Process Reengineering

Process Reengineering

Driven by corporations trying to do more with less, BPM is back. If you can’t grow, the only way to maintain and improve margins are to reduce costs. Like Hammer and Champy, we are doing it from a customer’s perspective. We believe that if you focus on the customer when improving process efficiency, you will by default save time and money. These are the byproducts of a customer efficient process. Lets look at our process, at a high level.

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FTTM Innovation

FTTM Innovation

Recently we were asked, “We're not a research company per se and need to benchmark how "think tanks" estimate innovation durations/cycles of learning that require major breakthroughs.”We assembled this document to stimulate group discussion (within the client’s various advanced development teams). It is not meant to draw conclusions or converge on any specific actions, just to get people thinking and talking. 

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Learning Cycles

Learning Cycles

Many projects we work on involve bleeding edge innovation. The most common push-back to planning these projects is that, “Innovation can’t be managed.” The proponents of this notion believe that, “Ideas happen when they happen, and that it is impossible to program these out over time with any reasonable degree of confidence.” Therefor, it is a “waste of time” to plan.

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Innovation Can't Be Predicted

Innovation Can't Be Predicted

Of course everyone knows it is impossible to plan when a breakthrough will happen. Planning requires some certainty about what is being done, how long each step might take, and some idea of when a solution will be achieved. But innovation is different. By definition innovation requires solutions to problems that don’t have known solutions, so how can one accurately predict when a solution will be found? How can the unknown be planned.

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When to Stop Dreaming?

When to Stop Dreaming?

When inventing pathfinding technology (something that has never been done) you have to ignore reality. Steve Jobs called it “reality distortion.” To create, you must refuse to accept current thinking that what you are doing can’t be done. You are told that there are laws of physics, principles of chemistry and material science that should inform you that your problem can’t be solved. You are told you don’t have enough time or money and to accept the reality of your business and technical constraints. The people that conform to this thinking rarely make anything new.

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