Push Thinking & Get Innovation Using this Little-Known Children’s Game

Fifty years ago, a little-known children’s book introduced the “SCAMPER” model as way to help teachers foster creativity in their classrooms. It’s an amazingly simple tool, and unbelievably powerful for pushing thinking beyond “business as usual” to help teams innovate. SCAMPER is an acronym for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. Each letter prompts…

Small Experiments for Big Ideas

As the co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman once said that trying to innovate and scale a business quickly requires you to “throw yourself off a cliff and assemble your airplane on the way down.” Sounds risky. It doesn’t have to be. For most new upstarts — be it a startup or corporate venture — finding…

Virtual Innovation Sessions in 5 Simple Steps

Innovation is an art and science. Here’s the secret to identifying & prioritizing ideas in a virtual world. Over the past 25 years, I have run hundreds of innovation sessions with companies like NBCUniversal, Visa, Colgate, Kimberly-Clark, Red Bull, and dozens of others. My sessions are often part of larger strategy and growth initiatives. But…

Leapfrogging Coronavirus Consulting Disruption

How Consulting Will Likely Change Because of the Pandemic

The consulting industry was already being disrupted before the coronavirus. Now the disruption is accelerating. If you work with consultants or have your own consultancy, take note: Things are changing, fast. Right around the corner are threats or opportunities, depending on how you respond. I’ve already written about how the management-consulting industry is being disrupted by various trends like emerging technologies, the commodification…

Having a company vision is great, but if you set objectives and key result metrics with this OKR template you will fare much better.

Sometimes big visions can be powerful motivators to drive people, but clear objectives and metrics deliver results. I’ve worked with some of the world’s most innovative startups and big companies for over 25 years. In that time, I’ve seen leaders and teams become enamored with the idea of building their own “disruptive” future visions. This…

10 Disruptive Trends for 2020

Disruption is everywhere. Here are 10 trends that will create opportunities – and threats – in 2020. Twenty years ago, when I started advising startups and Fortune 500 companies on their innovation strategies, a “2020 vision” served as a key staple in most business planning efforts. The future is finally here. Emerging technologies catalyze disruption. But 2020 promises to be…

Four Types of Customer Experiences for Competitive Advantage

Want to improve your customers’ experience? Try these connected strategies. What’s the secret to a winning business model and long-term competitive advantage? It’s not just about technology, products and services. Your customer experience may just be the ultimate competitive advantage. Strategy and innovation experts Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch just published a new book called Connected Strategy: Building Continuous…

Forget Your Business Plan. Create a Strategy Map.

Strategic plans become outdated the moment they’re created. Instead, create a one-page strategy map. Having run the internal strategy consulting group at HP, and then consulting to both startups and big companies like Disney, Visa, Colgate, Medtronic and others, I’ve created hundreds of strategic plans. Business strategy used to be a clear and methodical process. No more. Today’s discontinuous technologies and…