Innovating for better with less When I started in my role as Innovation Leader in a large Pharma company, I was intrigued by Navi Radjou’s book “Jugaad Innovation“. The term Jugaad means a non-conventional, frugal innovation, an innovative fix or a simple work-around. This kind of innovation was especially relevant for the emerging markets geography I was working in at that time: while resources were limited, innovations were desperately needed. I recently attended a webcast, organized by Innov8rs in which Navi Radjou discussed his new book “How To Thrive In The New Frugal Economy“. His inspiring talk was very relevant for the current economic environment where corporations in all geographies…

Webcasts and Newsletters for corporate Innovation Leaders Because most of us are working from home, I want to share the following excellent organizations that aim to inspire Innovation Leaders with newsletters and live webcasts, in many cases for free. I highly recommended to subscribe to each organization and newsletter to get alerts of upcoming events! In alphabetical order: Disruptor League Offers: newsletter, podcast, blog. Newsletter: Disruptor Digest Weekly – announces upcoming “Disruptor Connection” virtual events and a “Digest” of 6 recent innovation articles. HQ: Cincinnati, Ohio (USA). Lead: Shawn Nason, Lead Disruptor (also CEO, Chief of Eco-System Disruptor of MOFI). My take: Used to be called “Innovation Excellence”; acquired by…

Innovation Leaders helping Innovators Failure is a part of innovation. True. However, there is “good” failure and “bad” failure. A “good failure” example is validating a fair assumption and quickly/cheaply coming to the conclusion that assumption was wrong. The Innovator learned something new and can then adapt or discard the innovation. But not all failure is “good”, acceptable or makes sense. Innovation Leaders should help the corporation to avoid these “bad failures”. A few examples: Compliance A critical failure to avoid is one related to unethical or dangerous experiments. For instance: healthcare Innovators should never undertake experiments that put a patient’s safety or privacy in jeopardy. To anticipate unethical behavior,…

Innovation Leaders helping Innovators The next topic in my series on how Innovation Leaders can help Innovators who have specific challenges, is how to coach potential Innovators to evaluate their ideas. When Innovators come up with their first idea, they usually are not familiar with the Innovation method and how to evaluate success in each innovation phase. This is where corporate Innovation Leaders can assist, e.g. by creating simple, supportive tools. Below are 2 examples of how I guided Innovators with “metrics” as they went through the front end of their innovation journey. 1. Ideation phase What is an innovative idea? It is an innovative solution that has the potential…