Build a Design Thinking Culture that Creates World-Class Innovations

In order to be a top brand, companies need to build a Design Thinking culture that supports world-class innovation. Many organizations are focused on operational efficiency that does not have room for the design-thinking’s explorative and iterative process where mistakes must be made for innovation to occur. According to a recent article in HBR, How … Read more

People over Process and Tools

The first line of the Agile Manifesto is “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.” My interpretation – and my experience – of this, is that no matter how great your process and tools, it is people and their interactions that is the success of any organization. In his book, What the CEO Wants You … Read more

Three Keys to Innovation Leadership

Harvard Business School’s Linda Hill, co-author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation, and TED Speaker, with her team conducted extensive research and concluded there are pronounced differences between the qualities associated with traditional business leadership and those required to sustain a culture of innovation. “The most effective leaders will lead from … Read more

The GE–McKinsey Nine-Box Matrix

Large organizations with multiple business units need a way to determine where to invest across all the units. The GE–McKinsey Nine-Box Matrix is a method for deciding how to share capital across multiple units by assessing each unit’s market position and profitability. This model looks at two factors: Market attractiveness and Business strength: Market Attractiveness is … Read more

How Many People Are On Your Core Product Team?

For the last four years, Actuation Consulting, has been conducting market research on what makes  product teams successful. I had the privilege of helping with the most recent study and they found that: Companies with less than $50 M in annualized revenues have between one to nine core team members. (42% of organizations have between … Read more

Sales, Service and Product Attract, Retain and Grow Customers with Personas and Journey Maps

Sales job is to find and acquire new customers. Services job is to retain and grow the current clients. Product needs to support both theses objectives. The product needs to provide features that new customers are looking for and features that retain and grow the current client base. In most cases, features that retain and … Read more

Leading Innovation

Innovation is a process of discovery according to Leading Your Team into the Unknown, HBR.org. The accomplished innovation leader: Works more by example than by dictate Asks questions rather than make decisions Clears a path to the unknown for the innovation team rather than identifying the end goal Gives people the right kind of time, … Read more

The Role of Information Technology in the Digital Customer Experience Revolution

Information Technology (IT) refers to anything related to computing technology, such as your computer network, hardware and software that connect you to the Internet, and the people that work with these technologies. Many organizations have an IT person or department depending on their needs. As we are at the intersection of the Information Age and … Read more

Data to Delight in the Age of the Customer

We are in the Experience Economy that Pine and Gilmore predicted – a customer-centric marketplace that Forrester calls the Age of the Customer where: “A customer obsessed company focuses its strategy, its energy, and its budget on processes that enhance knowledge of an engagement with customers, and prioritizes these over maintaining traditional competitive barriers.” We … Read more