Clarifying Design in Business Sciences: a Design Thinking Taxonomy

This article is an extended book review of The Quest for Professionalism of George Romme, a 2016-published book by Oxford University Press. The book is a one-of-a-kind taking a much needed reflective approach to leadership and a critical note towards the level of professionalism that many of us are approaching the science of management and entrepreneurship with. His work is exceptional, because it integrates major scientific perspectives on management from a holistic point-of-view without getting too descriptive. The book chooses a slightly philosophical approach without getting too abstract. The book takes a slightly life-work approach without giving too much self-credit.

So what’s it about? It’s about the way we think of design – in its broadest sense: organization design, strategic design, theory design, business model design, and product design – in business sciences. So why is it good? It shapes clarity in the field of design thinking, because many of us seem to think nowadays that design thinking equals a hipster approach by emphatizing with customers in order to innovate more rapidly. But that is, as this book describes perfectly, not the case at all: design thinking simply equals business science. I’ll explain why.

Design Thinking in Business Sciences

Over the last couple of years, there has been a significant increase in the use of the term ‘Design Thinking’ in the context of management and entrepreneurship. However, the impact of design thinking in business sciences originates from Herbert Simon’s work ‘the Sciences of the Artificial’ for which he has won the Nobel Prize in 1978 – the only Nobel Prize ever awarded to a social scientist. His work focused on the dual approach of management problems: a more fundamental approach, drafting from scientific insights and solving problems ‘top-down’ and more practical approach, reflecting on real creations and validating learnings from them in science, a more design-oriented approach. Romme argues in his work that amongst others also Schon, Krippendorff and Rousseau were bridging the gap between design thinking and management. More recently, many authors have linked ‘organizational learning’ – and thus innovation – with the concept of ‘bounded rationality’- a result of Simon’s dual approach. In other words: design thinking is a necessary approach in order to come to innovation. Or better even: there is no other science in which design thinking is more appropriate than in innovation, for as in innovation sciences the explication of knowledge will always be bounded by human intentionality, environmental continency and therefore asks for a dual approach of discovering and validating. This mechanism happens at all levels, for every type of (research) question one could think of.

Design Thinking Taxonomy

This so-called science-based design approach can be visualized – showing that it can be argued that solving any particular (innovation) problem in business sciences could follow a deliberate approach (roughly the red arrow) and/or an emergent approach (roughly the blue arrow):

.

Actually, Romme has provided the reader with a long list of research methods/activities that could be followed when dealing with a particular innovation problem. Specific problems ask for (a combination of) specific methods, all within the science-based design method (Romme & Endenburg, 2006):

Romme, in his work, explains that by plotting the research methods on the design thinking ontology, would create a 3D-version of his model. Romme, however, doesn’t plot this 3D-model because it would become visually complex. I saw that as a challenge and have a created a 3D-model, which I coin the Design Thinking Taxonomy.

    For whom?

    This book is, IMHO, a must-read for everyone involved in business sciences: lecturers, curriculum designers, professors, trainers. I’m quite sure that business science will evolve from its current, usually very conservative, scientific approach, into design-centered programs that are in turn increasing the level of professionalism in management and entrepreneurship.

    11 Paradoxes of Entrepreneurial Thinking: why entrepreneurship can hardly be taught

    Introduction

    Entrepreneurial thinking is described as one of the most relevant skills for the 21st-century workforce (Bacigalupo, Kampylis, Punie, & Brande, 2016). And for that reason it has become an integral criteria in many prescriptive regulations for (higher) education and in increasing numbers also explicitly and implicitly part of curricula (Saavedra & Opfer, 2012). As opposed to entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial thinking is not necessarily bound to entrepreneurs (to be); it is an essential skill for ‘strengthening human capital, employability and competitiveness’ (Bacigalupo et al., 2016).

    This white paper has been originally published to the SSRN: Spruijt, Jan, Paradoxes of Entrepreneurial Thinking: Why Entrepreneurship Can Hardly Be Taught (May 17, 2017).

    Entrepreneurship

    However, the definition of ‘entrepreneurial thinking’ – and the different skills and competences that are related with it – is not obvious. Entrepreneurship has seen a theoretical divide that has existed since the Schumpeter vs. Kirzner debate started. Whereas Schumpeter describes an entrepreneur as disequilibrative – destroying the pre-existing stage of the equilibrium ((Kirzner, 1999) – Kirzner chooses to describe the role of the entrepreneur as more equilibrative – entrepreneurs systematically displace disruptive conditions in order to create stabilized market conditions (Kirzner, 1999). These two extremes – and everything in between – have been topic of discussion ever since. In essence it is nowadays recognized as the difference between creativity (Schumpetarian) and alertness (Kirzner) – creation versus discovering.

     

     This article was written by Jan Spruijt. Jan Spruijt is an expert in Innovation Sciences. He designs business simulations, academic programs, masterclasses, courses, keynotes and learning material in the field of strategic design, organization design and (open) innovation. Connect with Jan at jan@openinnovatie.nl for opportunities.

     

    From that perspective alertness is the discovery of hitherto overlooked current facts and the entrepreneur’s perception of the way in which those discoveries could shape the future market conditions (Kirzner, 1999) and creativity could best be described as the way entrepreneurs deal with radical uncertainty by building upon their qualities of boldness, innovativeness and creativity (Kirzner, 1999). In the Schumpetarian view, opportunities arise from the internal willingness to change the industry. The entrepreneur is an innovator and disturbs the economy (De Jong & Marsili, 2010; Schumpeter, 1934). In the Kirznerian view, opportunities are already existing and be discovered by opportunity-alert entrepreneurs. Research has shown that innovation is mostly linked to the Schumpetarian view: innovative companies are more likely to be started by Schumpetarian-type founders (Samuelsson & Davidsson, 2009), are more likely to be started by engineering students (Ilozor et al., 2006) and are more likely to be created by making new and unique combinations (S. A. Shane, 2003). In contrary, the Kirznerian view is more linked to an economic perspective: are entrepreneurs able to see where a good can be sold at a better price higher than that for which it can be bought (Busenitz, 1996).

    When taking into account a wider definition of entrepreneurship, a more organizational perspective on the matter has described the same divide as causation versus effectuation. Whereas causation is more oriented at a managerial, Kirznerian, perspective on entrepreneurship, effectuation is oriented at a more experimenting, Schumpeterian, perspective on entrepreneurship (De Jong & Marsili, 2010). Many scholars have researched the impact of causation and effectuation on entrepreneurial outcomes. Generally, it can be concluded that entrepreneurship – in the meaning of creating new ventures – a right balance has to be found between the both extremes. Enterpreneurship is about finding the right mix between both causation and effectuation (Reymen et al., 2015). And a successful entrepreneur knows when to act causational and when to act effectuative. When to be creative, when to be managerial. They have researched the number of explicit decisions in new venture creation regarding both perspectives and created the following figure:

    Figure 1: Percentage of effectuation and causation dimensions (Reymen et al., 2015).

