Thoughts & Insights
What 10 years in corporate innovation taught me
I consider all of you reading this as part of my team, even if I haven’t “officially” met you. For that, I am grateful. Being in such amazing company for the past 10 years has pushed me to grow in every way; constantly experimenting on myself as a prototype. So I...
Selecting the optimal path to net-new revenues
There are multiple paths to Net-New, each with its own pros and cons, and risk and cost profiles. In the middle of the ‘extremes’ of incremental improvement and M&A is Incubation, where you have the most control, influence, and flexibility in regards to costs and...
The 5 Business Model Validation Tricks That Corporations Don’t Know
Here are 5 business model validation tricks, borrowed from startups, that work equally well for scaled enterprises.
Your 1-minute guide to the most impactful innovation model
Venture Studios are creating enhanced impact for clients with this unique model, a full-service entrepreneurship solution in a box.
Savvy Business Building: What to measure, when
When building a new product or service, we often get asked “How will we know if we are successful?” The first step is to re-frame that question to "What’s important to measure when?” We've made the case in the video below and created a downloadable cheat sheet to...
Product Management Flips the Operating Model
Peer Insight recently led a scan of product management capabilities at leading firms. We spoke with product management pros at ten admired companies. The participating firms were Capital One, Humana, USAA, Optum, Vanguard, Gensler, PMI, Hard Yards Consulting, PBS, and...
Your Pre-MVP Checklist
Do you have clarity on what to build, how to build, and what to test, before spending your first development dollar?Getting from opportunities to MVP is like navigating from an open sea of possibilities to picking the "right" stream that leads to the promised land....
Product Managers, Priorities, and Pandemics
Prioritizing product roadmaps in a pandemic: what’s now, next, later? We’ve been thinking about the product managers who are steering pre-commercial products into this head wind. There is a ‘survival’ mode to get through: reacting to external market shifts and...
5 Ways Leaders Are Responding to Covid-19
Over the past month, we've been in touch with several dozen growth leaders at large enterprises. Who better to navigate uncertainty, create rapid prototypes, and make effective pivots? Here is a snapshot of how they are responding to the pandemic. 1. Serve and...
Spotted: A Gap in Support Services for Startups (And a Solution – the Venture Studio!)
Today, there are a number of paths an early venture can go down to augment the skills that reside inside an organization with help from the outside. Of course, a startup can forgo outside help entirely and insource via the talents and capital of the founders alone —...
3 Steps for Aligning Remote Teams to Move Forward Every Day
F:or many of us remote work or teleworking is a brand new reality. Even if we worked from home occasionally, having a full team working remotely is a new challenge to navigate. Some of us are finding out in real time all of the challenges and successes with this new...
Top 5 Missteps of Innovation Labs
A successful corporate innovation lab, incubator, or accelerator depends upon three things: people, people, and people. That’s what I learned by speaking with the heads of innovation labs at 12 Fortune 500 corporations over the course of eight weeks. These market...
A Look Inside Peer Insight’s Virtual Working Sessions
This video tour gives you an inside peek into how we design and execute virtual working sessions at Peer Insight.
The Design Brief: a North Star for Any Project
It’s easy to lose track of the big vision when you’re in the weeds of a project. That’s why it is important to have a Design Brief so it can help ground you and your team as the opportunity you’re tackling gets more wicked. Simply put, your Design Brief is a charter, the North Star, for your project.
How Virtual Research Can Move Your Challenge Forward
As you are figuring out your new normal, you have deadlines from leadership that still must be met. You’re likely trying to decide what to move forward, and how. And if you’re responsible for understanding customer needs to create or improve new products and...
7 Strategies to Accelerate Through Uncertainty
You thought you knew a thing or two about navigating uncertainty; racked up a few wins creating new revenue streams for your company, or new experiences for customers. But now the foundation underneath us has crumbled away. We now have even more uncertainty...in the...
How to Manage and Reduce Your Innovation Risk
In the world of startups and venture investing, understanding and weighing risk is core to assessing any opportunity. For corporate innovation, assessing risk is just as crucial, if not more so, given the attachment to a going concern. Innovation initiatives need to...
The Pinocchio Problem: Why Your Product Wishes It Could Be a Service
Pinocchio was a wooden puppet, carved by the shoemaker Geppeto, who wished he could be a boy. In the same way, your tangible product wishes it could be a service. Why? Being consumed as a service makes your product more than a collection of atoms. It becomes the...
