Posts Tagged ‘innovation coach’

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Audio Book Release of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

cd-nowavailable“Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival” by Innovation guru Robert Brands is now available as an audio book in a 4 CD set or downloadable at https://www.cdtdigital.com/rroi/index.php

In his book Robert Brands provides a step-by-step guide to implementing and sustaining Innovation in the workplace. His ideas are distilled from over 25 years of hands-on experience as an Innovation leader. Brands has successfully delivered on his goal of bringing “at least one new product per year to market,” resulting in double-digit profitable growth and shareholder value.

The Ten Imperatives in Robert’s Rules of Innovation are easy to implement steps coupled with real life examples and best practices for starting, nurturing, and profiting from a culture of Innovation.

“Due to requests from CEOs and executives, we created this valuable guide to create and sustain innovation available in an easy format,” says Robert Brands, “No matter the size of your organization or the industry you’re in, Innovation is essential to survival – so managers at all levels can benefit from these practical steps.”

For more information on the audio book and a preview, please visit: https://www.cdtdigital.com/rroi/index.php

 

ABOUT BRANDS & COMPANY, LLC.

Brands & Company, LLC is an Innovation management-consulting firm. The firm, founded by Robert F. Brands, focuses on creating and sustaining innovation in business. Operating as “Innovation Coach,” Brands is promoting a “Sustained Innovation Commitment” to deliver profitable growth, for more details visit www.innovationcoach.com.

Brands has over 25 years of hands-on experience in creating and teaching innovation, having worked in new product development and marketing at Philips Lighting, Sylvania and the Kohler Company. Most recently, he served as Managing Director of the Personal Care Division of Rexam Plastics. Prior to Rexam and since 1998, Brands built (Rexam) Airspray N.V., now a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and supply of innovative non-aerosol foam technology like instant foaming hand soap.

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Innovation & Best Practices, Then & Now

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Antarctica Thrives as Hub of New Thinking

 

Exactly 100 years ago December 17, an explorer found glory upon the Antarctic continent. One month later, his rival met a bitter, sad end. Yet, both share lessons in the power of innovation built on best practices – and the pitfalls borne of haste and poor planning.

 

Today, for those looking for rationales behind the need for innovation in pursuit of excellence, the race to the South Pole offers both cautionary tales and textbook examples of success and failure surrounding the innovation process for any business or mission.

 

Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Englishman Robert Falcon Scott shared a dream of being first to the South Pole. Though they both were able and famed explorers of their day, their tales revealed the power of intensive research, planning and best practices.

 

Yet where Scott decided to innovate on what he believed to be an ideal course of action, Amundsen – who, five years earlier, pioneered the Arctic’s Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific – studied best practices of a culture half a word from his destination. In September, National Geographic marked the centennial of their explorations .

 

Their examples of innovation range from the fine details to the mundane. Scott’s provisions, supplies and transport included 19 horses, 33 dogs as back-up, traditional wide-body sleds, and woolen clothing – all suited, or so he thought, to wintry exploration. To the contrary, each introduced inherent risk of failure. Horses’ hooves were ill-suited to trodding across snow and ice, which led to exhaustion in the harsh conditions. The wide sleds bogged down. Woolen wear soaked up human perspiration, which then froze to ice.

 

Amundsen, on the other hand, invested more than a year planning his journey. He painstakingly researched life lived in extreme conditions. He lived with Eskimos and modeled his outerwear on the furs they wore. He innovated upon modern sleds by making them longer and narrower so as to spread their weight across a greater length. Knowing extreme conditions likely would lead to attrition of his dog teams, he brought 53 sled dogs.

 

For mooring, he chose the Bay of Wales, or Ross Ice Shelf. Stationary for 80 years, it would provide the best shelter for his ship and base camp from strong winds. He built and provisioned three camps along the route. This way, his team would be lightened from carrying provisions the entire route. It’s a practice used by many explorers to this day.

 

On December 17, 1911, Amundsen made it to – and a month later returned safely from – the South Pole. A month later, Scott arrived at the Pole, only to find Amundsen had beaten him there. With his horses having perished or been shot along the route, Scott and his men began the return trek by foot. Ultimately, they, too, perished in a blizzard within miles from their own base camp.

 

Today, Antarctica remains a hub of innovation. Engineers are designing robots to navigate amid the extreme conditions. Architects who design living quarters used by scientists on the continent constantly are developing new buildings to withstand wind speeds topping 200 miles per hours and temperatures that can drop to 40 below zero.