    Another study has indeed proven that specifically within SMEs, entrepreneurs use both causation and effectuation at the same time (Berends, Jelinek, Reymen, & Stultiëns, 2014). Quantitative studies show that entrepreneurs use effectuation logic in their early stages, which increasingly turned towards causation over time. Qualitative analysis shows that entrepreneurs actually use both logic at the same time, in contrast to the way larger organizations deal with innovation (in a more structured way). Therefore, entrepreneurs should not learn from large corporations’ best cases on (innovation) management, but learn entrepreneurial thinking in a more Schumpeterian way.

    Entrepreneurial thinking

    That brings us to entrepreneurial thinking. Entrepreneurial thinking is described as having an entrepreneurial expert mindset (Krueger, 2007). The difference between entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking lies in the fact that entrepreneurship is about actions and intentions and entrepreneurial thinking is about attitude and beliefs. This is best described by Krueger: “Behind entrepreneurial action are entrepreneurial intentions. Behind entrepreneurial intentions are known entrepreneurial attitudes. Behind entrepreneurial attitudes are deep cognitive structures. Behind deep cognitive structures are deep beliefs.” (Krueger, 2007).

    Simple logic leads to the fact that entrepreneurial thinking is more common than entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial thinking focuses on the deep beliefs that lead to behavior that is positively related to entrepreneurial outcome. Based on the same logic as mentioned above, entrepreneurial thinking is prone to both causational thinking and effectuation-based thinking (Krueger, 2007). From a more psychological perspective, the same difference is described as a growth mindset (effectuation) versus a fixed mindset (causation) (Dweck, 2012). Dweck argues that – and that is specifically relevant for early stage entrepreneurs – a gowth mindset makes them more likely to embrace challenges, learn from criticism and dealing with setbacks.

    Corporate entrepreneurship

    Corporate entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship, are direct effects of entrepreneurial thinking applied to organizations, and then more specifically organizational culture. Questions that come to mind when talking about corporate entrepreneurship are: are there resources available to explore new ideas? Are managers prepared to allow experimentation? Does the organization encourage risk-taking? Do they tolerate mistakes? Is it easy to create autonomous team and projects? Critical elements for an entrepreneurial climate are both causational (goals, rewards) and effectuation-based (feedback, reinforcement, trust) and are built upon stimulating entrepreneurial thinking in the organization (Kuratko, Hornsby, Naffziger, & Montagno, 1993).

    Corporate entrepreneurship has been widely studied because it is believed that it directly leads to innovation and an organization is not able to sustain competiveness over time without renewal or regeneration (Covin, Green, & Slevin, 2006; Damanpour & Gopalakrishnan, 2001; S. Shane, Venkataraman, & MacMillan, 1995; Venkataraman, 2014). Current research focuses mainly on the creation of internal processes, innovation adoption, governance, and the knowledge, skills and attitudes of individuals (A. Corbett, Covin, O’Connor, & Tucci, 2013).

    Entrepreneurship Competence

    Because of the above-sketched complexity that arouses out of the ambidextrous nature of entrepreneurship, teaching entrepreneurship has always been prone to different views and methods. Most literature however, indeed suggests that teaching entrepreneurship is about dealing with paradoxical situations, such as uncertainty. From an educational point of view it is therefore more obsolete to teach entrepreneurship through the determinants of entrepreneurship – in education often called the entrpreneurship competence. That term is in itself a very complex one and continuously under debate. Lans et al. (2008) have written an excellent paper on the discussion of what entrepreneurship competence actually. Generally, an entrepreneurship competence includes the knowledge, skills and attitude (Fiet, 2001). In education, two approaches are currently used: a more ‘bolt on’ approach, where the entrepreneurship competence is seen as a fixed way of thinking about entrepreneurial competencies, and more ‘interpretive/integrative’ approach, where the entrepreneurship competence rather is seen as a context-dependent set of skills and attitude (Lans et al., 2008). Especially the latter follows the direction of this paper. From that perspective personality traits are seen as conditions for entrepreneurship, but not as learnable. The ‘learned entrepreneurship competence’ is a competence not acquired at birth, but through education, training or experience (Bird, 1995; Lans et al., 2008). According to Bird (1995) there is no use in developing a model for entrepreneurship competencies without considering that these competencies should be learnable.

    Can entrepreneurship be taught at all? There is a difference between teaching entrepreneurship and teaching about entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship competence is about teaching entrepreneurship and if that’s possible at all has been part of many studies. Hindle (2007) argues that, depending on what we see as a result, it can be taught if we define the result as ‘the entrepreneurship exists’ after she ‘underwent a process of education that contributed to the nature of her current existential state.’

    A recent publication of the European Commission has used this view on entrepreneurship competence to define a framework for education. Although one of many different views, it takes an interesting in approach in the fact that it tries to ‘bridge the world of education and work’. The framework defines three main competence areas: ‘ideas and opportunities’, ‘resources’ and ‘into action’ – and another fifteen competences (Bacigalupo et al., 2016). The framework however, has not been validated yet. A framework that has been validated is the FINCODA-framework. Although a bit more focused on innovation skills, it validated five key competences for innovation and entrepreneurship: creativity, critical thinking, initiative, teamwork and networking (Marin-Garcia et al., 2016).

    Figure 2: EntreComp Framework (Bacigalupo et al., 2016 figure 2, p. 11)

    Teaching Entrepreneurship

    Even when knowing which competences should be taught in order to increase entrepreneurial success in a complex and paradoxical-setting, one could wonder how to teach these competences, from a more didactical point of view. Neck et al. (2014) argue that the ‘effective doing of entrepreneurship requires a set of practices and these practices are firmly grounded in theory’. They call this actionable theory learning, as depicted in the following matrix (A. C. Corbett & Katz, 2012; Neck & Greene, 2011):

    The authors argue that are five different practices of educating entrepreneurship:

    • Practice of play: ‘the skill of play frees the imagination, opens up our minds to a wealth of opportunities and possibilities, and helps us to be more innovative as entrepreneurs’ (Neck, Neck, & Murray, 2017). Play includes the used of simulation games that challenge to think like an entrepreneur.
    • Practice of Experimentation: ‘the skill of play is best described as acting in order to learn – trying to something, learning from the attempt and building that learning into the next iteration’ (Neck et al., 2017).
    • Practice of Empathy: can be taught using creative research methods.
    • Practice of Creativity: can be taught using creative techniques and methods such as design thinking (Neck et al., 2017)
    • Practice of Reflection: can taught by using different ways of reflection in class, such as narrative reflection, emotional reflection, analytics reflection and critical reflection. Although its benefits have been supported widely, reflection is not brought into practice at all (Neck et al., 2017).

    Figure 3: The theory-practise matrix (Neck et al., 2014).
    Figure 4. The practices of entrepreneurship education (Neck et al., 2014).

