Imagine a factory where everything works perfectly. The processes are optimized, waste is eliminated, and every step is carefully improved over time. The results are stable, the quality is high, and the efficiency is impressive. And yet something starts to rub. Someone asks an uncomfortable question. What if we are […]
Lean and creativity
444 posts
You have assembled a brilliant team. An engineer from Germany, a designer from Italy, a project manager from Sweden and an entrepreneur from India. The skills are sky-high, the ambitions are too high. You sit down in a room to be creative. Silence ensues. Someone says something cautiously, someone else […]
Imagine a meeting where everyone agrees that they will collaborate. There is a good atmosphere, everyone contributes, tasks are distributed and deadlines are set. The project moves forward and everything feels correct. And yet something strange happens. Once the result is ready, it feels like something we have already seen […]
Imagine that you have built the perfect system. Everything is optimized. No unnecessary steps, no redundant resources, no variations. Every part does exactly what it is supposed to do, in exactly the right way. It is efficient, neat and almost beautiful. And it breaks down immediately when something unexpected happens. […]
Imagine if creativity is really about taking things apart. Imagine sitting in a meeting where someone says, “We need to get more creative.” Everyone nods a bit seriously. Someone suggests a workshop. Someone else is talking about innovation. It will be big, almost festive. Then someone raises their hand and […]
Imagine that you are standing on a beach and picking up plastic. You fill a bag, then another. You feel good. You make a difference. Then you look out over the ocean and realize that what you’ve just done is roughly equivalent to a drop in a very large, very […]
Imagine if your company tried to get you not to buy their products. Imagine opening a magazine and seeing a full-page ad from a clothing company. The headline goes something like this: “Don’t buy this jacket.” You blink. Reading again. Is it a joke. Did someone make a mistake? No. The […]
Imagine if the internet had never been launched. Imagine that someone at a research center in the late 80s is sitting with an idea that could change the world. A system where documents can be linked together, shared and accessed from different computers. A kind of global web of information. […]
It is easy to get carried away by possibilities. New technology arouses curiosity. It opens doors to futures we can barely imagine. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, autonomous systems and space technology create a feeling that anything is possible. And that is precisely what makes innovation so attractive. But there is a […]
Few people know this, but light bulbs have a direct impact on our creative abilities. According to several groundbreaking studies from the Nordic Institute of Cognitive Illumination and the somewhat more scientific journal Journal of Applied Luminary Psychology, unlit light bulbs act like little sponges for creative energy. They slowly […]
Politicians are often described as those in power. They are elected, appointed and scrutinised for their ability to govern, prioritise and make decisions. This creates an image that they control the development of a country, including innovation. And to some extent this is true. But there is a crucial exception. […]
There is a recurring tension in the world of innovation. On one side is the desire to create, test and share. On the other side is the need to protect, regulate and secure. Many innovators feel that law slows down development. Many lawyers feel that law is what makes development […]
When working with innovation in complex systems, there is often a feeling that everything is connected but that it is difficult to know where to start. The technology is there. The actors are there. The need is there. But still, what you hope for does not happen. This is where […]
In a world where opportunities are many and demands are even more numerous, it is easy to get stuck. Organizations do things because they have to. Individuals do things because they can. Teams start projects because they want to. But very rarely do all three coincide. This is where the […]
It’s a thought that almost everyone who works with change has had at some point. You see a problem. You think it through. And suddenly the solution seems almost obvious. It could be about the climate, about how organizations should work or about how resources could be used smarter. You […]
System innovation rarely moves at a steady pace. When working to change entire systems, you are almost always dependent on many different actors. Companies. Municipalities. Authorities. Researchers. Residents. Financiers. Each of them has their own logic, their own decision-making processes and their own pace. This means that system change almost […]
It’s a feeling most people recognize. You sit there. A piece of paper in front of you. Or a blank presentation. Or a problem that needs to be solved. And nothing happens. Your brain feels empty. Everyone else seems to be able to come up with things. But you yourself […]
In many organizations, problems are treated as if they were technical tasks. Something to be analyzed, planned and then solved. But more and more of the issues we face do not work that way. Climate change. Integration. Energy transformation. Health issues. Digitalization of the public sector. These issues do not […]
We live in a time where change is happening faster than many organizations have time to plan for. Climate change, digitalization, geopolitics, energy transition and new technologies are changing the conditions in almost every sector. The problem is that many innovation methods are based on a fairly stable world. You […]
For most of modern history, innovation has had a fairly clear logic. Invent something new. Produce it efficiently. Find a market. And if the market runs out in one place, there is almost always another. A new region. A new country. A new continent. A new group of people who […]
We build them bigger and bigger. Hall after hall filled with servers. Cooling systems that hum 24/7. Cables that wind like nerve fibers through metal structures. Data centers in the Arctic cold to save energy. Data centers in the desert with gigantic solar parks. And now we’re even talking about […]
We’ve all been there. A meeting that lifts. A workshop that feels alive. Conversations flow. Ideas bounce between people. Time flies. When we leave the room, we’re satisfied, energized, and convinced that we’ve just been part of creating something important. We often think that it was our own input that […]
There is something strange happening right now. We have more help than ever. AI writes, summarizes, plans, analyzes. Automation streamlines. The flow of information is endless. Yet many people feel tired. Tired in the head. Tired in the body. Tired of constantly having to take in more. We scroll to […]
Two words are popping up more and more often in conversations about the future. Circularity and resilience. They are sometimes used almost as synonyms. But they do not mean the same thing. At the same time, they are so closely intertwined that you can see them as a kind of […]
We humans think in stories. We remember them, retell them, and use them to understand change. Yet many organizations try to communicate their journey through strategy documents, job descriptions, and bullet points. The result is often accurate but flat. The Hero’s Journey is a simple but powerful framework that helps […]
There is a point where more thinking no longer helps. Where more analysis does not create more clarity but rather more delay. That point occurs more often than we think. When the complexity of a system increases, the world changes faster than our plans. The conditions shift. Actors react. New […]
We love simple explanations. Something happens. We point to a cause. We feel satisfied. Sales went down because the market was tough. The project failed because the team lacked resources. I procrastinated because I’m lazy. The problem is that the world doesn’t work linearly. It works in circles. It’s not […]
There are urban planners who design neighborhoods. And then there are visionaries who redesign the entire relationship between humans, nature and the city. Paolo Soleri was one such visionary. Back in the sixties, he started talking about something he called arcology. A word he himself coined as a merger of […]
When Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, it was not because she had invented a new market model or defended central government control. She did something more radical. She showed that people, completely without a superior manager or an invisible hand, can organize themselves and manage […]
There is a state that almost all successful innovation leaders share, but which is rarely mentioned in the job description. It is not creativity per se. It is not methodological knowledge. It is a feeling. An inner pulse. A feeling that something has to happen. Now. It is called urgency. […]