Retrospectives

Retrospectives are meetings where teams reflect on a specific period’s events, discussing what worked well, and what could be improved.

More Innovation Glossaries

Hype Cycle

The Hype Cycle is a graphical depiction of a common pattern that arises with each new technology or innovation's life cycle.

Triple Helix Model

Triple Helix Model

The Triple Helix Model is an organizational model that suggests collaboration between three types of stakeholders - government, industry, and academia - is essential for successful innovation.

Innovation Tools

Innovation tools are methods and resources designed to foster creativity and facilitate the generation and implementation of new ideas.

Top Retrospectives Resources

Business Storytelling Training Workshop - Innovation Training | Design

Business Storytelling Training Workshop - Innovation Training | Design

Storytelling has become a powerful leadership and innovation tool. Business storytelling training workshops can help develop communication skills and connect with others on an emotional level.

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Chasing Cool Ideas vs. Solving Consumer Needs - By Woody Bendle

Chasing Cool Ideas vs. Solving Consumer Needs - By Woody Bendle

Innovation is about solving customer needs, not just chasing cool ideas. Thomas Edison's focus on creating things people want, need, and are willing to buy is still relevant today, as over 60% of new-product development efforts fail to reach the market.

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Creative Inspirations from the Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business 2012

Creative Inspirations from the Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business 2012

Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business 2012 list features people who apply creativity globally, and we've distilled the list into 100 creative inspirations, ideas, lessons, and tips.

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End of Year Reviews: Why They’re So Important

End of Year Reviews: Why They’re So Important

End of year reviews can produce fear and anxiety in both employees and managers. Here are some tips on how to conduct an effective and objective review.

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Faux Innovation and Other Discontents

Faux Innovation and Other Discontents

Three Global 50 companies shared a common theme of frustration with their innovation efforts due to a lack of implementation and urgency. The author shares three reasons for this.

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Flow = Joy

Flow = Joy

During the pandemic, a team experimenting with remote work stumbled upon a way to achieve "flow" which led to more joy and sustainable pace in their work.

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Four essential elements for building trust within your team

Four essential elements for building trust within your team

Trust is essential in enterprise project teams for success. Collaborate, communicate, and lead by example, while promoting fairness for effective teams.

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Freedom to Fail, Freedom to Innovate

Freedom to Fail, Freedom to Innovate

Innovation requires high tolerance for failure. Academic research suggests policies that incentivize employees to take risks and limit negative consequences of failure leads to increased commitment.

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Innovate on Purpose: The Incremental Innovation trap

Innovate on Purpose: The Incremental Innovation trap

Innovators often fall into the trap of focusing solely on incremental innovation, improving existing products and services, and overlook other forms of innovation that offer higher risk and return.

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Innovation Dilemmas

Innovation Dilemmas

Innovation creates dilemmas in business, which must be managed over time. Recognizing the difference between dilemmas and problems is key to managing and balancing these tensions.

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Innovator, Fast Follower or Me Too

Innovator, Fast Follower or Me Too

Microsoft's Zune is a me too player in the MP-3 market, revealing the importance of choosing between being an innovator, a fast follower or a me too player for business strategy.

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Inside the Mind of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

Inside the Mind of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote a letter to shareholders sharing insights on maintaining a Day 1 mindset, the importance of customer obsession, making high-quality decisions quickly, embracing external trends, and avoiding the status quo.

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Intrapreneurship in Action: BASF, Deutsche Bahn and BNP Paribas

Intrapreneurship in Action: BASF, Deutsche Bahn and BNP Paribas

Learn how BASF, Deutsche Bahn and BNP Paribas are driving innovation through intrapreneurship.

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Kissing Frogs and Picking Horses

Kissing Frogs and Picking Horses

Innovation culture can be created in various ways, but it's essential to recognize the constraints that larger, established businesses have while approaching innovation.

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Lean Coffee Format for Virtual Teams

Lean Coffee Format for Virtual Teams

Lean Coffee is a structured, agenda-less meeting format for group discussions, brainstorming, planning, and retrospectives that can be easily adapted for virtual teams.

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Learning to Communicate With Difficult Co-Workers

Learning to Communicate With Difficult Co-Workers

Learn how to communicate with difficult co-workers by changing your mindset, evaluating your own reactions, and approaching the situation in a private and non-confrontational way.

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Lessons from Pixar and Disney: Creativity is a Team Sport [book review]

Lessons from Pixar and Disney: Creativity is a Team Sport [book review]

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull provides strategies to overcome unseen forces that hinder innovation, as creativity requires convergence and divergence, is confusing and needs a collaborative and patient environment.

