A long time ago as I was just beginning my career, I took a project management course at IBM. They were very adamant in explaining that project management was not a Gantt chart or a PERT chart. While the name of the project management software application being used within IBM at the time escapes... Read More

This is a follow-on post to a previous article titled “ Is Marketing Innovation Part of Your NPD Innovation?” about inclusion of marketing innovations as part of new product development (NPD) initiatives. The Forrester Research survey that prompted the article had me thinking further about the... Read More

As mentioned in an previous post, earlier this month I joined 99 other space enthusiasts to visit NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and is managed by the California Institute of Technology... Read More

Recently, I attended the Prepared Foods' New Products Conference, which kicked off with the founders of Kashi®, Philip and Gayle Tauber, sharing their inspiring story of creating a brand rooted in their personal passion for body building and nutrition. Read More

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