To survive the coronavirus crisis, you must adapt to the new normal. To thrive, you will need to create new opportunities that address the new normal. You probably know this. Yet, it is so hard to do. In a moment of crisis like this, you cannot afford to spend money on risky bets. Therefore, it […]
Recently I received a cry for help. “How can I fight the spreadsheet managers in my organization? They are killing our innovation efforts!”. So how do you win the battle for funding with these spreadsheet managers? One thing is for sure, if you play by their rules, innovation will lose out. Instead, try to use […]
How do you assess the return on investment of your innovation efforts? While it is often assumed that innovation drives profit, in many companies that is not the case. There innovation is a cost center, that supports the organization’s learning. Instead of the revenue generator that is supposed to be the result of the organization’s […]
In the various entrepreneurship and innovation programs I am involved with, Customer Discovery is always a key activity. While it may sound simple, in practice it is not. Interviewing users and potential clients about their needs and desires is challenging for startups and established organizations, yet, for different reasons. Below customer discovery tips and tricks […]
Overconfidence drives poor decisions. We humans, tend to focus on the evidence for outcomes that we believe and want to happen, while ignoring other possibilities. As a result, overconfidence is the biggest pitfall when it comes to bringing an innovative idea to practice. Now, research has shown an effective strategy to avoid overconfidence: focus on […]
Absolutely! I had the pleasure to participate with the Bleed Freeze team in the NSF I-Corps program. The team did over 100 customer interviews, to finally nail the customer-value fit. The video shows their lessons learned from this experience.
Innovation is a mean, not a goal. Innovation enables you to achieve your organization’s strategic objectives. Portfolio management is the tool to monitor whether you are on track with closing the gap between where your organization is and wants to be. Make a start with innovation portfolio management in four steps.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) held its 26th annual forum. A wonderful venue to learn how to achieve better health, better healthcare at lower costs. The speakers and exhibits showed in numerous ways how this triple aim can be realized.
Who needs a personal coach? Every top athlete has a coach. However, most world class musicians don’t. While every clinician should, according to Atul Gawande. What can a personal coach teach you, that you cannot learn yourself?
It is bad that 1 out of 10 innovation fail, but for another reason than you may think; The number of innovations that fail is too low. You need many more innovations to ensure success in the market place. We are focusing on the wrong metric. The metric used here is the number of projects that enter the innovation pipeline versus those that make to the marketplace and succeed. Over the years, the “best” companies have become very effective in trimming down the number of project in the early stages. However, what remains very difficult to predict is which projects to keep and which to discard. The chances of throwing away the child with the bathwater are significant.
The department of commerce expects that 50% of all new employment between 2012 and 2022 will be created in the health and professional services industries? Is your organization going to drive this growth? Or are you currently in cost cutting mode, because your revenues are under pressure? To benefit from this growth you will have to innovate, but how good are you at innovating?
Research and development can provide innovative solutions to today’s pressing health care challenges. The NIH invests a vast amount of money in research; basic and translational research. The centers for Medicare and Medicaid also spent considerable money on innovation. In comparison, the health services industry is lacking behind. If the purpose of innovation in health care is to improve patient care, who is going to take care of the innovations that impact the latter?