    Missing Literature

    Many educational programs follow the golden rule of first defining competences and its body of knowledge, skills and attitudes which then lead to curriculum, teaching and learning objectives that can be assessed, examined and form the foundation for learning material (Biggs, 1996; Brown, 1995). These objectives are an essential part of education. They are more specific than competencies, but less specific than (grading) criteria. Although the latter are widely covered in literature (Bacigalupo et al., 2016), specific objectives that take into account the ambidextrous nature of entrepreneurship are not. While it could be relatively easy to formulate learning objectives for the five competences of the FINCODA model – something like ‘Upon successful completion of this course the student is able to understand and paradoxical nature of dealing with taking initiative in the context of entrepreneurship in order to prepare him/her for effective decision-making as an entrepreneur.’ – these learning objectives are to broad and don’t take into account the actual body of knowledge and skills needed as an entrepreneur. A true set of learning objectives for dealing with ambidextrous entrepreneurship is not yet out there and it is the purpose of this paper to create one.
    The fact that the most relevant competence for entrepreneurship – which is, as was argued before, ambiguity, or to say more specifically learning how to deal with or to tolerate ambiguity – has not been integrated in the present-day competency frameworks is not so strange. Teaching ambiguity is widely recognized as one of the most difficult competences for a teacher himself (Chang, Yang, Martin, Chi, & Tsai-Lin, 2016). It is however, as the subtitle of this article suggested, never as satisfying as you want it to be. Dealing with ambiguity, causation and effectuation, is like trying to solve an unsolvable equation. Or as Ludwig van Mises wrote:

    “entrepreneurs defy any rules and systematization. [Entrepreneurship] can be neither taught nor learned.” (Klein & Bullock, 2006; Lewin, 2011; Von Mises, 1949)

    More recent literature however suggest that it can be learnt, but it still cannot be taught:

    “Some business professors dream of finding a grand algorithm that will allow them to guide entrepreneurial decisions and to judge in advance which decisions are good and which bad. [This has been revealed to be] a form of magical thinking. We need entrepreneurs to make their decisions for themselves precisely because it is impossible for us to make those decisions for them.” (Koppl, 2008; Lewin, 2011)

    The paradoxes depicted below are merely a single-minded and largely invalidated solution to the unsolvable equation.

    Paradoxes of Entrepreneurial Thinking

    Based on conclusions from the literature study above, I will now propose a set of teaching objectives that are constructed in such a way that they deal with the dilemma that arose in the Kirznerian and Schumpetarian literature on entrepreneurship and following the line of practices as proposed by Neck at al (Neck et al., 2014).

    #1: The Uncertainty Paradox

    This paradox was framed by Peter Lewin (Lewin, 2011) in a refreshing article named Entrepreneurial Paradoxes as followed: “entrepreneurial opportunities are complicated by uncertainty but would not exist without uncertainty.”

    #2: The Strategic Paradox

    This specific paradox is closely related to the before-mentioned literature on organizational ambidexterity, which deals with the difficulty of exploration and exploitation: for a long-term sustainable business model an entrepreneur would need to focus on exploration but that his company would not be able to sustain itself without a short-term exploitative strategy. This is also referred to as the choice between pivoting or persevering (Ries, 2011).

    #3: The Opportunity Paradox

    This is a complicated paradox, but basically it described the fundamental way entrepreneurs see and recognize opportunities. On the one hand, opportunities may exist and be discovered – as was depicted earlier in the article – but on the other hand it could be claimed that opportunities are created and exploited. This paradox is questionable however, because one could wonder if an opportunity created by a specific entrepreneur was not actually an existing opportunity missed by anyone else (Lewin, 2011).

    #4: The Experience Paradox

    This one is rather simple to understand: an entrepreneur never could have enough experience to always make wise decisions in hindsight. The paradox causes, for instance, also the not-invented-here syndrome. An entrepreneur would rather base its decisions on prior experience which does not completely reflect the current situation.

    #5: The Momentum Paradox

    When confronted with a more complex decision, often arises the dilemma if I do it now, will it be too soon for the market, or if I wait will it be too late for my business? Choosing the right time for the right decision is often paradoxical, because an entrepreneur will be too early, if no one else was too early, will be right on time when somebody was too early and will be too late if everyone else was earlier.

    #6: The Generalization Paradox

    Crazy enough, there is more literature suggesting that an entrepreneur is characterized by the fact that his personality traits are unique to anyone else, thus making a general set of competences, skills or behaviourial actions impossible to depict. Or as Lewin says it: “The elements of the category “entrepreneur” are all unique individuals whose characteristics (almost) defy generalization.” (Lewin, 2011). An entrepreneur should therefore always wonder if he should learn from the best practices of other entrepreneurs, or that he should learn from other entrepreneurs in a way that purposely does not want to copy their best practices.

    #7: The Decision-making Paradox

    The simple restriction of limited time, limited budget forms the backbone of almost each decision made in business. With limited budget in mind, would it be wise to spread your money over a longer time (a lower burn rate) or over more different strategic directions (exploration) – but then does limited time not ask for quicker spendings?

    #8: The Impact Paradox

    Sharp (2010) has found that there is strong paradox in (entrepreneurial) leadership when it comes to innovation at the personal level of the entrepreneur. He depicts that only 99% of all leaders are unable to demonstrate both humility and will at the same time, thus creating a paradox (Collins, 2001; Sharp, 2010). In a way this could be related to the much more discussed paradox: social impact versus economic impact. Most entrepreneurs have to struggle continuously between trying to create social impact with their business or trying to have economic impact with their business.

    #9: The Risk-taking Paradox

    Risk is one of the most-researched elements of entrepreneurship. Many scholars come to the conclusion that entrepreneurs actually don’t take a lot of risk; risk a merely the smart use of statistics and therefore the term calculated risk is often used. But statistics often counteract with each other and in practice each entrepreneur will ask himself over and over: is this worth taking the risk or not?

    #10: The Knowledge Paradox

    An entrepreneur does not have time, nor does he have the intention, of knowing all information that he may use for taking effective decisions for his enterprise. This so-called ‘knowledge gap’ is prevalent in day-to-day actions and entrepreneur finds himself choosing between learning and doing.

    #11: The Trust Paradox

    As an entrepreneur won’t be able to know everything himself, the knowledge paradox, he finds himself relying on others information. This raises the question: can he trust the information he gets? The trust paradox is mostly visible when dealing with outsiders, collaborators, clients, suppliers, et cetera and is of great difficulty for entrepreneurs.

