stage-gate delays, bureaucracy, and other distractions. This report from Guided Innovation offers tips and strategies for decreasing the cycle time and increasing the throughput of your innovation processes. (3/09)

Open Innovation: Facts, Fiction & Future

To make the most of open innovation, companies should integrate it into all stages of activity, from early-stage product ideation and R&D to late-stage marketing and sales. Companies will realize the greatest benefit by maximizing open innovation in all stages of business activity. This expansion of scope calls for more strategic thought on how innovation networks are built and how they function. (1/09)

Attacking the Recession: How Innovation Can Fight the Downturn

This new discussion paper from the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts explains why innovation needs to be at the core of the country’s strategy for responding to the global recession. (12/08)

The impact of government grants on R&D success

Do government R&D grants make a real, measurable difference in the development of innovative new products and services? This study from IWT in Belgium says definitely yes. (11/08)

Innovation metrics: The innovation process and how to measure it

Like everything that businesses do which involves the investment of capital and time, innovation has to be measured. But unlike most other forms of business measurement, measuring innovation presents problems for the process itself that is to be measured, according to this report from Langdon Morris at InnovationLabs. (11/08)

Capturing ideas and creating the right culture to maximize innovation

Ideas are ephemeral and are easily crushed within the wrong environment. What’s needed to drive innovation is the right corporate culture, plus a well-implemented idea management approach, according to this report from Imaginatik and Quocirca. (11/08)

A Systems Approach to Building an Innovation Organization

This white paper by Dennis Heindl describes how innovation requires systemization through deployment of an innovation infrastructure, which is based upon his Facilitated Thinking model. (6/08)

What is Holding Us Back From Being More Innovative?

Despite many well-publicized arguments about the critical need for organizations to innovate, few senior management teams actually understand what innovations means for them and their business on a day-to-day basis. This report from Project Leaders International examines the factors that are holding companies back from becoming more innovative. (5/08)

The Road Map for Innovation Success

Priming the organization for breakthrough advances requires a more formal approach and strategy than is currently used by most companies, according to this report from PRTM and Microsoft. (5/08)

An Integrated Approach to Managing Innovation

This white paper from Project Leaders International seeks to illustrate a new comprehensive approach to managing innovation within business and introduces the Integrated Innovation Framework – an all-encompassing approach to innovation management beyond new product development. (5/08)

Innovation and the Theory of Business

A theory of business is a mental framework that leaders and executives to get work done. The theory of business that is employed during these times of uncertainty and rapid change has significant influence on every organization’s capacity for change and innovation, reminds Michael Kaufman. (4/08)

Book excerpt: The Truth About Innovation

This is an excerpt from a book by Max McKeown, The Truth of Innovation. It shares some of what we have learned about innovation, what it is, how it happens, and how it can be increased. (4/08)

Creating the Innovation Culture: Geniuses, Champions, and Leaders

Suppose that an innovation culture doesn’t yet exist in your organization. How can you make it happen? How do organizations develop an innovation culture? Who should be involved in the innovation process? What roles should they play? Those and other questions are answered in this paper from InnovationLabs. (11/07)

Vedic Inventive Principles

This white paper by Karthikeyan Iyer of the Innovation Group outlines the Vedic Inventive Principles, a set of aphorisms that can be used for creative problem solving. (11/07)

How Collaboration Unleashes Project Team Creativity

This report from Group Systems Corporation describes how an organization can innovate more effectively by enabling collaboration and leveraging the “group intelligence” and creativity of its employees. (5/07)

Finding Opportunities for Innovation and Growth

This article by Blair Kingsland of the Spectrum Innovation Group outlines nine ways for a company to be more innovative and find ideas and opportunities for growth. (3/07)

The State of Innovation – 2007

OVO Innovation takes a look at the state of innovation at the beginning of 2007. Topics covered include open innovation, beyond product innovation and innovation processes, methodologies and tools. (1/07)

Building the Innovation Culture

This paper from InnovationLabs focuses on building an innovative culture by encouraging a distributed network to form inside the organization that takes on much of the innovation work. (6/06)

Tools for Discontinuous Innovation

Author Michael Ali provides an overview of discontinuous innovation, including notable successes and failures, and tools and techniques for implementing discontinuous or radical innovation. (5/06)

Innovation and Transformation

In this paper from InnovationLabs, the innovation lifecycle model is used visually to explore the dynamics behind innovation: when to innovate, characteristics of the parent and child organizations, and some uses of innovation in transformation. (3/06)

Innovative Training in Thinking

A primer on “new integrative thinking,” which leaps over the shortcomings of traditional critical thinking. (3/06)

Strategic Innovation: The Engine That Drives Business

Advice on how to develop an “innovation engine” that will help to propel your business into the future. (2/06)

Looking for Ideas in All the Wrong Places

This white paper from Decision Analyst shares their learnings about how to go about putting good, actionable ideas into your pipeline so your entire new product or service development process can work more efficiently. (1/06)

Innovation Metrics: Measurement to Insight

This white paper from the Center for Accelerating Innovation provides a good overview of common innovation metrics. (1/06)

Innovation Roles: The People You Need for Successful Innovation

In order to innovate successfully, you need the right people, in the right roles, selecting the right ideas to push forward. This white paper from NetCentrics identifies the types of people you need and their characteristics. (12/05)

The Care and Framing of Strategic Innovation Challenges

Too often, participants in brainstorming sessions fail to clearly frame the challenge at hand. Dr. Arthur VanGundy, Ph.D. offers a practical method for strategically framing innovation challenges to solve this problem. (9/05)

How to Build High-Performance Innovative Teams

Here are seven rules for building innovative teams, from Steven Pierce at Innovation Marketers LLC. (9/05)

Innovation: Concept to Cash

A systematic approach to sustainable, repeatable innovation from NetCentrics Corporation. (8/05)

What Innovation Is: How Companies Develop Operating Systems for Innovation

Howard Smith, CTO of Computer Sciences Corporation’s European Group, and author of the book, Business Process Management: The Third Wave, gives his view of the direction in which innovation is developing, and the significance of modern TRIZ in that future. (6/05)

Structured Innovation System Empowered by TRIZ

This white paper from Pretium Consulting Services offers a potential framework for helping to manage the “fuzzy front end” of innovation. (6/05)

Organizing for Innovation

This white paper from InnovationPoint looks at six organizational models that support innovation, each with different goals and levels of formality and complexity. (11/04)

Don’t Start With Creativity Training

Want your company to be more innovative and creative? Then don’t start with creativity training, but with a project: a high-priority business issue that a passionate team can sink its teeth into and learn from. (11/04)

A Mass Ideation Process

When Michael S.J. Butterworth was participating as a facilitator in a Singapore group brainstorming event that resulted in 450,000+ ideas, he was disappointed that there wasn’t a more effective system for filtering them and isolating the best ones for implementation. So he developed his own 4-step iLab process to solve this shortcoming. (11/04)

The Need for Facilitated Thinking Environments

No matter where you look, organizations from schools to the largest conglomerates face the same challenge: How can worker performance be improved? It is clear that the winners will be those organizations responsive enough to profit from change by applying innovative thinking often enough, fast enough, and well enough to create competitive advantage. How can we help workers to think more productively? According to Dennis Heindl, the answer is by providing them with Facilitated Thinking Environments. (11/04)

Systematic Innovation Using TRIZ

TRIZ problem-solving techniques can serve as a highly effective catalyst for creativity during problem solving and brainstorming processes. (2/2004)