1 day agoPandemic — and reopening — surprisesWhen an inflection point comes to a head, human beings are remarkably ingenious in adapting to its requirements. It may not be fun, but we figure it out. But when the changes wrought by the inflection point settle in for good, a lot of re-learning and adjustment needs to happen. When the world as we knew it ended …Thoughtsparks7 min read
5 days agoWho knew there is so much in common between the rare successes in mega-projects and innovation?Photo: The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, designed by Frank Gehry Bent Flyvbjerg studies spectacular mega-project flameouts. I study (often) spectacular innovation mis-steps. Who knew the process that produces both has so much in common? Who knew that the path to success is knowable? And that we can…Thoughtsparks9 min read
Jun 14Counting down Our Top Ten List of Discovery Driven Planning misses — Part 2 (5 through 1)Through Valize, Ron Boire and I have been working with clients to use the tools we have developed to bring Discovery Driven Planning / Discovery Driven Growth to life. Although we’ve got years of experience doing this, and over 100,000,000 hits when you search on the term, it’s still pretty…Rita Mcgrath10 min read
May 27Startups in distress — we’ve seen this movie beforeWired magazine offered an article on the state of things in startup-land and discovered, astonishingly, that “The Bad times are Coming for Startups.” …Thoughtsparks8 min read
May 16Bright Promise and Dashed Hopes — The AT&T Media Strategy SagaBig, expensive unions of large and unwieldy companies almost never work out well. The sudden termination of CNN+ is but the latest casualty in a long history of things that began with a lot of confident predictions that eventually crumbled into “oh, never mind…” There are lessons to be learned…Thoughtsparks9 min read
May 11Thought Sparks Wrap Up — April 2022Dear colleagues: Just when you thought the world has learned the many lessons of discovery-driven planning, some huge, ambitious project gets shot down yet again — whether for business reasons or otherwise — and we go through the same handwringing as ever. Last month’s entry into the flops file was CNN+, which…Strategy4 min read
Published in The Silicon Guild·May 6Imposter Syndrome in the Silicon GuildA few months ago, the Silicon Guild held a virtual session to discuss imposter syndrome. While the authors who make up the Guild are among the most accomplished people in their field, including a disproportionate number of the Thinkers50, including six of the top 10 thinkers in the world, we…Imposter Syndrome3 min read
May 6You can’t avoid the digital dimension of your business, even if you wanted to!Asking what your digital strategy is today is a lot like asking what your electricity strategy was at the turn of the last century. Seems absurd. Yet both questions reflect how a shift in an underlying technology fundamentally changes what is possible. Electrification of factories and plants took a long…Strategy7 min read
May 4Say what???? The optimistic launch and ignominious end of CNN+The announcement that after an expenditure of something like $300 million, CNN was going to pull its CNN+ streaming service after just a month in operation sent shock waves through the media and entertainment ecosystem. Coming on the heels of a setback for streaming darling Netflix, it looks as though…Strategy7 min read
Apr 25What Everybody Ought To Know About Planning Under UncertaintyThe article “Discovery Driven Planning” was published in 1995. The book-length treatment came out in 2009. And yet, we’re only now catching up to what entrepreneurs and corporate innovators have long understood — when you are dealing with uncertainty, you need a plan to learn. If it were ever possible…Discovery Driven Planning8 min read