Recently, I attended an innovation workshop hosted by KPMG and Sopheon and it featured speakers from Fortune 500 consumer goods companies. As the workshop moved from this speaker to an interactive panel, the conversation flowed around the common innovation challenges felt by attendees, across a... Read More

The caliber of presentations for the recent Product Camp Minnesota remained second to none. The turnout was smaller than in past years which meant more one-on-one opportunities for attendees. The keynote speaker was Tom Evans from Compelling PM. He discussed the popular topic of “ All the... Read More

The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama recently held its Innovation and Technology Day. This annual event promotes innovation in unique and effective ways. Read More

I am often asked “What is the right organization model to facilitate product innovation?” In fact, there is no single structure or program management office (PMO) model that is right for all. There are, however, certain commonly deployed organizational structures used for innovation and reviewing... Read More

For the better part of eight years, I worked at the Science Museum of Minnesota's Omnitheater and enjoyed every minute of it! One of the early films I watched likely hundreds of times was Blue Planet, a film that was recorded in cooperation with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).... Read More

Recently, I was considering the idea of creating teams within your ideation process that use competition as an incentive for creating ideas that convert to development projects. Recent research states that “43% of respondents said that they have converted fewer than 20% of ideas to development... Read More

I recently attended InnoCos, an event focused on innovation in cosmetics and personal care, where a number of professionals from across the industry spoke about their product development and marketing innovation initiatives. Speakers varied significantly in company size and product portfolio, which... Read More

Strategic planning was once the province of elite groups meeting annually to create budgets and forecasts which were often locked away in secret. Consequently, there was little liaison between the marketing teams and product and technology managers. They worked in silos with little understanding of... Read More

In my last post, I discussed the history of PDM and PLM up to the present. In this post, I discuss the great opportunities that await most large organizations that chose to take up the business value optimization challenge. Read More

In my first post, I introduced the idea of BIGs or Breakthrough Innovation Groups. They are defined as having three specific characteristics: Read More