Dramatic Breakthrough in Strategic Planning - New and Improved Innovation Blog Site:

Deer Mouse_ John Good -NPS Photo It's been said (by poet Robert Burns) that, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" (since he was a Scot writing in 1785, what he meant was that the plans go often awry). Regardless your language, you may have noticed this pattern yourself when working with innovation teams to put together compelling plans of action. After years of research and number crunching, the results are in on a new technique that results in a dramatic improvement in the effectiveness of strategic planning and goal implementation.

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McKinsey's What Matters: Should social entrepreneurs adopt the language and practices of business?

Nice piece from this months McKinsey's What Matters on a new entrepeneurial class "the Social Entrepreneur". McKinseys'asks the very important question "Should social entrepreneurs adopt the language and practices of business?" What do you think? Add some comments!

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Why Businesses Don't Experiment and How To Fail to Succeed

A few years ago, a marketing team from a major consumer goods company came to my lab eager to test some new pricing mechanisms using principles of behavioral economics. We decided to start by testing the allure of “free,” a subject my students and I had been studying. I was excited: The company would gain insights into its customers’ decision making, and we’d get useful data for our academic work. The team agreed to create multiple websites with different offers and pricing and then observe how each worked out in terms of appeal, orders, and revenue.

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There's More to Innovation Than Good Ideas - BusinessWeek

Chances are, you're already familiar with the concept of the Air Sandwich, if not the term itself. An Air Sandwich is what happens when the leadership within an organization issues orders from 80,000 feet and lobs them down to the folks at 20,000 feet. Without the benefit of feedback, questions, or even a reality check from below, this strategy isn't destined for blazing success. When I witnessed it firsthand, I was working at Autodesk (ADSK), the third-largest software company in the world, where I managed revenues for the Americas region. It started innocently enough. My boss stopped by my office, excited, with big news: The company had decided to introduce six new product lines within the coming 18 months.

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Innovative Thinking in Strategy and Strategic Planning - Harvard Business Review

In 1966, Time magazine published a cover article posing the question, "Is God Dead?" Asked about the possibility, former President Eisenhower reportedly responded, "That's funny. I was just talking with Him this morning." Some of us are beginning to feel the same way about trendy assertions that strategy is dead. You may have read one such proclamation in the Jan. 25 Wall Street Journal. "Strategy, as we knew it, is dead," argued Walt Shill, who leads Accenture's North American consulting practice. An article titled "Strategic Plans Lose Favor" goes on to quote him saying, "Corporate clients decided that increased flexibility and accelerated decision making are much more important than simply predicting the future." If you believe strategy consists of predicting the future, or making plans, please feel free to take a chair next to Mr. Shill in the front row of mourners. On your seat you'll find a copy of Henry Mintzberg's 1994 book, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, which should completely disabuse you of any residual hope you may have held out for the corporate planning process.

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