Free innovation tools

The state of corporate restructuring in Europe As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten lives and livelihoods, many hard-hit European companies face an uncertain future. Their profitability has declined as a result of significant market disruption during the pandemic. At the same time, they have taken on massive amounts of debt to offset the loss of cash flow. Globally, corporate debt issuance reached a record $5.4 trillion last year (a 20 percent increase from 2019), with another $3.5 trillion from syndicated loans. Our favorite digital tools for remote collaboration Ready to create a prototype with which to validate your solution with end-users? There are loads of tools you can use. The best ones for prototyping and testing MVPs for in(validation), according to Montana Mertens, our highly talented internal designer, are Sketch, Figma, and Invision.

What falling robots reveal about the absurdity of human trust Taking a final glance at your partner, you turn away, close your eyes, and cross your arms over your chest. With a deep breath, you exhale and slowly shift your weight backwards. Gravity overpowers your usual state of balance and you begin to tip back. Force Field Analysis (FFA) Example: FFA & Digital Adoption A force field analysis can be an effective tool for assessing change readiness. In this post, we’ll look at a force field analysis example that focuses on digital adoption. To start off, however, we’ll briefly explore what this tool is and how change managers use it. What Is a Force Field Analysis? Podcast: Workplace Design, Post-Pandemic ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard. If you’re like many knowledge workers out there struggling to do your job from home, juggling family responsibilities, exhausted by never-ending Zooms, you might be dreaming of returning to the office when the pandemic ends. Or maybe you really thrived without the daily commute and distracting coworkers, and you want to keep working from home. Our guest today says that the reality for most of us will probably be somewhere in the middle. Her research shows that the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated a trend toward more flexible schedules and virtual work, but it’s also pushing organizations to rethink the purpose of the office and reinvent its structure and schedules as we start to carve out our new normal.

100+ Prioritization Frameworks Ultimate Guide: How to Prioritize Product Features & Projects These are examples where PMs have shared their workflows and mindset going into prioritization. Kate Horowitz offers up this 5-step framework for building product roadmaps. Read the full walkthrough at Product First. GRIDS stands for Gather and group like ideas, Review and Respond, Investigate, Decide, Share. Ian McAllister Staying Mindful When You’re Working Remotely Remote work is taking its toll in the form of chronic stress and burnout. Cultivating mindfulness in our online environment is a way to combat this depletion of energy. The authors recommend applying three mindfulness principles to your... It’s no surprise that online work is depleting our energy and resilience. The evidence shows that many of us are working longer hours, suffering chronic stress, and burning out at levels the world has never witnessed.

Tool: 15-minute FOTO (From Obstacles To Outcomes) 15-minute FOTO – aka the And when X... game¹ – is our Creative Commons-licensed and Clean Language-inspired coaching game that’s not only for coaches – everyone gets a turn! Consistently, it’s a highlight of our workshops: it’s fun and surprisingly practical, generating not just insights but a good quantity of relevant outputs. Above all, it’s the main tool by which we generate outcomes – and outcomes are the main currency in which we deal². FOTO stands for “From Obstacles to Outcomes”, and the game’s objective is to generate as any outcomes as you can in the allotted time – 15 minutes for a table group working together in the Lite edition, or 3-4 minutes per rotation (plus some changeover time) through the Classic edition’s roles of client, coach, scribe, and (depending on numbers) observer. As well as an objective, 15-minute FOTO has rules, two of them – it is a game after all! They make it a generative process:

The State of Work 2020: Looking Back to Look Ahead Uncertain, unprecedented: every week in 2020 forced organizations to adapt—in many cases overnight—to a remote workforce, changing consumer demands, fluctuating government restrictions, employee struggles. We wanted to look beyond the headlines to help leaders navigate this unique moment in history, and assess whether responses were quick fixes to immediate problems, or more permanent shifts in how business is done. What we found was that 2020 accelerated deep inequities at work and in American life. Early sentiments of unity and solidarity (i.e.

What Is the Power Distance Index (PDI)? The power distance index (PDI) is a measure that describes how people relate to authority. Cultural values such as this affect, among other things, the way people communicate and interact at work – particularly the way they interact with their superiors. In this post, we’ll answer a few key questions about this measurement, then learn how it can be used to build a more aligned, cohesive team culture. What Is the Power Distance Index (PDI)? AI and wearables: tech coming soon to an office near you While the personal computer transformed the office of the 1970s, the fax machine smoothed communications in the 1980s and Microsoft had become ubiquitous by the end of the last century, artificial intelligence (AI) looks set to spark the latest office revolution. Gartner has predicted that 2021 will see AI create almost $3 trillion of business value. But, says Tim El-Sheikh, chief executive of technology development studio Nebuli: “It’s about how we can make technology and AI work alongside humans as opposed to replacing them.” AI will take over a lot of the heavy lifting in the office, he says, such as preparing and dispatching reports, managing and updating customer relationship management systems and mining data for patterns. But while El-Sheikh is adamant “AI is the future, it’s inevitable”, he is also at pains to “destroy the myth that AI is a solution for everything”. It is essential companies can walk before they start to run, he insists.

Using Pareto's Law to Sustain Organizational Change Pareto’s Law, or Principle as it is sometimes called, states that 20% of any input gives 80% of its corresponding output, and that 80% of input will only yield the remaining 20% of output. This Law shows up everywhere. Consider these few examples: Is Your C-Suite Equipped to Lead a Digital Transformation? The pandemic has rapidly accelerated many companies digital efforts, but do they have the right executives in place to lead this sort of transformation? To answer this question, the authors analyzed more than 100 search specifications for C-suite... The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated technology adoption across all industries. According to one survey, 77% of CEOs reported that the pandemic sped up their companies’ digital transformation plans, and as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted in the early days of the crisis, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.” A study conducted by Twilio found that Covid-19 accelerated companies’ digital communications strategies by an average of six years.