The product management perspective

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

You have probably noticed during the last month the new feature at the end of each blog posting called “The Product Management Perspective.” I’ve added this new feature for the purpose of linking leadership principles to product management best practices. Effective product management is intricately tied to leadership; in the absence of effective leadership, product [...]

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Leadership in uncertain times

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

Things are tough these days, especially on Wall Street. People all over the world are feeling the effects of the down business cycle. Times like these cause many hunker down, stop taking risks, and even languish in their leadership. It’s times like these — when the economy is ‘down’ and the shrill voices from the [...]

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Fixing the diffusion-poor company

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

Diffusion-poor companies have a difficult time monetizing good ideas. They often suffer from the “not invented here” thinking. As a result, new products and services are not properly rolled out to the market. In decentralized organizations, managers are often given a fair amount of autonomy, which gives them the ability to stop new ideas from [...]

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Fixing the conversion-poor company

Posted on September 23, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

Conversion-poor companies, as defined in The Innovation Value Chain, most often generate good ideas but they do not screen or develop the ideas properly. Great ideas often die in the budget process due to fear of the unknown. Managers hesitate to take risks and instead emphasize the incremental and certain, not the novel. The inability [...]

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Fixing the idea-poor company

Posted on September 22, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

Idea-poor companies, as defined in The Innovation Value Chain, struggle to cultivate new ideas. Their cultures do not promote developing sound ideas internally and they do not bring in enough good ideas from external sources. The results usually lead to sub-par products and financial returns. Companies that lack sound idea development most often do not [...]

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Identifying the weak link in product innovation

Posted on September 17, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

My last post discussed The Innovation Value Chain, a sequential process that involves idea generation, idea development and the diffusion of developed concepts. When organizations give proper attention to each step they develop ideas into great products and services, which leads to great companies. What happens when one or more steps in the process are [...]

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Leadership and innovation

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

How do successful leaders identify market needs and create innovative products and services to meet those needs? They start with ideas. Ideas potentially come from many sources and need to be nurtured effectively to succeed. The June 2007 Harvard Business Review includes an article by Morten T. Hansen and Julian Birkinshaw titled The Innovation Value [...]

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Great ideas

Posted on September 11, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

The Leadership and Success section of Investors Business Daily provides an excellent source of ideas and information for leaders. One of its highlights is the IBD’s 10 Secrets to Success section, a short article about one of  ten traits they have identified in successful people from all walks of life. In today’s edition of IBD, [...]

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Agile and SaaS

Posted on September 10, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

Two somewhat related topics are getting increasing attention these days: agile and SaaS (software-as-a-service). Agile software development changes the the paradigm for developing software; it breaks things down into smaller “bite-size” chunks. Tom Grant writes a nice post on the many reasons to be Agile. He compares its evolution with the Protestant Reformation. It’s a [...]

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Embrace and apply

Posted on September 8, 2008 by Michael Ray Hopkin

Think about the last training or career development session you attended…how long did it take to put into practice the things you learned? Conversely, how long did it take to forget the details of the information conveyed in the training? No matter how good a training session or how compelling the information conveyed, if you [...]

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