    Conclusions and Discussion

    While effort has been put in discussing the phenomenon of teaching entrepreneurship from different perspectives, I do not even try to claim that this research is close to complete. There is a wide range of research available which both – and arguably with evidence – claim that entrepreneurship could be taught or could not be taught. This discussion adds to the on-going debate around nature versus nurture. This white paper is nothing more than my two cents on teaching entrepreneurship and bringing up the topic of paradoxes in entrepreneurial. To my opinion entrepreneurship as much as entrepreneurial thinking cannot be taught, but we can teach tolerance to ambiguity and therewith a self-reflectivity needed to autodidact entrepreneurial thinking. In order teach tolerance for ambiguity, lecturers need to cope with the above-mentioned paradoxes themselves rather than trying to translate them into teaching material. This makes learning entrepreneurial more tacit than explicit. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

    References

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    • Berends, H., Jelinek, M., Reymen, I., & Stultiëns, R. (2014). Product innovation processes in small firms: Combining entrepreneurial effectuation and managerial causation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(3), 616–635.
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    • Covin, J. G., Green, K. M., & Slevin, D. P. (2006). Strategic process effects on the entrepreneurial orientation–sales growth rate relationship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 30(1), 57–81.
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    • De Jong, J. P. J., & Marsili, O. (2010). Schumpeter versus Kirzner: An empirical investigation of opportunity types.
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    • Krueger, N. F. (2007). What lies beneath? The experiential essence of entrepreneurial thinking. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 31(1), 123–138.
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    • Lewin, P. (2011). Entrepreneurial Paradoxes: implications of radical subjectivism. In School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, Prepared for the Austrian Economics Colloquium (pp. 1–17). Citeseer.
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    • Neck, H. M., & Greene, P. G. (2011). Entrepreneurship education: known worlds and new frontiers. Journal of Small Business Management, 49(1), 55–70.
    • Neck, H. M., Greene, P. G., & Brush, C. G. (2014). Teaching entrepreneurship: A practice-based approach. Edward Elgar Publishing.
    • Neck, H. M., Neck, C. P., & Murray, E. L. (2017). Entrepreneurship : the practice and mindset.
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    • Ries, E. (2011). The lean startup: How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. Crown Business.
    • Saavedra, A. R., & Opfer, V. D. (2012). Learning 21st-century skills requires 21st-century teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 94(2), 8–13.
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    50 Research Methods for Innovation Infographic

    A few weeks ago entrepreneur Valer Pop, CEO of LifeSense Group told his startup story to us at the High Tech Campus. After having a successfull career at Holst Centre, Valer decided to start his business with just a small idea: solving unwanted urine loss. He was working on this idea at Holst Centre, but after meeting co-founder Julia Veldhuijzen, Valer and she decided to start up their own business and create specialized medical underwear to help 400 million women worldwide. Early on in the process they gathered an advisor board consisting of 100 women and involved them in the creation process, in both opinion polls and experiments. Right now, LifeSense’s product Carin is an international success. LifeSense’s goal for this year it to be the fastest growing medical company in Europe. Now that’s a goal.

    What got to me was the inventive way of using different forms of research in their quest to create their first product. In innovation processes, we usually run into companies that mostly use ‘questionnaires’ and ‘expert interviews’ as part of their ‘research process’. Sometimes, if engineers or psychologists are involved, they use experiments too. Not surprisingly, they found it very hard to get to the real innovation challenge or problem in the market by using these research methods.

    Over the years, many different works have been published that deal with creative research methods: there are so many great alternatives for finding that real gap in the market and iterating your product to its final stage. I decided to create an infographic with 50 different research methods. To get to this list I used the following sources:

      Structure

      In order to categorise the different research methods, I combined a few sources to create a general ‘research process’. On average we could state that each R&D-trajectory consists of the following steps:

      • Explore
      • Describe
      • Gather
      • Elaborate
      • Experiment
      • Analyse
      • Test
      • Evaluate

      Moreover, based on the Research Toolkit from the Methods Lab, I distinguished four different parameters for each research method:

      • Level of Expertise Needed
      • Total Investment Needed
      • Amount of Time Needed
      • Number of Staff Needed

      . Based on these parameters, you, as an innovation researcher, could make a elaborated choice on which method to use and why.

      50 Research Methods

      The following research methods are part of the infographic:

      1. Buzz Mining: keeping track of all the buzz that comes and goes around a certain topic.
      2. Media Scanning: actively scanning media to stay up to date about a certain topic.
      3. Scenarios: using scenario planning methods to forecast different scenario’s.
      4. Trend tracking:
        keeping track of macro-economical and ‘under the iceberg’-technological trends that could impact your business.
      5. Competitive Analysis: systematically comparing products, offerings or methods of competitors and drawing conclusions.
      6. Stakeholder Mapping: draw extremely detailed stakeholder diagrams and explain the connections to the maximum of your understanding.
      7. Literature Review: reviewing existing literature to find all known and unknown information regarding your topic.
      8. Market Research: reviewing market data find all known and unknown insights about the market your in or entering.
      9. Expert Interviews: interviewing experts in the field to gain general insights on your product (category).
      10. Questionnaires: conducting questionnaires among potential users (or a population in general) to find interesting insights.
      11. Sociographics & Pshychgraphics: deeper research into lifestyle, motivational and emotional reasoning of potential users.
      12. Contextual Inquiry: taking ‘live’ questionnaire in specific contexts to compare own observations with user reactions.
      13. Anthropological observation: observing potential customers in their natural behaviour (from a distance).
      14. Indirect observation: using videos (or other tools) to indirectly observe behaviour of potential customers.
      15. User Journey Mapping: finding and observing all touch points of a certain user with your brand or product.
      16. Lead User Engagement: finding and involving important (recurring) users in your research process.
      17. Competitive testing: testing products of competitors to find useful insights.
      18. Role playing: imitating real-life situations in order to see users reactions.
      19. Graffiti Walls: putting large sleets of paper to a wall and ask users to answer certain questions over time.
      20. Crowdsourcing: using the wisdom of the crowd to gain new insights.
      21. Social Media Research: using social media to research reactions or general sense among users.
      22. Opinion polls: using structured opinion polls to test hypotheses.
      23. Focus groups: invite diverse groups of people to discuss the product idea with you.
      24. Brainstorms: using creative techniques with a diverse group of involved stakeholders to gather new ideas.
      25. Bodystorming: more active forms of idea generation.
      26. Rapid prototyping: using rapid, paper, prototypes to sketch and test possible products.
      27. Longitudinal analysis: a research method that follows users over a longer period of time to see how their behaviour or perspective changes over time.
      28. Shadowing: actively shadowing users to immerse yourself into their actions and thinking.
      29. Direct observation: proactively observe consumers when dealing with your product.
      30. Eyetracking: a computer-technique to follow the eye-movements of users when looking at a computer or mobile screen to analyse your product usage.
      31. Burrito Lunch: inviting the ‘man on the street’ for a lunch to discuss a product in detail with them.
      32. In-built tracking: using data analytics built into apps or websites to track user behaviour in detail.
      33. Alpha testing: testing first drafts of your product with small groups of customers; usually for free or without any charge.
      34. Usability testing: detailed test to see how users use your product and its features to their advantage.
      35. Fake Door: creating ‘fake products’ to see if potential are interested (in specific options or add-ons).
      36. Impersonator: faking an artificial intelligence customer service (phone or email) to test if artificial intelligence would be an option for you.
      37. Web analytics: using website and search engine data to optimize the marketing process.
      38. Mapping & Clustering: all different forms of using diagrams to cluster ideas, insights and conclusions in order to come to future suggestions.
      39. Systematic Content Analysis: using systematic approaches to analyse and quantify for instance interview recordings.
      40. Stakeholder Mapping: draw extremely detailed stakeholder diagrams and explain the connections to the maximum of your understanding.
      41. Case studies: a systematic approach that analyses different cases of users or clients that use your product and compare them with each other.
      42. Simulations: create simulations of alternative product usage to test results and effects.
      43. Triangulation: using at least three different research methods for the same question to check if the results are reliable.
      44. SWOT-matrix: plotting the outcomes of previous research in a SWOT-diagram to find future solutions.
      45. Weighted Criteria Matrix: defining criteria and benchmarking results from different research methods to those criteria in order to find possibly successful solutions.
      46. Live Experiments: conducting experiments with your product in real-life situation to test something without users knowledge.
      47. Beta testing: testing a first official version of your product (for regular pricing) to the crowd.
      48. A/B testing: testing two different version of your product at the same time to find differences and usability.
      49. Evaluative Research: using research methods with the specific intention of gather feedback on your product of process.
      50. User interviews: interviewing users to gather feedback about your product and its usage.
      51. Review analysis: analyse online reviews of your product to find new possible solutions.