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Liberating Structures Training and Templates

Liberating Structures Training and Templates

Liberating Structures offers an innovative approach to meetings that involves a larger number of people to boost inclusion, participation, clarity, and purpose. This blog post shares a few templates to get started with Liberating Structures.

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Making the Most of Your Resources With Task Unification

Making the Most of Your Resources With Task Unification

Theater director John Doyle found an innovative way to produce crowd-pleasing musicals on a tiny budget that earned him a Tony award.

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Mapping innovation across the three horizons

Mapping innovation across the three horizons

The three horizon methodology can significantly improve innovation contribution for various organizations by applying different mindsets to evolutionary thinking while mapping out future disruptions.

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No HR, No Bureaucracy: Activating 100% Intrapreneurship

No HR, No Bureaucracy: Activating 100% Intrapreneurship

Intrapreneurship requires a tolerance for risk and a willingness to innovate. It's important to balance classic management styles with entrepreneurial skills for success.

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Orange Socks: 10 Things People Learn When They Ask about Them

Orange Socks: 10 Things People Learn When They Ask about Them

The author shares the story behind his affection for the color orange and how it has become a way to spark conversations and interactions.

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Radical Innovation: Definition, Differences, and Examples

Radical Innovation: Definition, Differences, and Examples

Radical innovation combines the power of technology with a new business model and can transform industries.

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Rewards for Remote Employees

Rewards for Remote Employees

Remote employees need recognition and rewards, especially during the lead-up to Christmas. Here are six ways to engage and reward remote employees.

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Scientific Management, Taylorism and how employees are prevented from innovating

Scientific Management, Taylorism and how employees are prevented from innovating

Scientific Management or Taylorism is a management theory that prioritizes efficiency by removing unnecessary steps in a process. However, it can hinder innovation and autonomy of employees.

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The Greenhouse Approach: Flourishing Organizations Through Intrapreneurship

The Greenhouse Approach: Flourishing Organizations Through Intrapreneurship

Chitra Anand's new book, The Greenhouse Approach: Cultivating Intrapreneurship in Companies and Organizations, challenges current thinking that inhibits true innovation by re-imagining corporations.

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The More, The Merrier? Teaming Up For Innovation

The More, The Merrier? Teaming Up For Innovation

Learn how innovative teams at Medifast, ING, and Vueling Airlines used habits, the PACE methodology, reframing, and a rebellious mindset to drive innovation.

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An image of a semi-transparent lock encircled by a glowing aura.

The Transparency Trap

Transparency can make us better people and organizations. However, when it comes to businesses, too much transparency can lead to the transparency trap. Learning to be publicly vulnerable, proactively rather than reactively, can be a smart move to overcome this.

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An image of a vibrant origami paper boat navigating wavy abstract lines.

Top Five Challenges When Pitching a New Idea

Pitching a new idea can be challenging. This article summarizes the top five challenges when pitching an idea and provides solutions to overcome them.

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An image of a maze with a path evolving into a straight arrow.

What if innovation was the norm?

What if we made innovation the norm in business instead of the exception? A truly innovative firm would prioritize understanding customer needs, experimentation, and constantly renewing itself.

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An image of gears aligned progressively larger, symbolizing continual improvement.

What is Incremental Innovation

Incremental innovation refers to gradual improvements in existing products, services and concepts based on customer feedback. Its importance lies in steady development and growth.

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What kind of innovator are you?

What kind of innovator are you?

Innovation management can be simplified by using metaphors, like the Matador, to explain the importance of examining ideas that threaten the status quo.

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An image of gears merging into digital circuit patterns, symbolizing streamlining processes.

Where to innovate - Process Innovation explained

Process innovation involves the implementation of a new or improved method for production or delivery, resulting in cost reduction, increased efficiency, and better product quality.

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Who Are the Top 100 People Who Personally Define You?

Who Are the Top 100 People Who Personally Define You?

Creating a personal list of the top 100 individuals who have defined your life can lead to personal reflection and gratitude.

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An image of a trophy surrounded by stars and glowing light.

Why You Should Say “Thank You” to Your Team

Expressing gratitude and appreciation in the workplace has been proven to improve employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.

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An image of a lightbulb surrounded by wilting flower petals, implying fading innovation.

Why Your Best Innovators Leave Your Company – at the Worst Possible Moment

The reasons why innovative employees leave a company at the worst possible moment are examined in this article, along with some solutions to help keep them.

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Your Business Relationship With the Veteran Community

Your Business Relationship With the Veteran Community

Entrepreneurs can contribute to the veteran community by offering employment and support. Recognition and employment are key ways to create inclusiveness for veterans.

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Meaningful: The Story of Ideas That Fly Kindle Edition

Meaningful: The Story of Ideas That Fly Kindle Edition

Our ideas fly when we show others their wings. Jiwa explains a whole new way to innovate and change the world.

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