Jan Bosch
Everyone loves innovation. It communicates that things will be better. That we get more of what we want. That customers will love us more. That we’ll stand out from the crowd and be recognized for the great work we do. That the people we work with are motivated and excited. That everyone will beat a … Read more
As I am slowly emerging from summer vacation, there are a couple of reflections that have come to mind as I am engaging my brain again. One topic that I have been noodling on is that I have noticed an undercurrent of anti-agile thinking in what I read and the people I talk to. It … Read more
Whenever I talk to people that are (even) older than me and ask them about how they spend their time, there often is a reflection along the lines of “The days go slow, but the years go fast.” Especially in retirement, it seems that the number of things people spend time on is quite limited … Read more
In my own life, I notice that I’m increasingly aware of the things I like and think I’m good at and the things I don’t like and typically am not very good at either. Over the years, especially when I was younger, I tried a lot of things and, based on that, gravitated to what … Read more
In most of the companies I work with, the decision to develop a new product is made based on an assessment of the likely revenue and margin the product will create. This assumes a clear specification of the intended functionality of the product as a basis for the cost estimation associated with the development of … Read more
Few words in industry have such an overloaded meaning as the term “innovation.” Innovation and all its derivatives, like being innovative, in many contexts simply mean “good.” The underlying idea is that we like new and different, and an innovation will provide that. In product development, innovation almost always refers to introducing a new technology … Read more
In the previous post, we focused on the role of platforms to accomplish a constant evolution of the products we manufacture. As such, we accept that the traditional premise of manufacturing – producing as many copies of the same item as possible for as long as possible – is no longer a viable way forward. … Read more
Many companies are good at generating sustaining innovations in their mature, revenue generating products. We know what KPIs customers care about and we focus our efforts on continues improvement of these KPIs. For example, because of regulation as well as customer preference, the fuel efficiency of vehicles as well as their reliability has steadily improved … Read more
There is a wonderful “not safe for work” quote that states that assumption is the mother of all eff-ups. Many of the things that went wrong in my life can, when doing root cause analysis, be directly blamed on me having the wrong assumptions about the situation at hand or reality at large. Of course, … Read more
One of the things that never ceases to surprise me is the amount of misconception around the notion of innovation. Reams of paper have been filled with reflections on successful innovation and the people behind successful innovation typically receive enormous amounts of attention in their industry. Of course, what remains unsaid in these conversations is … Read more