      99 Mental Barriers for Innovation Infographic

      Many of our students work on innovation projects for SME. When asked to organize an ‘open innovation session’, students enthousiastically start to read details about open innovation, open sessions and different ways of creating an open innovation-mindset within SME. We usually point them to the excellent work of Lee et al (2010), an article that points out that SME usually prefer to be open in the exploitative stage of an innovation process (rather then the explorative stage of innovation) and that they prefer sharing risks with strong ties such as competitors, clients and suppliers.

      Surprisingly, the SME owners act positive when the students introduce them to the idea of open innovation in the explorative stage, for instance by offering to organize a shared brainstorm session for them, but they close down when it actually comes to planning it. Although appreciating the idea itself, they don’t see the direct benefit for it themselves. It seems they fell prone to the prisoner’s dilemma.

      Non-zero-sum Game in Open Innovation

      The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a so-called non-zero-sum game, which in economic terms represents a situation in which the collaborative total gain could be larger the individual gains. Simply said: 1+1 could be more than 2. The Prisoner’s Dilemma however sketches the situation in which the individual is aware of the fact that the total gain may be larger, but still prefers their personal gain over the group gain for any number of reason. They don’t collaborate, because they think personal benefit is more important than mutual benefit. Click here for an explanation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

      In business, this dilemma is very common: not collaborating gives a higher reward on the short-term. The example of our students, and many examples alike, are caused by small fallacies in our way of thinking. Fallacies that were necessary in prehistoric times and are so deeply rooted in our behaviour that we often don’t even recognize when we behave like that. But quite often, these fallacies are not very rational and certainly not effective for business. The dilemma is summarized in the quotation: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go further, go together.”

      99 Mental Barriers for Innovation

      In 2012 Rolf Dobelli published his book ‘The Art of Thinking Clearly‘, which contains 98 missers in our brain when it comes to business and marketing (and innovation if you like). In the work, all of these 98 missers are linked to each other, which brought me to the idea of creating a network infographic with all 98 missers showing how they are related to each other. Below you’ll find the infographic and an explanation of a few fallacies that are most common in innovation processes.

      Download Infographic

        Example 1: The Not-Invented-Here-Syndrome

        A well-known example, the Not-Invented-Here-Syndrome is a stance adopted by social, corporate, or institutional cultures that avoid using or buying already existing products, research, standards, or knowledge because of their external origins and costs, such as royalties. It prevents companies from collaborating effectively.

        Example 2: Sunk Cost Fallacy

        The Sunk Cost Fallacy refers to the justification of increased investment of money, time, lives, etc. in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment (“sunk costs”); despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, beginning immediately, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit. In open innovation projects it usually comes down to the fact that there is no clear stage-gate-model in place and a ‘go’ is given rather than a ‘no-go’ for the fact that all parties have already invested time and money in trusting each other and building the prototype.

        Example 3: Social Loading

        Quite surprisingly, it is proven that the more horses draw a horsecar, the less horsepower they produce individually. Ringelman, an engineer, tested this behaviour on humans and saw that when two men have to carry a weight, they only use 93% of their effort. If 3 men carry a weight, they use only 85% and if 8 man carry a weight they only use 49% of their effort. This behaviour is present in collaborations as well: working in trusted alliance will make us ‘carry the weight’ to a lesser extend. We extend responsibility to other partners in the network for instance.

        Example 4: Association Bias

        Our minds are highly associative. We even associate things that are not to be associated (also see: clustering illusion, for instance when we see certain shapes in clouds). For this reason we also use prior experiences and knowledge to present situation, causing mistakes in our thinking. Not all past experiences are representative for current situations, such as collaborations or failures on product development.

        Example 5: Alternative Blindness

        Alternative Blindness means that we systematically refuse to compare outcomes to the next best alternative. We tend to compare it to the worst alternative – to make a stronger argument for the current outcome. In collaborative production this means that alternative options, solutions, prototypes and concepts are often overseen because we ‘believe’ in the success of the current alternative.

        Example 6: Neomania

        Neomania is the irrational behaviour associated with early adaptors. Okay, we need them to test our products, but please don’t be one yourself. In innovation, neomania refers to the fact that we irrationally want to create new things, new partnerships, new trials, new tools, even though we haven’t yet brought to market the last invention. Be aware of neomaniacs in your partnership.

        Example 7: Ambiguity Aversion

        There is a large difference between risk and uncertainty. In Open Innovation you’ll have to deal with both. If the likelihood of a certain event to happen is known, we can take risk. If the likelihood of a certain event to happen is unknown, the outcome is uncertain. It is proven that we rather take calculated risk than follow an uncertain path, thus the term ‘ambiguity aversion’. In business there will be many occasions where we can’t calculate or take risk, because the probabilities are unknown and in those cases we have to tolerate uncertainty.

        Example 8: Déformation Professionelle

        This terminology refers to the fact that we can only look at problems from our own perspective. Mark Twain once said: “If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems will be nails.”. Especially within Open Innovation contexts it is necessary to accept and overcome Déformation Professionelle, by striving for a diverse, wide network.

        The University in 2040: 6 trends & an infographic.

