Experimentation

Consensus is often the enemy of innovation.

In the past few years, a new methodology for launching companies, called "the lean start-up," has begun to replace the old regimen. Traditionally, a venture's...

Most organizations bend over backward to avoid failure. They shouldn't, says economist Paul Ormerod. History shows that failure and success are inherently...

Key stakeholders have different visions and the team needs to unlearn some old processes, the solution: refine the ideas by making a pilot episode.

It involves a Winnebago.

Traditional approaches to strategy assume that the world is relatively stable and predictable. But globalization, new technologies, and greater transparency...

In today's digital world, more and more companies are turning to experiments to discover ways to create or improve online experiences, and they're running...

Based on a survey of more than 2,200 organizations.

In less turbulent times, executives had the luxury of assuming that business models were more or less immortal. Companies always had to work to get better,...

Uncertain environments call for experimentation. Here’s how to set up the trials—and learn from the errors.

Today companies grapple constantly with the unexpected: disruptive advances in technology, the rise of new markets, sudden swings in demand, surprise...

Whether you're a boss, a colleague, or a friend, you can help the people around you make important life-enhancing changes. But the way to do that isn't...

For the most part, managers looking to cure their organizational ills rely on obsolete knowledge they picked up in school, long-standing but never proven...

While we know a lot about practices that stimulate new ideas, innovation teams often struggle to apply them. Why? Because people's biases and entrenched...

If you're going to experiment, be flexible.

My last post argued that disruption in online video was likely to come from someone outside the industry. Yet, consummate industry insiders NBC Universal...

Three ways to improve your R&D efforts.

Listen to the interview this article is based on.Download this podcast John Donahoe had big shoes to fill in 2008 when he took over from Meg Whitman, eBay’s celebrated longtime CEO. He also had work to do. The company’s core business was slipping, and a major acquisition, Skype, had gone wrong. In this edited interview […]

The boldest innovations are the hardest to measure.

For decades, the business world has been fixated on achieving sustainable competitive advantage, a position within an industry that allows a company to...