2025
22 notes published in 2025
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Corporate Innovation Strategy: Why 80% of Projects Fail (And How to Survive)
Let’s be honest about the job title. If you’re “head of innovation”, leading a corporate innovation strategy or a major transformation project, you’ve a target on …
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How to Decide on Strategic Projects: Why ROI Is Not Enough
ROI has become the default decision filter in most organizations. If a project has a strong return on investment, it moves forward. If it doesn’t, …
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My Playbook for Testing with Customers Without Alienating Sales
In many organizations, a quiet tension exists between innovation teams trying to validate ideas with customers and sales teams protecting their pipeline and relationships. Sales’ …
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Stop Betting on Ideas. Start Betting on “Minimum Viable Teams”
Why the most important decision an innovation director makes isn’t what project to fund, but who they choose to build it. As an innovation director, …
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Always be testing with customers (not just kittens)
Was the user story this? As a: kitten owner,; I want to: keep my kitten away from my keyboard,; So that I can: eliminate any future risk of data loss or …
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In innovation, the way we get there matters
In innovation, the outcome isn’t the only thing that matters — the way we get there is just as important. The hard work — uncovering real problems …
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A quick introduction to using AI with Design Thinking
In this clip from a Global Innovation Institute (GInI) webinar, Franck shows how AI can help with the first stage of design thinking: understanding the …
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HiPPO isn’t an evil dictator
The Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO) appears when decisions default to the highest-ranking person’s opinion —regardless of data or expertise. And the …
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User research is wasted empathy
User research should be your compass for innovation. Find hidden hopes and fears; Discover frustrations that make them quit; Reveal the struggles they …
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Agile is just Waterfall in disguise
And it’s killing innovation. The Agile Manifesto aimed to free development from processes and rigidity: Individuals and interactions over processes and …
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Innovation Theater IS Innovation
Hackathons, labs, demos, and communications are often dismissed as empty corporate cosplay —all show and no substance. Companies pretending to innovate …
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Stop wasting millions on innovation
I’ve seen too many corporate innovations fail — not because of a lack of effort or brilliant minds. The real problem? Companies rush to build and push new …
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Companies want innovation but fire the innovators
Companies hire and reward employees that are good at operating the business. This means: Rewarding conformity; Suppressing original thinking; Punishing …
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Having everything is the enemy of innovation
We think innovation needs abundance: budgets, teams, resources. But: When you have everything, you stop questioning.; When you have nothing, you start …
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Innovation starts with courageous leadership
We talk about innovation as a process or a strategy. But at its core, innovation is a leadership decision — and it takes guts. New ideas challenge the …
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Listening to the boss vs. listening to the customer
“Customer-first” is the promise. “Boss-first” is the reality. Here’s what really happens: Too many teams spend their time managing upward instead of …
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Harmony is overrated: innovation thrives on friction
Companies obsess over collaboration, alignment, and harmony, but innovation actually requires conflict and disagreement. Here’s the uncomfortable truth …
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Fail fast, they say, but no one wants to be the one who fails
We’ve glorified failure. “Fail fast, fail forward, fail often.” But here’s a truth no one admits: Most organizations will punish failure. The people who …
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Nobody agrees on what innovation actually means
Ask your executive team, "What should be the role of innovation?" You'll get different answers from everyone. Here's the reality: To Marketing, it's …
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Quand l’IA structure et accélère vos processus d’innovation
Au Lead Innovation Day 2025, j’ai montré les quatre rôles que l’IA peut jouer dans un processus d’innovation (coach, évaluateur, faiseur, synthétiseur), puis une démonstration sur un défi inspiré de Renault.
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Penser AI-First
La rupture de la GenAI redéfinit les interactions homme-machine et transforme la conception des produits. Penser AI-First, c’est aller au-delà d’un simple …
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The more we trust AI, the less we think for ourselves
The study is by Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University, presented at CHI 2025. 319 knowledge workers described 936 real uses of generative AI …