 

This month, a three-man team from Thomson Reuters will drive its revolutionary Polar Vehicle – outfitted with bio-fuel, solar panels, and the latest in real-time GPS satellite communications and tracking. Staged to beat the Guinness World Record South Pole overland journey of two days, 21 hours and 21 minutes, the effort also will mark the centennial of Roald Amundsen’s achievement.

 

For those in search of innovation’s leading edge, it would seem Antarctica remains one of its final frontiers. One hundred years ago, Roald Amundsen realized – and Robert Falcon Scott lost his life to – the poles of innovation. Where Scott pursued his own vision of innovation, Amundsen followed well-modeled best practices as an imperative of smart innovation. In the end, he proved that innovating atop best practices maximizes the strengths of both.

 

For more information on Amundsen see: http://www.visitnorway.com/en/What-to-do/Whats-on/Exhibitions/Nansen-Amundsen-Year-2011/

Or Race to the South Pole

Follow Amundsen’s Daily Log 100 years ago:

http://www.frammuseum.no/Blogs/Roald-Amundsen-s-blog.aspx

Robert F. Brands

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5 Tips to Innovate in 2012

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

Essential elements to get Innovation going

 

As the New Year approaches, it is the perfect time to reexamine the Innovation efforts for your organization. A strategy for sustainable innovation is key to any company’s survival, and if executed successfully, will lead to profitable growth and increased shareholder value.

With a new year and starting with a blank slate, it’s important to set your goals for 2012. What changes would you like to see within your organization? How do you plan on developing the next marketplace showstopper?

Here are some tips that will help guide the Innovation efforts.

  1. If you’re unsure where your company’s current innovation program stands, take the free innovation audit at www.innovationcoach.com/solutions. The short audit gets you thinking about what elements can be bolstered, and the long audit gives a more detailed organization overview.
  2. Define the desired culture. Quantify your goal, whether it’s a sales figure or number of new products you hope to achieve, and this will help justify the resources to be allocated. Endorse a mantra like, “At Least One Innovation per Year.”
  3. Decide how you will recognize and reward successes along the way (and don’t forget to praise failures or learning experiences too!) Motivation is a powerful tool for the savvy innovation champion.
  4. Protect your intellectual property. If your organization doesn’t already have an IP lawyer, it is definitely time to consider appointing one. Intellectual property law protects your company’s most valuable asset – patents. With competitors eager to reverse engineer and copy marketplace innovations, patents are part of an offensive and defensive strategy.
  5. Develop a structured repeatable process, or a standardized guideline for the new product development strategy that examines quality, capability, and capacity for managing projects. Once you’ve clearly defined the stages and tasks for the NPD process, stick to your strategic vision for sustainable Innovation.

Watch 10 Imperatives to Innovate in 2012  :

Robert’s Rules of Innovation give 10 imperatives to create and sustain innovation. They are: Inspire, No Risk No Innovation, New Product Development Process, Ownership, Value Creation, Accountability, Training and Coaching, Idea Management, Observe and Measure, and Net Result Net Reward.

For more tips on how to apply each of the imperatives, see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.”

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Set the Stage for Action: The Innovation Audit

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

As a leader in your organization, you know how important sustainable Innovation is for increasing profit and shareholder value. It is time to take action and begin building that culture of Innovation – especially when there are competitive forces in the picture. Some signs that it may be time for an Innovation Audit

 

  • The percentage of total sales from your new product introductions is stagnant or has slipped.
  • Profitability has softened and/or costs are spiraling.
  • Recent product development programs have stalled.
  • A new competitor has emerged in the marketplace, or an older firm is on the verge of collapse, opening new opportunities you feel ill-equipped to capitalize.

 

With the wolves at the door ready to pounce, you cannot afford to lose your competitive edge. An Innovation Audit will help examine your organization’s strengths and weaknesses – where your company is now and where it can be.

 

The in-depth Innovation Audit provides a detailed examination based on the 10 imperatives of Robert’s Rules of Innovation. The questions are designed to examine the current condition of your organization and address elements that you’ll need to bolster for a successful innovation program. Immediately upon completion, you will see graphical results to give you an idea of how your company fares in the elements like Inspire, Product Development, Risk Taking, Ideation, Reward, etc. Sustainable Innovation takes a holistic approach of all imperatives, if any of the imperatives are weak or missing, success is unlikely.

