Agenda

The 2014 agenda for Innovate Carolina

7:30 am
Registration

8:15 am
Introductions, Conference goals, agenda for the day
Jeffrey Phillips, Conference Chair

8:30 am
Opening Keynote
Keith Sawyer, Author Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity and Morgan Distinguished Professor in Educational Innovations, UNC Chapel Hill

His keynote, based on his 2013 book, Zig Zag, presents a research-based eight-step innovation process. Sawyer explored the lives of exceptional creators, tapped into the back stories of world-changing innovations, and analyzed laboratory experiments that delved deeply into the creative process. His research reveals many surprising secrets of highly innovative organizations—how they question assumptions when presented with new problems, how they get beyond creative blocks, and above all, how they negotiate the many twists and turns along the way.

9:30-10:30 am
Parallel training session 1

Track A: Market Research Strategy and Planning
Riley Kirby, Magellan IMR
Topic: “5 Keys to Doing Market Research Right”

Ever wonder if the methods you use to gather customer insights are the best way to do it?  Riley Kirby, founder of two market research firms, has taught market research at the university level.  Riley will use real-world examples dealing with national companies to walk you through his five essential steps to conducting research that generates not only the best quality results, but uncovers the most useful insights. The topics covered are:

  • The best place to start when designing research (at the end)
  • The best research methodology to use given your goals (and budget)
  • How to ask questions the right way (if not, you’re better off not asking at all)
  • Methods for aligning teams and leveraging the results (by sharing it)

Track B: Leading Innovation Teams
Doug Powell, , Udaiyan Jatar, Blue Earth Network
Strategic goals, Mission, Vision.  These are all terms used by companies in an attempt to focus their leaders and teams toward the future.  In this interactive session the participants will see how the missing pieces of True Purpose©, Holistic Value and an “against the grain” route to market have allowed leaders across technology, beverage, auto and consumer goods industries to focus their teams to create transcendent brands that are nearly impossible to commoditize.

10:30-10:50 am
Networking Break

11:00-12:00 noon
Parallel training session 2

Track A: Intellectual Property Strategy for Product Development
Barry Brager, Perception Partners

The strategic assessment and development of intellectual property (IP), especially patents, is an ever-growing part of R&D and product development management. Analytic study of competitive IP can illuminate the path from a broad set of ideas to a successfully commercialized new product. Creative design of your own IP can avoid costly speedbumps and clear future legal roadblocks. Intelligent leverage of IP – bought, sold or licensed – becomes currency for strategic partnerships, access to external technology and open innovation. In this session, we will understand some of what can be measured in IP data, and which of these metrics can be used to inform strategic decision-making in product development. From profiling competitors to assessing patent strength to technology scouting to detecting IP white spaces, we will apply these metrics in a manner that can be used on the fuzzy front end of your next product development challenge.

Track B: Principles of Strategic Portfolio Management
David Matheson, SmartOrg
Are you really focusing your portfolio on creating new wealth, or are you making the political compromises necessary to get by? Do you have a great dashboard but don’t have credible data? We’ve seen many ways strategic portfolio management can go right, and go wrong. In our portfolio management course at Stanford, we use several fundamental design principles to assess and improve your process.  This session will cover:

  • Eight principles of strategic portfolio management.
  • How do you know your portfolio process is a good one?
  • Case studies illustrating the principles.
  • How to get better results from your portfolio.

12:00-1:00 pm
Networking Lunch

1:00 – 2:00 pm
Parallel training session 3

Track A: How understanding future trends leads to better product innovations
Garry Golden, Futurethink

In this experiential innovation session, supported by examples and interactive questions, academically trained Futurist Garry Golden will surface and challenge key assumptions about growth opportunities and new competitive threats associated with emerging trends.  Garry will use examples from various industries, case studies to aid creative thinking, and tips for imagining transformative implications for you and your products. You will learn:

  • How to apply strategic foresight to trends effecting your products, business, industry, and/or function.
  • Practical foresight tools and explore their application to both core businesses and new growth markets for product design and beyond.
  • Ingredients of disruptive scenarios shaped by possible business news events

Track B: Product Lifecycle Management strategies to improve your portfolio
Joe Dury, Kalypso
PLM Strategy is more than just selecting a technology – it is knowing your destination before you start the journey. It requires a comprehensive understanding of business processes, organizational structures, product development strategies, and people needed to make your business work. To achieve the business benefits of PLM, you need a well-defined strategy and roadmap. This session will cover best practices for PLM strategy, people, process and technology selection.

2:00-2:30 pm
Networking Break

2:30 – 3:30 pm
Parallel training session 4

Track A: From Reality to Requirements: Designing People-Centered Solutions
David Phillips, Faster Glass Consulting
What do the soundtrack from Frozen, suburban driving habits, and tree swings have to do with new product development? In an engaging workshop, we will connect the dots between these topics and explore how they can inform our efforts to design solutions that meet the real needs of real people. We will also discuss the pros and cons of an accelerated design approach that uses rapid prototyping to define requirements, instead of the more traditional requirements-to-prototypes workflow.

Track B: The Profound Value Proposition of Product Line Roadmapping
Paul O’Connor, The Adept Group
Several factors are now aligning to enable organizations to finally be in a position to realize the full benefits of this critical product management and product development practice – product line roadmapping. The result will be that over the next five to ten years company after company will try to out-pace their competitors as they ramp up their roadmapping capabilities. Paul O’Connor will answer these questions:
– Why product line roadmapping?
– Where does it fit (within the full architecture of new product development processes)?
– How can it profoundly benefit your organization?
– What are the steps you can take to implement this critical practice?

3:45 – 4:30 pm
Recognition of Student Awards Competition winners
Closing address