Agile Giants: Lessons from Corporate Innovators

On this week’s episode of Agile Giants, we’re going to do something just a little different. There’s a lot of questions that I’m regularly asked when it comes to corporate innovation and agile product development. I’ve combined some of those questions with questions that I heard from you on social media and I’ve come up with five common questions that I get. 

 We’ll see how this works, but if this is interesting to you let me know other questions that you might have and maybe we’ll start weaving these in about once a quarter.

Christina has had executive roles in a number of types of healthcare companies. In most of these organizations, at least part of her time was focused on leading innovation.

Healthcare is a sector that seems to naturally lend itself to corporate innovation, given balance sheet and incumbency advantages that are often necessary for transformative innovation.

This is likely why we've had so many health care companies collaborate at the Corporate Startup Lab.

Christina has a great perspective on this, having worked for a number of different types of players in the sector.

Show Links:

  * Christina's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-weir-ripley-90941329/

  * Tepper Exec Ed Course on Leading Innovation: https://www.cmu.edu/tepper/executive-education/innovation/leading-innovation/index.html

Tanya Baker is the Global Head of GS Accelerate. A new initiative inside Goldman Sachs that is “ a platform for people at Goldman Sachs to be able to apply, submit an idea, and go through various rounds of pitching and ultimately they get funded, be an intrapreneur, as we call it within Goldman Sachs.” In many ways, this is similar to many other corporate startup labs being set up at other Fortune 500 companies but they also are taking a very Goldman Sachs approach. 

Show Links:

• Tanya Baker's LinkedIn
• GS Accelerate Career Page
• Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs (book by John Doerr) 

This is something a little unique for Agile Giants. I was at the IRI Conference and got just a few minutes to sit down with Peter. As you’ll hear on the interview, Peter’s part of a team at NASA that has quite an ambitious mission: to get people back to the moon and then ultimately to Mars. 

I’m sure when you think about the projects you’re working on in your organization, they may be characterized as “moonshots” but probably not literally attempts to get to the moon.

Show Links:

• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center  - https://www.nasa.gov/goddard
• Peter Hughes LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-hughes-b19997/ 

On this week’s episode of Agile Giants, I’m joined by Eric Chaniot, the Chief Digital Officer of Michelin. Most people probably know Michelin as a tire company, but as you’ll hear in the interview, they actually have a number of different divisions focused on mobility. 

Eric runs a group that’s responsible for digital transformation across each of these different divisions. Eric had some great perspective on innovation and transformative innovation.

Show Links: 

• Eric’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericchaniot/
• Eric’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Force-Within-Technology-Innovation-innovations-ebook/dp/B01NAELV02

This week’s episode of Agile Giants is a little different. A few weeks ago I had a chance to moderate a panel at the 3 Rivers Venture Fair in Pittsburgh, PA. 

The panel focused on corporation venture capital, and specifically the corporate venture capital value proposition. We had guests from Covestro, Bayer and UPMC, each participated as panelists talking about how each of their individual companies approached corporate venture.

If you’re interested in talking more about Corporate VC, feel free to reach out. It’s an area I’m continuing to explore myself and would love to get other people’s perspective on Corporate VC.

• The Rise of the Creative Class
• The New Urban Crisis
• The Breakthrough Illusion
• City Lab: America’s Tech Hubs Still Dominate, But Some Smaller Cities Are Rising

• The Rise of the Creative Class
• The New Urban Crisis
• The Breakthrough Illusion
• City Lab: America’s Tech Hubs Still Dominate, But Some Smaller Cities Are Rising

Jeff's work has really had a profound impact on the way I approach a lot of problems. I remember when one of the companies I ran switched to Scrum (mSpoke) and it was like a light switch went on in the organization.

I can't really talk enough about how positive Scrum's impact was on that organization and a lot of the companies I've worked with since then.

It was really amazing to meet Jeff. He's a brilliant guy and I took away a ton from our conversation.

If you're thinking about how to operationalize Agile philosophies in your organization regardless of the size, I think Scrum is a great technique. And if you're already using Scrum, hopefully, there'll be new things you can learn from our conversation. I know there are a few things I've already changed in terms of how I recommend deploying Scrum based on this conversation.

Show Links: 

 https://www.scrumatscale.com/

 http://iriannual.com/

 Detecting Aigle BS: https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/09/2002049591/-1/-1/0/DIB_DETECTING_A

For this tenth episode of Agile Giants, we have quite a treat.

I'm joined this week by Beth Comstock. Beth is probably best known as the former Vice Chair of GE, specifically leading innovations. She wrote a really transparent book called Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change, which is a really interesting blend of a reflection on her time at GE, the good and the bad, almost a memoir, as well as a nice set of best practices and observations for corporate leaders responsible for innovation.

We use her book as a jumping off point for the discussion, but I can't recommend strongly enough you pick it up yourself if you're interested in digging in further. It's available wherever books are sold.

Show Links:

• Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change  (Amazon) (Barnes & Nobel) 
• Beth's Personal Website