 

This detailed analysis will help you establish critical benchmarks during your path to sustainable innovation. An accurate snapshot of the current state of your organization is the first step to developing an innovation action plan. The audit process can be an exhilarating and demanding one – but it is absolutely essential and worthwhile to understanding your organization and potential next steps towards improvements and best practices.

 

Take a proactive stance to your innovation strategy. What separates true innovators from stagnators is the continuous improvement of practices and processes. See Robert’s Rules of Innovation for more tips and to view the 10 imperatives for corporate survival.

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The Innovator’s DNA

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Are Innovators born or made? That is the question authors Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton Christensen address in their new book, “The Innovator’s DNA”. Through an eight-year study with data collected from 500 innovators and 5,000 executives in 75 countries including leaders from Amazon, Apple, Google, Skype and Virgin Group, the authors attempt to find the common denominator of what makes an Innovation leader. They unearthed a key finding: that innovation is not just a product of the mind but also of behaviors. Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen found specific patterns of behavior exemplified by top innovators around the world. These five behaviors can be emulated to improve innovative thinking – proving that creativity is not just a genetic predisposition.

The five behaviors that innovators demonstrate are:

  1. Associating: Drawing connections between questions, problems or ideas from unrelated fields. Innovative thinkers can connect ideas that others find unrelated.
  2. Questioning: Posing queries that challenge common wisdom. For innovators, questions that provoke insight typically outnumber answers.
  3. Observing: Scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers and competitors to identify new ways of doing things.
  4. Networking: Meeting people with different ideas and perspectives. Innovators spend time talking to people who may offer radically different points of view.
  5. Experimenting: Constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge. Innovators seek new experiences by visiting new places, trying new things and seeking new information that can trigger ideas later on.

By utilizing the five skills, individuals can act differently in order to think differently – outside the box – to reach those “aha” moments. The study found that while most senior executives excel at delivery or execution skills, they lack in discovery skills. Innovation starts with the people at the top, who need to take the responsibility of achieving Innovation into their own hands. “It doesn’t matter if you have the DNA, Innovation is not easy or for the faint of heart. The CEO is – or should be – the Chief Innovation Officer, who needs to walk the walk and be engaged in the process to serve as a role model for the rest of the organization. Leaders like Steve Jobs say it all,” explains Robert Brands, author of “Robert Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.”

Senior executives of the world’s most innovative companies such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com and A.G. Lafley of Proctor & Gamble spend at least 50% of their time every week thinking of innovative ideas that will generate profits for their companies. The authors conclude that when it comes to creativity, all roads lead back to the individual – because Innovators are made – through active personal endeavors.

“The Innovator’s DNA” is a helpful guide that includes self assessments and practical tips for developing the skills of an Innovator, and addresses the people, processes and philosophies required to sustain that.

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Innovation Failure is a Learning Experience

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Nearly every attempt at success is met with failures along the way, and properly managing those failures can actually benefit the Innovation process. As an Innovation leader, do you celebrate failure and risk-taking in your organization? Doing so will broaden horizons and lead to more valuable ideas towards a culture of sustainable Innovation.

 

Innovation = Creativity x Risk-taking. And more likely than not, the bigger the innovation means the greater the chance of failure. In the pharmaceutical industry, 1 out of 1000 is considered a great success ratio. In the grocery business, the success rate for new product entries is 1 to 100.. Risk-taking will no doubt require failure management. In order to “manage failure,” an Innovation leader needs to define the risk and bandwidth that is OK to team members. Then if we fail, we make it a learning experience and praise people for it.

 

Failure management means never allowing an unsuccessful risk to hamper a team member’s opportunities and advancement. Let your people feel safe to fail, but empower them to do their best work. After all, failure is not what team members should be thinking about during the New Product Development process. Fear of failure can kill Innovation. Especially in a difficult economy where job security is in question, employees want to play it safe and are hesitant to take risks. In this type of environment the most important thing is to establish trust – so team members are willing to take the risks necessary to act, decide and move forward on the path to Innovation. An Innovation champion doesn’t just award successful ideas, but encourages a tolerance for failure and enthusiasm for risk-taking. Without risk, there can be no Innovation.

 

Here are a few tips for encouraging your team members.

1. Profiles in risk. Clearly communicate the risk profile you are asking your people to adopt and state why it is important to the organization’s success.

 

2. Key learnings process. Establish a formalized, non-accusatory process for harvesting key learnings from unsuccessful risks. Distribute these lessons learned.

 

3. Tools of the trade. Give your people the tools they need to help them improve their risk-taking decisions.

 

For more helpful tips, see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.”

