Initiating Innovation Projects


Dear Reader,

Last night, Martina Skender gave an inspiring talk about a critical point of innovation projects...the start.

As a researcher & innovation strategist, her work involves many business stakeholders.

But her approach to innovation is still very human-centric, and I think you will enjoy hearing about how she handles the difficulty of innovation work.

She gave concrete ways to:

  • Establish a culture of courage
  • Design a system for people to disagree
  • Improve communication through humility

You can watch the full talk below:

Martina was also kind enough to share her slides in a Miro board. Check them out here for a nice collection of innovation assets from the toolbox of a working strategist.

Until next week!

Jeff Humble
Designer & Co-Founder
The Fountain Institute

The Fountain Institute

The Fountain Institute is an independent online school that teaches advanced UX & product skills.

Read more from The Fountain Institute

Ready Beats Perfect (+ four habits from Hatch Conference) By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Last week I had the pleasure of hosting the Dome Stage at Hatch, a design-leadership conference bringing product and UX folks together to share what’s working (and what isn’t). Q&A with Iris Latour, co-founder of THEFT Studio. Photos from Hatch Conference Photographers Rebecca ruetten, Indigo Lewisohn, Not because I’m fearless, but because I’d done two simple things: I prepped my intros for each speaker,...

diverge explore converge diagram

10 Design Diagrams To Study Instead of Staring Into the Void by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, It's that time of the year. Another boring Q3 earnings call, and all you want is to go back to the beach. You look at yourself in Zoom, and all you see is a bottomless void. Hey. Stop that. Instead, check out some of the best Jeffing diagrams on the internet. At least you will look like you are kind of working... 1. Diverging and converging in action by Nicholas Frota Designers talk a lot about diverging...

Six-screen signup: SSO/login, email entry, verify email (pre- & post-entry states), OTP with timer, success.

Level-up your critiques in 3 questions By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, You know the critique that starts with “quick feedback” and ends 45 minutes later with five conflicting opinions and no next step? Or the one where a senior voice speaks first and the room quietly aligns, even when the data points elsewhere. Here’s a simple pattern, adapted from Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), that pulls critiques out of taste debates and into clearer decisions. What VTS is (in 60 seconds) VTS is a...