Insights

InnoLead case studies, interviews, book excerpts, and contributed columns.

Insights

Is Your Company Sabotaging Projects by Using the Wrong Evaluation Criteria?

"In most companies, financial metrics are the default language for decision-making on core business innovation projects," writes Noel Sobelman in the new book Innovation Portfolio Management. Unfortunately, "projecting ROI when entering brand-new territory with no history to draw on is, at best, guesswork," he says. Here's his advice.
Noel Sobelman · Sep 11, 2026
Insights

Deploying AI at $28B Sun Life Financial: Learnings So Far

InnoLead interviews Sun Life exec Laura Money about how she prioritizes AI projects; some of the concrete outcomes they’re seeing so far; and why Sun Life has joined other Canadian companies to form the AI Consortium.

Nicole Lewis · Aug 31, 2026
Insights

How to Think About Startup Engagement in 2026

In a session at the most recent Impact conference last month, we looked at some of the reasons why it might make sense to partner with a startup rather doing everything in-house — and a few metrics and indicators that can let you know whether or not your approach is working.

Chris Varley · Jul 27, 2026
Insights

Rewiring the Way R&D Organizations Think

R&D teams tend to understand their products with precision — but not always the people those products are designed for. Deirdre Walters explains how to address that…

Deirdre Walters · Jul 6, 2026
Insights

Why Digital Transformation Still Gets Stuck Inside Large Organizations

When digital transformation gets stuck, the reason is rarely a lack of technology, writes Marcus East. More often, new technology is being added to organizations that still operate through outdated systems, rigid structures, and old assumptions about how work should get done.

Marcus East · Jul 1, 2026
Insights

Five Steps That Make Change Easier

In this excerpt from the new book How Change Really Work, the authors caution that “take up” of change and new ideas among your colleagues is never automatic, but must be earned. Then they present five steps for earning it.

Julia Dhar, Kristy Ellmer, and and Philip Jameson write · Jun 12, 2026
Insights

Strategic Innovation Demands an Investment Thesis

To survive in an environment where average business model lifespans have collapsed, corporate innovators must move from unstructured ideation to the rigorous discipline of successful venture capitalists, write Ranjan Dash and Suresh Chandran

Ranjan Dash · May 26, 2026
Insights

Why Innovation Can’t Happen Without Playfulness

Innovation can’t exist in a culture that doesn’t allow for playfulness, says Piera Gelardi, author of the new book The Playful Way. Yet the environment in many workplaces today is shaped by plenty of non-playful dynamics. So what do you do?

Scott Kirsner · May 13, 2026
Insights

How to Survive the ‘Stakeholder Spiral’

Every project in a big organization projects attract layers of stakeholders, each with their own interests, fears, and mental models. In this excerpt from his new book, Misha de Sterk offers advice on managing that dynamic.

Misha de Sterk · Mar 26, 2026
Insights

Stop Explaining — and Start Building More Prototypes

Because the cost of “making it real” has dropped to near zero, you can stop prototyping just the “best” idea, writes Todd Reily. Instead, you can prototype a whole portfolio of potential solutions.

Todd Reily · Mar 17, 2026
Insights

How to Know if You’re AI Obsessed… or AI Enabled

“People react in two ways to Gen AI,” writes Mohan Nair in his latest book. “One is what I call AI-afraid, and the second is AI-obsessed.” The third way is learning how to be AI-enabled.

Mohan Nair · Feb 12, 2026
Insights

Software Provider Profile: Qmarkets

Qmarkets helps large organizations move beyond fragmented innovation initiatives and deliver measurable business impact at scale. Built for the realities of enterprise innovation, the platform enables organizations to manage innovation end to end, from early exploration to execution and impact tracking.

Scott Kirsner · Jan 23, 2026
Insights

Inside the Innovation Process at LEGO’s Creative Play Lab

Tom Donaldson, Head of the Creative Play Lab at the LEGO Group, discusses the company’s culture; his belief in the importance of prototyping and “silent demos”; and how the company measures innovation.

Scott Kirsner · Dec 8, 2025
Insights

Is AI a Bubble… or a Massive Opportunity?

Rana el Kaliouby talks about how she defines human-centric AI; how vibe coding is being used in large organizations; the sci-fi movie “Her”; and her biggest concerns about the AI age.

Scott Kirsner · Dec 1, 2025
Insights

The 10 Best Anti-Innovation Quotes: Hollywood Edition

With the holiday movie-going season upon us, we assembled a list of anti-innovation quotes from notable Hollywood executives, inventors, and directors — just to show that no industry is without its nay-sayers who can rationally explain why change will never come.

Scott Kirsner · Nov 24, 2025
Insights

How Google X Works to Systematize Innovation

Helen Riley of Google X talks about the organization’s mission; several current projects; how they deal with failure; and their efforts to systematize innovation.

Scott Kirsner · Nov 19, 2025
Insights

Success Factors: Insights from the 2025 Impact Award Winners

During a session at the 2025 Impact conference in Boston last month, five leaders from organizations that won Impact Awards shared how they are using artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies to produce measurable business impact.

Scott Kirsner · Nov 12, 2025
Insights

Using AI to Support Innovation (and Iteration) at ServiceNow

Since its founding in 2004, Silicon Valley-based ServiceNow has been all about automating business workflows. So in the current AI era, the $11 billion company is focused on how various types of AI will support that automation. And often, ServiceNow’s own employees are “customer zero” for new offerings — early adopters for the products and services it builds.

Dawn Kawamoto · Oct 15, 2025
Insights

11 AI Trends for Healthcare Heading into 2026

Healthcare AI trends according to the Mayo Clinic, Oracle, UCLA Health, and a former partner at Mass General Brigham’s AI and Digital Innovation Fund.

Scott Kirsner · Oct 1, 2025
Insights

How ADP is Prioritizing AI Initiatives

With annual revenues of nearly $21 billion, the human resources software and services is looking to artificial intelligence to help it maintain — and build on — an already strong position in the market. We talk to the company’s Chief Product and AI Officer.

Nicole Lewis · Sep 15, 2025
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