 

 

 

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Customer Input Essential to Innovation

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Innovation is not a luxury to be placed on the back burner, but rather the lifeblood of any successful organization. Innovation builds brands, which leads to profitable growth and marketplace success. An important part of attaining that success is through creating value in the minds of customers. An example of a technological breakthrough that gained customer appeal is the Rexam Airspray mechanical foamer. Since the invention of bar soaps in the early 20th century and liquid soaps in the 70’s, nothing else had changed in the market for decades until the foaming hand soap offered customers an efficient, easy to use, drip-free medium: true value in the eyes of consumers.

A deep understanding of your customer needs, and providing ways to fulfill those needs, is ultimately what leads to profitable growth. The most consistent path to creativity is when an innovator gathers customer data and observes problems that need fixing, according to Karen Holtzblatt of InContext Enterprises. WordPerfect was developed when designers asked for input from their primary customers, office secretaries. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar conceived the idea for an online auction house when his wife required a setting to collect and trade PEZ dispensers. Today, eBay gathers customer feedback on a regular basis in order to add new features to the site every year.

It is essential to get customer input and feedback during the New Product Development process. Consider holding ideation sessions with your customers to gain valuable insight. Take into account customer input at numerous stages throughout your NPD process. Some questions to ask your customers include what features and benefits they would like to see, such as product and service ideas, or what they would like a product to do for them to solve any particular issues. Finally, there are entirely new breakthroughs that customers cannot conceive. But once the idea for a product or service is suggested, let customers give input on a radical new concept.

According to “A Little Book of f-Laws” by Russell Ackoff and Herbert Addison, “Consumers can discover what they want in products and services by designing them. It is in design that people find what they want. Furthermore, consumer involvement in product/service design almost always gets creative results.”

The key of it all is to make sure your products and services are not developed and designed in a vacuum, or only as technical solutions, because they rarely succeed. It is all about creating and adding value in a unique solution.

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Patently Obvious – Sept 2011 Update

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

A new law signed by President Obama this month could mean a speedier patent approval process for inventors across the country.

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, regarded as the most sweeping patent law in 60 years, was passed on September 16, 2011. The law awards patents to the first person to submit an application, adopting the first-to-file over the first-to-invent system. The objective is to reduce lawsuits and streamline the patent process. “Somewhere in that stack of applications could be the next technological breakthrough, the next miracle drug, the next idea that will launch the next Fortune 500 Company,” said President Obama at the signing ceremony at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia.

While in the past, the patent process has been burdened with lawsuits that stifle innovation, the America Invents Act aims to streamline the patent process in order to foster innovation that will stimulate the economy and create new jobs as well as keep the U.S. competitive globally.

Glenn Henneberger, Partner at Hoffmann & Baron LLP, advises that under the new law, the party who files first will be granted the rights over subsequent filers regardless of who invented first. This makes it more important to file an application as soon as possible. The first to file provisions go into effect on March 16, 2013.

“You can’t wait to file,” says Henneberger, “From the time an inventor presents his information, it may take a patent attorney two to three months to prepare, review and revise the papers. A provisional application can be filed more quickly to gain an earlier filing date and allows the inventor one year to file the non-provisional application.” The best tip for inventors? File early and definitely file a provisional application.

Other implications of the American Invents Act pertain to changes that will reduce lawsuits. In false marketing lawsuits, private parties must prove damages, which should reduce the number of patent litigations. Business method patents will be looked at more closely to reduce lawsuits as well.

The new act provides a fee reduction for “Micro Entities” – small inventors who have had less than 4 patents to their name and with incomes less than 3 times the median household income.

Finally, the America Invents Act gives third parties an opportunity to participate in the examination process. Third parties may submit information to the patent office that could affect the scope of the patent process.

Thanks to Glenn Henneberger, Partner at Hoffmann & Baron, LLP for his contribution.

http://www.hoffmannbaron.com/ http://www.hbiplaw.com/

Glenn Henneberger is highly experienced in all aspects of intellectual property law with an emphasis on inter partes matters including patent and trademark litigation before the federal and appellate courts as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. He is also experienced in all phases of patent and trademark prosecution before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Practice expertise includes all phases of intellectual property law including litigation, licensing, reexaminations, foreign oppositions, product clearances, opinions, and domestic and foreign patent and trademark prosecution.