        On November 23, I had the honor of giving a talk at the NRC Live event for Education. I was scheduled immediately after Bert van der Zwaan, rector magnificus at the University of Utrecht. Van der Zwaan launched his book that day: the result of sabbatical he and his wife took in 2015. During that sabbatical they traveled the world and tried to speak with as many educational visionaries as possible. It led to the work: The University in 2040, does it still exist?

        In his work, Van der Zwaan introduces 6 worldwide trends in education that will have significant impact on how we learn in the future. The book was published under a creative commons license (free for you to download in Dutch) and I decided that a ‘summary’ of the most important topics covered in the form on an infographic would be a great contribution for the reader of this blog.

        6 trends in higher education

        • Global Innovation Hubs: Through urbanisation universities move into the era of the global campus, a university that focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship and is the center of a regional ecosystem and knowledge valorisation.
        • Digitalization: IT will change the landscape of educat ion forever. Online learning and blended learning are just the first signs of a remarkeable shift in education. The future will behold exponential learning through big data, open science and serious games.
        • Debundling: Debundling is the trend towards more personalized, modular education. This trends will mark a shift towards a more global talent pool, accessible education SPOCs, shared intellectual commons and global commons.
        • Lifelong learning: Lifelong learning will solve the continuing mismatch between education and the labour market. Universities will start to offer more customized and problem-solving education and turn into the engaged university.
        • Economic Shift: In the near future governments worldwide will reduce investments in tertiary education and universities will become more privatized. Globally there are huge differences in labour market needs for employees with a higher education degree.
        • Civic University: The main function of the university of the future is unsure. Will the university a) focus on developing talent b) focus on applying research for entrepreneurship or c) focus on fundamental research for dealing with social challenges?

        Infographic: the University of 2040

        We have created an infographic on the future of education based on the work of Bert van der Zwaan.

          8 Types of Innovation Processes (Infographic)

          As part of a simulation game on innovation management we have been running at universities and in corporate training programs for over 4 years now, we have developed an integrative model for dealing with innovation management on a daily basis. Innovation Management is a strategic activity that isn’t necessarily needed to implement throughly for every company. Mostly large companies have included structured processes that include administrative stages to following the (large number of) project that are in progress and to be able to follow-up on them and calculate the effect of innovation management in general. For smaller companies however, that is not general practice: having such a formal process in place simply doesn’t weigh up to cost efficiencies will generate. But for them, innovation management is just as important – but they rather use a toolkit than a formal process. Our 8 Types of Innovation Processes model is a simple design that makes it easy to bridge the gap between a formal process and the tools available.

          Based on a visionary criteria – radical or incremental? product leadership or operational excellence? – you would be able to select approximately 2 or 3 types of processes that should be of interest to you. Scroll down to the tactics and start working on them tomorrow.

            8 Types of Innovation Processes

            • Marketing & Branding: innovating the customer experience.
            • Ideation: innovating the product idea & concept.
            • Technology: innovating the product functionality.
            • Co-creation: innovating the customer involvement.
            • Social Innovation: innovating the corporate culture.
            • Entrepreneurship: innovating through entrepreneurial thinking.
            • Open Innovation: innovating with stakeholders.
            • Business Model Innovation: innovating the purpose and strategy.
            		 This article was written by Jan Spruijt. Jan Spruijt is a senior lecturer and entrepreneur in Innovation Sciences. Connect with Jan to stay in touch:

             

             

            Book Review & Infographic: Innovation Thinking Methods by Hashmi

            A few weeks ago, a friend brought the book “Innovation Thinking Methods: disciplines of thought that can help you rethink industries and unlock 10x better solutions” from Osama A. Hashmi to my attention. I ordered it, read it and was impressed by the both the power and simplicity of the work.

            The book is thin and comprehensible. In fact, it read like a weblog post enriched with interesting personal thoughts of the author and beautiful examples from his own perspective. What I most liked is the fact that it takes another approach then we’re used to see: the book is a random list of thinking methods that could be used when dealing with innovation as an entrepreneur. The list is not categorized, nor is there a structured process that guides you through the book, nor an analysis or an advice. And therefore it is mostly an inspirational book and a homage to disruptive, non-incremental or structured thinking; the fuzzy front-end of innovation. A non-methodological list of methods. Both an obeisance for the entrepreneurial-minded free-thinkers and experienced managers looking for a solution to create passion and change in an innovation team.

            However, I do like analysis and created an infographic that groups the thinking methods into one model, with 4 typical innovation team assets on the vertical axis: Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Attitude. I have ranked each innovation thinking method on those 4 assets, making it possible to ‘rank’ and categorize your own team – in order to see where there are opportunities for growth and new perspectives.

              ISPIM Conference Porto & ISPIM Grand Prize for Innovation Management Excellence

              As a member of ISPIM, we’re proud to be part of the ISPIM 2016 Conference in Porto again.

              Organised by ISPIM, and supported by ANI – Agência Nacional de Inovação (the National Innovation Office of Portugal), this event is for innovation researchers, industry executives, thought leaders and policy makers.

              • Understand the latest innovation management thinking in 50+ workshops, keynotes, tours and discussions
              • Broadcast your insights to 500 innovation experts from 50 countries
              • Get feedback, get published and share understanding
              • Deep dive into the Portuguese innovation scene

               

               This article was written by Jan Spruijt. Jan Spruijt is an expert in Innovation Sciences. He designs business simulations, academic programs, masterclasses, courses, keynotes and learning material in the field of strategic design, organization design and (open) innovation. Connect with Jan at jan@openinnovatie.nl for opportunities.

               

              Please sign up for the conference at their website if you want to be present.

              ISPIM Grand Prize for Innovation Management Excellence

              Just like last year, the ISPIM Grand Prize will be awarded to a company or organization with the best idea or performance on innovation management. Do you have an idea? Don’t hesitate and submit it before April 8th.

               

               

               

               

              50+ Business Cases on Innovation & Entrepreneurship

              During a course we developed at Avans University this winter, we asked students to gather relevant business cases on innovation and entrepreneurship in order to analyse them and prepare discussions around organization design. The course was based on the following model:

              The following list is a selection of the business cases they found, mostly based on the Lean Startup, Lean Enterprise, Corporate Entrepreneurship and agile/Scrum – all available freely and online for use at your disposal, so I decided to share them with you. If you have any other business cases that are relevant, please drop them in a comment. Part of the cases are in Dutch. Thank you!

