BLOG ON INNOVATION AND TRANSFORMATION
Tools and strategies to innovate, solve complex issues, and transform businesses
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How to use Business Model patterns to build more resilient businesses
The most successful business models build on patterns, i.e. repeatable configurations of different business model building blocks to strengthen an organization’s overall business model. This is the secret formula behind their success. In this post I introduce the library of business model patterns that we developed in The Invincible Company. And I explain how understanding those patterns helps entrepreneurs and business leaders create better, more resilient businesses.
Books that most influenced my work in 2019
In this blogpost I reflect on the most useful books on innovation and business transformation I read in 2019.
Below are the four books I referred the most to fellow practitioners, clients and friends.
How to keep momentum after a Hack day?
"How to keep momentum after a Hack day?" she asked me. This post summarises my answer to the CIO of an ASX 100 manufacturing company.
To keep momentum after a hack day you need to:
1. Be clear on your purpose.
2. Assess your innovation readiness.
3. Identify the two improvement areas with highest leverage.
4. Act on them!
How to help Agile teams create products customers want?
There is a lot of hype around Agile that often creates unrealistic expectations. In this blogpost I explain why implementing an Agile framework is not the panacea for the challenges innovation teams face.
But if innovation teams apply Agile principles as they go through the Strategyzer business design and testing process, then they will maximise their chances to actually build products customers want.
How to manage an innovation funnel? (part 2)
The CDO of an ASX100 consumer goods company asked me how to manage an innovation portfolio.
In this second post I highlight key principles for managing an innovation portfolio that leaders should be aware of:
Use metered funding.
Make portfolio decisions based on strategic fit, opportunity and evidence.
Empower intrapreneurs to go through discovery, validation and acceleration of new business ideas.
How to manage an innovation funnel? (part 1)
The Chief Digital Officer (CDO) of an ASX100 consumer goods company asked me how to manage an innovation portfolio.
In this post I highlight the key specificities of managing an innovation portfolio that leaders should be aware of:
Manage ideas with high uncertainty with a portfolio approach.
Play the volume game: make lots of small investments at the beginning!
Be ready to kill the vast majority of ideas, initiatives, projects on your portfolio.
What can we learn from Owlet on testing new business ideas?
In this post, I highlight some key principles related to testing new business ideas that are superbly illustrated by the Owlet video from the International Business Model Competition in 2013:
1. Trust the testing process, not your vision
2. Test desirability before feasibility
3. Evidence trumps opinion
4. You don’t need more time and money to test your business idea
5. Tell your story with the Business Model Canvas
Do you always start with the customer?
In this post I explain why you don’t always have to start with the customer when you design new value propositions for customers.
But you always have to end with the customer to validate the fit between the customer and your designed product/service.
Are customer gains the opposite of pains?
One question we get all the time, especially from new users of the value proposition canvas is: Are customers’ gains just the opposite of pains?
In this post we explore three simple hacks you can use with your team to sharpen your thinking on customers’ pains and gains.
Books that most influenced my work in 2018
In this blogpost I reflect on the most useful books on innovation and business transformation I read in 2018. Below are the three books I referred the most to fellow practitioners, clients and friends.
What would metrics for innovation truly enable?
In 2018, I led the co-creation of Strategyzer innovation metrics with Alex Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, three multinational companies and one Australian SME. Our client experience and research had confirmed the huge blind spot on measuring progress of innovation projects, and the many problems it creates in corporate innovation.
In this blogpost I explain why innovation needs its own metrics, and how we came up with a working prototype of innovation metrics that could be the breakthrough to make corporate innovation manageable.
A tribute to the curiosity, method and high-quality curation by The Corporate Rebels!
In this blogpost I share my key take-aways from a day spent with the Corporate Rebels in Melbourne in August 2017. A tribute to their curiosity, method and high-quality curation. They have truly become a driving force in the exploration and diffusion of revolutionary corporate practices to make work more fun… and meaningful.
Books that most inspired my work on innovation and business transformation in 2017
In this blogpost I reflect on the most useful books on innovation and business transformation I read in 2017. Below are the four books I referred the most to fellow practitioners, clients and friends.
What I learnt on coaching from being part of an innovation team
In Spring 2017 I received an invitation to join forces with a global team of designers and IMD MBA students led by my mentor and friend Greg Bernarda to turn a new business idea into a tested business model in just 5 weeks. In this blogpost I share the key learnings and innovation insights gained from joining a fascinating team adventure. And what I was reminded of by using the business model innovation toolkit as the innovator, not the coach.
Hai Di Lao. What can a hot pot restaurant teach us about innovation?
At the end of 2016 I worked with Greg Bernarda on developing a case study on Hai Di Lao, the surprising success in the world of Chinese hot pot restaurants. How did Hai Di Lao manage to climb to the very top of such a competitive and crowded market? How did it manage to scale from its humble beginnings as a single shop with one chef in the nineties?
This blogpost is a summary of key lessons from the Hai Di Lao case study.
How to use Design Principles as scaffolding for a business transformation
This blog post shows how you can use design principles, one of the tools in the Design Thinking toolbox, as scaffolding for a business transformation. It is based on a story I have shared in the Collaboration by Design book by Philippe Coullomb and Charles Collingwood-Boots.
The three steps of my initiation into business model innovation
In this blogpost I share the three steps of my career transition to become an innovation advisor:
- being introduced by Pete Cohen to the Business Model Canvas in 2014,
- working with Greg Bernarda, co-author of Value Proposition Design, for the first time in 2015,
- learning directly from Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur at the Strategyzer bootcamp in 2016.
Will The Business Romantic event be the tipping point towards more human workplaces?
In this blogpost I share my experience of the Business Romantic 2017 event in Melbourne, an unforgettable event by Tim Leberecht and Mykel Dixon who created a magic space where 100+ unprepared participants could be their whole self for a full day. Will it be the tipping point towards more humane workplaces in Australia?
What happens when you really trust employees?
In this blogpost I share the story of how Dutch company Buurtzorg came to dominate the Dutch in home care market with a radical organisational design. I explore how trusting employees could become a source of competitive advantage, and what still prevents most companies to transition to a trust-based organisational design.
Could Agile be a Trojan horse for a bottom-up business transformation?
In this blogpost I explore the potential of Agile to become a Trojan horse for a bottom-up business transformation in organisations.
Over the years, Agile has shifted its purpose from building better software, to delivering products, and more recently to creating more joyful workplaces.
But were Agile successes only possible as long as it was flying under the leadership radar? As expectations from Agile grow, will Agile-based transformation attempts ultimately clash with the dominant leadership culture?