By the third day of SmartOrg’s annual Community of Practice for executives in Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), one of the participants had an epiphany: “I used to think that SPM was just project roll-ups for reporting and make some incremental choices, but now I see that it’s a way to drive our organization towards achieving big growth goals.”

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Innovation is important. The problem is it isn’t very effective.

At a recent event, my colleague, Ralph Morales III, polled the audience on the importance and effectiveness of innovation, and a paradox emerged: innovation is important but ineffective.

8 min read

A leader in innovation, HP recognized the need to develop radically new ideas and manage the tremendous uncertainty surrounding moving into new businesses.

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The game has changed.

Among the many things disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic is your organization’s long-range plan. Those carefully negotiated assumptions that informed your projections of growth and guided your innovation and R&D budgets have been exposed as the comforting fictions we always knew they were

3 min read

We all know COVID-19 is disrupting everything, including innovation-driven growth. What should we as members of the innovation community be prepared for? What can we do to keep innovation alive or maybe even help it thrive in these surreal times?

5 min read

In February’s ValuePoint, I discussed the importance of articulating the evidence of value in the innovation process. Last month I continued the story with the need to prioritize the value of evidence, to prioritize innovation activities to “buy down ignorance” in service of decreasing opportunity risk.

6 min read

After my stint as the finance director for HP’s effort to enter the on-demand photo printing market, I transitioned into the role of Innovation Scout for HP’s foray into consumer wearables.

7 min read