              Business Cases:

              The Mission Model Canvas: An Adapted Business Model Canvas for Mission-Driven Organizations
              Source: www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-blank/the-mission-model-canvas_b_9298440.html

               

               

              When Toyota met e-commerce: Lean at Amazon | McKinsey & Company Amazon’s former head of global operations explains why the company was a natural place to apply lean principles, how they’ve worked in practice, and where the future could lead.” property=”og:description” name=”description
              Source: www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/when-toyota-met-e-commerce-lean-at-amazon

               

              The Top 10 Ways Entrepreneurs Pivot A Lean Startup – Business Insider It’s time for a change. ;
              Source: www.businessinsider.com/top-10-ways-entrepreneurs-pivot-a-lean-startup-2011-9?IR=T

               

              Product Hunt Is Tech’s New Tastemaker, and It Has Big Plans | WIRED It’s a list of cool stuff. It’s becoming so much more.
              Source: www.wired.com/2015/12/product-hunt-app-podcasts-tech/

               

              How an Off-Season Hobby Grew into a Slick Business Brent Christensen’s Ice Castles creates frozen fantasies, and business is heating up.
              Source: www.entrepreneur.com/article/253727

               

              Uber as a startup: the ins and outs of slim launches – Ventureburn
              Source: ventureburn.com/2016/02/uber-startup-ins-outs-slim-launches/

               

              Nike Lean Manufacturing: An Example of Good Policy Deployment Nike Lean Manufacturing: An Example of Good Policy Deployment is an article documenting Nike’s Lean Journey thus far.
              Source: www.shmula.com/nike-lean-manufacturing-example-good-policy-deployment/13755/

               

              Lean production – Jaguar | Jaguar case studies and information | Business Case Studies
              Source: businesscasestudies.co.uk/jaguar/lean-production/

               

              Lean Innovation Management — Making Corporate Innovation Work {{meta.description}}
              Source: www.forbes.com/sites/steveblank/2015/06/25/lean-innovation-management-making-corporate-innovation-work/ 

               

              Lessons Learned: Case Study: The Nordstrom Innovation Lab
              Source: www.startuplessonslearned.com/2011/10/case-study-nordstrom-innovation-lab.html 

               

              A Brief History of Lean
              Source: www.lean.org/WhatsLean/History.cfm

               

              Agile Case Studies Archives – Agile Advice
              Source: www.agileadvice.com/category/agile-case-studies/

               

              Scrum at Amazon – Guest Post by Alan Atlas | The Agile Executive Rally’s Alan Atlas shares with us his experience as the first full-time Agile trainer/coach with Amazon. His account is both enlightened and enlightening. He connects the “hows”, “whats” and “whys” of Scrum in the Amazon context, making sense for the reader of what took place and what did not at Amazon. You will find additional insights…
              Source: theagileexecutive.com/2009/07/20/scrum-at-amazon-guest-post-by-alan-atlas/

               

              Microsoft Lauds Scrum Method for Software Projects On the heels of launching the long-awaited SQL Server 2005, Microsoft is promoting the use of “scrum” to speed up the management of software projects.
              Source: www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Microsoft-Lauds-Scrum-Method-for-Software-Projects

               

               

              Vodafone UK and HP Partnership more than halves the software developm… VODAFONE UK AND HP PARTNERSHIP MORE THAN HALVES THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE Case Study…
              Source: www.slideshare.net/HewlettPackardEnterprise/vodafone-uk-and-hp-partnership-more-than-halves-the-software-development-lifecycle

               

              Do Pivots Matter? | Inc.com What really defines a pivot and how they can impact your business model.
              Source: www.inc.com/steve-blank/do-pivots-matter.html

               

              Case study: Distributed Scrum Project for Dutch Railways How we customise Scrum to our local context plays a large role in the success or failure of a project. This article describes a successful, large, distributed Scrum project, which had already been scrapped once under a traditional approach. The authors share lessons learned on: project startup, product ownership, testing and the importance of estimates and effective communication.
              Source: www.infoq.com/articles/dutch-railway-scrum

               

              Case study: Philips takes agile approach to building bridges between business and IT Dutch technology giant talks up the success of its attempts to embrace agile IT delivery methods, and how its shaping future customer engagements
              Source: www.computerweekly.com/feature/Case-study-Philips-takes-agile-approach-to-building-bridges-between-business-and-IT

               

              Steve Blank: The Curse of a New Building – The Accelerators – WSJ STEVE BLANK: One of the things you do right in a startup is moving from one cheap and cramped building to another as you grow, with desks, cubicles and engineers piled cheek by jowl. Then, one of the signs of success is when you outgrow your last cramped quarters and can afford a “real” building. This happened to us at SuperMac when our sales skyrocketed. That’s when things went south…
              Source: blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/08/05/steve-blank-the-curse-of-a-new-building/

               

              Steve Blank on Defining New Markets | Inc.com Failing to understand new markets is the biggest mistake your startup can make.
              Source: www.inc.com/steve-blank/defining-new-markets.html

               

              Lean Innovation Management — Making Corporate Innovation Work {{meta.description}}
              Source: www.forbes.com/sites/steveblank/2015/06/25/lean-innovation-management-making-corporate-innovation-work/

               

              How One Startup Figured Out What Could Really Help Deaf People
              Source: www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-blank/how-one-startup-figured-out-what-could-really-help-deaf-people_b_7188602.html

               

              Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley — Going to Where the Action Is
              Source: www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-blank/innovation-outposts-in-si_b_8688290.html

               

              Tips From Steve Blank on How to Grow Your Company | Inc.com You’ve launched your startup, but now what? The Silicon Valley veteran weighs in.
              Source: www.inc.com/steve-blank/tips-for-how-to-grow-your-company.html

               

              Beyond the Lemonade Stand: How to Teach High School Students About Lean Startups
              Source: www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-blank/beyond-the-lemonade-stand_b_4948497.html

               

              BillGuard Launches Its Personal Finance App On Android And Adds Data Breach Alerts | TechCrunch BillGuard is expanding its reach with the launch of an Android app, and also adding a new feature that will alert users when their cards have been affected by..
              Source: techcrunch.com/2014/05/15/billguard-android/

               

              How One FinTech Company Used Lean Startup in a Regulated Industry – Lean Startup Co.
              Source: leanstartup.co/how-one-fitech-company-used-lean-startup-in-a-regulated-industry/

               

              Handshake Will Help You Find Your Next Intern – Fortune Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft are among the many companies using Handshake to find interns.
              Source: fortune.com/2016/02/03/handshake/

               

              Bundle’s New App Automatically Organizes Photos For You | TechCrunch Organizing our massive photo libraries is a task that a number of startups and big companies alike are still trying to solve. While Google is poised to..
              Source: techcrunch.com/2015/05/26/bundles-new-app-automatically-organizes-photos-for-you/

               

              Cancer Cell-Therapy Companies Scale Up to Cut Costs – Bloomberg ” data-ephemeral=”true
              Source: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-18/cancer-cell-therapy-companies-scale-up-in-race-to-lower-costs

               

              MeUndies Thinks Fun Is What’s Missing from Underwear Shopping – Racked They want to be YouUndies.
              Source: www.racked.com/2015/11/17/9745864/meundies-underwear-shopping-fun-boxers-thongs

               

              Fear of Failure And Lack Of Speed In A Large Corporation {{meta.description}}
              Source: www.forbes.com/sites/steveblank/2015/03/09/fear-of-failure-and-lack-of-speed-in-a-large-corporation/ 

