Why One Customer Is No Longer Enough

This week, I came across a concept from Karl Popper, the great philosopher of science, where he distinguishes human beings from other creatures in that we can create an idea in the theater of our imagination. We test the idea against other ideas that we have or others have or even against the world. And … Read more

Why Fast Feedback Cycles Matter

When studying software-intensive systems companies, one of the interesting observations is that they all evolve in the same way. In earlier research, we have referred to this as the “Stairway to Heaven”. In the figure below, the speed dimension of the Stairway to Heaven model is shown. This model is a descriptive model based on … Read more

Why Your Customers Are Slowing You Down

Every company is part of an business ecosystem. In the ecosystem, we find the partners, the suppliers, the customers, competitors, complementors as well as other stakeholders. A business ecosystem was more formally defined in the early 1990s by Moore as an economic community with three key characteristics. First, there is a symbiotic relationship between the … Read more

Why Failure Is The Only Option

During the last weeks, I’ve spent time with or close to the innovation units of otherwise traditional and conventional companies. As I wrote in another post earlier this year, it seems that every company has some kind of innovation initiative ongoing. As I had a bit of time to discuss with the people responsible for … Read more

When Did You Last Talk To A Customer?

Several of the companies that I work with have change initiatives ongoing. Some of these initiatives are more technology oriented, others affect the business strategy and yet others seek to re-position the company in the ecosystem it is part of. However, all these initiatives have one thing in common: customers will be affected by the … Read more