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Innovation: You Know You Want It, Now How to Implement It?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

“Successful innovation is turning ideas into money,” as Innovation expert Nic Hunt so distinctly and accurately describes. Innovation is the ability to convert ideas into value for your company, customers and shareholders. Successful innovation is not a one time deal, but a process that delivers sustained, long term profitability. Any company can develop one or two innovations over the course of time, but having a focused vision will deliver sustainable innovation – producing profitable results for your company time and time again.

Implementing innovation depends on a disciplined strategy customized to the needs, size and culture of an organization. First determine what type of innovation you hope to achieve with your organization. Innovation can be incremental, which features a new process or way of doing business, or it can be transformative, which debuts an entirely new way to deliver value. Transformative innovations are few and far in between. These true game changers open up new businesses and markets. Organizations tend to use 80% of their resources on incremental enhancements, according to a 2003 study by the London School of Business. However, be warned that companies that focus entirely on incremental innovations have difficulty keeping up with new competitors that enter the field.

Understanding what your organization needs is very important in the New Product Development process. Know your innovation status and areas for improvement by completing a short audit at www.innovationcoach.com/solutions/short-audit based on Robert’s Rules of Innovations.

Once you solidify the goals of your organization, it’s time to assemble your NPD team and begin the innovation process. Be sure to complete a few relatively easy wins with your team earlier on in the process. This will not only build equity for your  program, but also gain attention from the high-ups in the organization right away.

Each organization must create their own clearly defined stages and steps of the NPD process. Here are some tips and insights for best practices.

  •           Do we go/no go? Set specific criteria for ideas that should be continued or dropped. Stick to the agreed upon criteria so poor projects can be sent back to the idea-hopper early on.
  •          Lean, mean and scalable. During the NPD process, keep the system nimble and use flexible discretion over which activities are executed. You may want to develop multiple versions of your road map scaled to suit different types and risk levels of projects.
  •         The rear-view mirror review. Organizations are doing launch post-mortems, with performance metrics in place, to measure project performance, establish team accountability, and build in improvements for the future. An examination of your last innovation process can gain some valuable key learnings. Foster a culture of continuous improvement in the innovation process.

For more tips and guidelines on developing the right implementation strategy, see  Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.

 

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Should You Reward Bad Ideas?

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Some ideas are crazy. Some are underdeveloped. Some will fail. How can you deal with them without squelching your employees’ creativity?

True or false: There’s no such thing as a bad idea.

Of course bad ideas exist. In retrospect, the AOL-Time Warner merger was not the wisest idea. Neither is photocopying your face. But ask any number of innovation experts and they’ll all give you a different answer. Of course there is such thing as a bad idea. Or:Every idea has its merit. Or: It depends…

Within the context of innovation, how to handle bad ideas is a controversial topic because statistically speaking, most ideas are bad. Ninety-three percent of successful innovations start in the wrong direction and countless more never succeed. “In entrepreneurship, most ideas fail,” explains Roy Rosin, Intuit‘s vice president of innovation. “You either scale the wrong thing or you scale in the wrong direction. And it’s hard to predict.”

With no handy algorithm to identify good ideas, innovative companies have to accept that with every great, useful, idea, there will be many more that fall away. Unused ideas are frequently off-topic, underdeveloped, or poorly timed; however, this doesn’t make them bad. So should you reject these wayward ideas, or should you reward them?

Taken literally, rewarding bad ideas sounds preposterous. In competitive climates, separating the best from the rest motivates future growth. But most entrepreneurs would agree that to foster creativity and collaboration, every voice should be listened to and every idea should be shared. If every unused idea is treated like a bad idea, don’t we run the risk of discouraging future innovation? The following six arguments for and against rewarding so-called bad ideas will help you decide what is best for your company.

Should You Reward Bad Ideas? Yes, Reward Unappealing Ideas.

Chances are, you won’t like every idea brought to the table. But hold your judgment. Successful brainstorms incorporate a diverse group of people collaborating with one another and contributing as much as possible without any arguments, debates or snap decisions on their merit.

“The worst thing you can do as a leader is to be the single determining factor of whether an idea is good or bad,” says innovation coach Robert Brands. ”If they’re good, they become the boss’s idea and if they’re bad, you lose ownership of the operation.”

Instead, Brands suggests a method where everyone (“From the maintenance man to the CEO,” he says. “Everyone!”) develop the parameters new ideas should be measured against. Common parameters include profitability, patent potential, customers service, global impact. And, if an idea doesn’t fit your parameters but your employees are passionate about it, consider rewarding their enthusiasm instead.

Read the complete article on Inc.com:

http://www.inc.com/guides/201108/how-to-reward-bad-ideas.html

 

 

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