               

               

              Langzame lean startups? Een voorbeeld uit Albanië. The Lean Doctor Hoe werken de lean startup principes eigenlijk in een compleet andere context? In dit artikel bekijken we de langzame lean startups.
              Source: www.theleandoctor.nl/langzame-lean-startups-een-voorbeeld-uit-albanie/

               

              Idealistische leensite Peerby vindt het tijd iets te gaan verdienen | Economie | de Volkskrant Spullenleensite Peerby experimenteert met verhuur. Amsterdamse gebruikers kunnen sinds twee weken bijverdiene
              Source: www.volkskrant.nl/economie/idealistische-leensite-peerby-vindt-het-tijd-iets-te-gaan-verdienen~a4133667/

               

              Waarom 3D Hubs naar New York gaat | Sprout Het gaat steeds harder met 3D Hubs, de startup die als een Airbnb van het 3D-printen eigenaren van de machines in contact brengt met iedereen die een ontwerp wil laten maken.
              Source: www.sprout.nl/artikel/3d-printen/waarom-3d-hubs-naar-new-york-gaat

               

               

              Peerby gaat (eindelijk) geld verdienen – RTL Nieuws Leenwebsite Peerby krijgt voor het eerst een verdienmodel. Via de start-up kun je straks niet alleen spullen gratis lenen, maar ook huren.
              Source: www.rtlnieuws.nl/economie/home/peerby-gaat-eindelijk-geld-verdienen

               

              Start-up Jungo brengt hypotheek van mens tot mens – RTL Nieuws Vincent van den Noort is mede-oprichter van de fintech start-up Jungo. Dit people-to-people hypothekenplatform moet voorjaar 2016 online gaan en brengt huizenkopers samen met particuliere investeerders.
              Source: www.rtlnieuws.nl/economie/home/start-jungo-brengt-hypotheek-van-mens-tot-mens

               

              De nieuwe generatie maaltijdbezorgers levert oesters en champagne – NRC
              Source: www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/12/23/de-nieuwe-generatie-maaltijdbezorgers-levert-oesters-en-champagne

               

               

              Een slechte nachtrust als geheim van een start-up [case] – Frankwatching Een briljant idee omzetten in een leuk, succesvol bedrijf? Het hoeft niet ingewikkeld te zijn. Dit kun je leren van een Berlijnse start-up.
              Source: www.frankwatching.com/archive/2016/01/12/slechte-nachtrust-als-geheim-start-up/

               

              Miljoeneninvestering moet WeTransfer helpen bij verovering VS – NRC
              Source: www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/02/17/miljoeneninvestering-moet-wetransfer-helpen-bij-verovering-vs 

               

              Lean startup: vallen en opstaan bij een innovatieve zorgsite [case] – Frankwatching Misha startte met een klein groepje een innovatieve zorgwebsite met de lean startup-methode. Dat ging niet van een leien dakje: een openhartig verhaal.
              Source: www.frankwatching.com/archive/2014/07/28/lean-startup-vallen-en-opstaan-bij-een-innovatieve-zorgsite-case/

               

              Lean startup: begin met het minimaal werkbare product – Emerce De lean startup begint met het minimum viable product. Het minimaal werkbare product dat antwoord geeft op de vraag: waar heeft je klant behoefte aan?
              Source: www.emerce.nl/best-practice/lean-startup-minimum-viable-product

               

              Grootste taxibedrijf Nederland lanceert Amsterdamse concurrent van Uber | Het Financieele Dagblad Transportbedrijf Transdev begint een taxibedrijf in Amsterdam en Schiphol dat moet gaan concurreren met taxistart-up Uber.
              Source: fd.nl/economie-politiek/1134701/grootste-taxibedrijf-nederland-lanceert-amsterdamse-concurrent-van-uber

               

              App tip: Bksy de sociale bibliotheek – Geekly Soms gebeurt het wel eens dat je een app of project tegen het lijf loopt dat niet meteen indruk maakt omdat het nou de beste app ter wereld is, maar dat he
              Source: geekly.nl/8965/app-tip-bksy-de-sociale-bibliotheek/

               

               

              Rotterzwam: Urban Farming in een tropisch zwembad AGF.nl is hét branchemedium voor de AGF-sector
              Source: www.agf.nl/artikel/112549/Rotterzwam-Urban-Farming-in-een-tropisch-zwembad

               

              Green-Bricks wint Startup Weekend Utrecht | Baaz.nl Green-Bricks is zondag 16 november de winnaar geworden van het Startup Weekend in Utrecht.
              Source: www.baaz.nl/content/green-bricks-wint-startup-weekend-utrecht

               

              Lean: van autofabriek tot ‘eigenwijze’ organisatie – Frankwatching Lean manufacturing heeft het doel om verspilling in processen te minimaliseren. Kan ‘lean’ ook worden toegepast in ‘eigenwijze’ organisaties?
              Source: www.frankwatching.com/archive/2016/01/07/lean-van-autofabriek-tot-eigenwijze-organisatie/

               

               

              Lean in de Zorg bij Yorneo – sixsigma.nl Twee Green Belts laten opleiden en dan het Lean-gedachtengoed als een olievlek over de organisatie verspreiden. Dat was (en is) de doelstelling van Yorneo, de jeugdzorgorganisatie die zich in Drenthe bezighoudt met hulp bij opvoeden en opgroeien
              Source: www.sixsigma.nl/businesscases/lean-in-de-zorg-bij-yorneo

               

              Agile werken: zo krijgt ING de medewerkers mee – Pw De Gids | Leidinggeven, Reorganisatie
              Source: pwdegids.nl/artikel/agile-werken-zo-krijgt-ing-de-medewerkers-mee/ 
              Innovation Studio helpt startups op weg – RTL Nieuws In de Innovation Studio van ING worden drie startups en drie interne teams begeleid bij het realiseren van een innovatief idee op het gebied van financiële technologie.
              Source: www.rtlnieuws.nl/sponsored-special/innovation-studio-helpt-startups-op-weg

               

              Nooit meer ‘googlen naar ict’: lean startup binnen de overheid? – Frankwatching Commissie Elias denkt dé oplossing gevonden te hebben voor falende IT-projecten van de overheid. Maar het is niet de goede. Hoe moet ‘t wel?
              Source: www.frankwatching.com/archive/2014/10/28/overheid-de-oplossing-voor-het-leed-dat-it-projecten-heet/

               

              Woningcorporatie Havensteder en cegeka-dsa implementeren ERP-oplossing volgens agile-methodiek scrum – Emerce
              Source: www.emerce.nl/wire/woningcorporatie-havensteder-en-cegeka-dsa-implementeren-erp-oplossing-volgens-agile-methodiek-scrum

               

               This article was written by Jan Spruijt. Jan Spruijt is a senior lecturer and entrepreneur in Innovation Sciences. Connect with Jan to stay in touch:

               

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