Process Transformers

Open innovation means working with external partners to discover, test, and scale new ideas faster than you could alone. But, what does it really take to make open innovation work inside large organizations? In this episode, Lukas Egger speaks with Diana.

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Open innovation sounds exciting. In reality, it often fails quietly. We start by redefining open innovation. It is not customer feedback or design thinking. It is about partnering with organizations that have fundamentally different strengths such as startups or universities to do what you cannot do alone. The goal is not to remove weaknesses but to combine complementary capabilities. Then we get into the real challenge, choosing the right setup. Accelerators, venture arms, and university partnerships all serve different purposes. There is no one size fits all. Every approach comes with trade offs such as speed versus scale, visibility versus discretion, and short term results versus long term bets. The biggest blocker, however, is internal. Most open innovation efforts fail not because of external partners but because of misalignment inside the organization. Conflicting incentives, unclear expectations, and lack of ownership stop progress before it even starts. AI adds a new layer to this. It makes prototyping faster and more accessible than ever, allowing teams to test ideas quickly and learn in real time. But while ideas move faster, structures and incentives often do not. Without adapting how organizations work through sandboxes, clearer boundaries, and better alignment, AI risks amplifying chaos instead of impact. We close with a hard truth. Innovation requires real trade offs. Without changing incentives, supporting middle management, and making room for exploration, even the best ideas will stall.

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Guest: ⁠⁠⁠ Diana Joseph 
Dr. Diana Joseph is a design thinking leader and innovation consultant who works at the intersection of learning, entrepreneurship, and organizational change. With a doctorate in Learning Sciences and experience as a high-tech innovation director, she blends motivation psychology, education, and Silicon Valley methods like design thinking and Lean Startup to help people and organizations become more innovative and entrepreneurial. She founded the Corporate Accelerator Forum (CAF) to connect corporate innovation leaders and unlock open innovation across ecosystems, and supports startups through Click | the Startup Accelerator for Corporate Partnership. Diana speaks and works on open innovation, leadership alignment, corporate partnerships, democratizing AI, and building cultures of agency, learning, and creative confidence. She is also a startup coach, mentor, board leader, and the author of Open Innovation Works. 

If you want to learn more about:

Our guest: ⁠LinkedIn | Webpage  
SAP Signavio:⁠https://www.signavio.com⁠

Email us your questions or comments: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠

Join us for a sharp, practical conversation with Matthew Skelton on how to build organizations that work when AI starts shipping alongside your teams. We talk cognitive load, fast value flow, leadership without micromanagement, and why safety and trust become the real bottlenecks. This is an episode you do not want to miss.

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AI is changing how value gets built and shipped. But going faster is useless if you are just accelerating confusion. In this episode, Lukas Egger talks with Matthew Skelton about how to stay fast and dependable as AI becomes part of everyday delivery. We start with cognitive load and fast flow of value, and why these ideas are the most practical way to think about team design right now. Many organizations have talented people and solid intentions, yet still struggle to deliver meaningful outcomes. The usual culprits show up fast: teams stretched too thin, feedback that arrives late, systems that feel fragile, and structures that make coordination painfully expensive. Then we get specific about AI. Used well, it can remove busywork and tighten feedback loops. Used carelessly, it creates a new class of risk: content quality issues, product safety failures, and erosion of trust. If automation can push changes at high speed, you need equally serious testing, clear ownership, and real accountability. From there, we shift to leadership and control. Not the old command and control model, but a tighter version of autonomy: clarity on direction, alignment on outcomes, and visibility into how work and value actually move through the org. We close with a surprisingly powerful lever that most teams ignore: procurement. When you look at it through a value-flow lens, procurement can either choke delivery or unlock speed, trigger better conversations, and produce real impact far earlier in the enterprise than anyone expects.

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Guest: ⁠ Matthew Skelton
Matthew Skelton is the co-author of Team Topologies, one ofthe most influential approaches in modern organizational design and software delivery. As CEO/CTO of Conflux and leader of the global Team Topologies initiatives, Matthew helps organizations around the world design for fast flow of value, sustainable team health, and organizational resilience in complex, fast-moving environments.
 
His work sits at the intersection of operating models, organizational design, socio-technical systems, cognitive load theory, and platform engineering. Over the past decade, his ideas and approaches have shaped how global companies structure teams, define interactions, and build internal platforms that reduce complexity and accelerate value delivery. Team Topologies has become a reference model for leaders seeking clarity, adaptability, and humane high performance.
 
More recently, Matthew’s work explores how AI — particularlyagentic and autonomous systems — changes (and sometimes reinforces) the foundations of team design. His perspective is grounded, practical, and focused on real-world delivery: fast flow, reduced cognitive load, better collaboration, and organizations that don’t burn people out.
 
Matthew is a frequent keynote speaker at global conferencesand enterprise events, and advises organizations across industries on organizational effectiveness, operating models, internal platforms, and AI-era team design.
If you want to learn more about:

Our guest: LinkedIn | Webpage | Mastodon | Bluesky | SpeakerDeck
SAP Signavio:https://www.signavio.com

Email us your questions or comments: ⁠[email protected]⁠

Join us in this episode with Salman Azhar as he unpacks how money really moves in the age of AI, from seed bets to the quiet mid-stage crunch. Discover what serious investors look for in AI startups, why problem-space matters more than buzzwords, and what corporate leaders can learn about capital allocation and incentives.

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AI innovation doesn’t happen on code alone; it runs on capital. In this episode, Lukas Egger talks with Salman Azhar about what really happens “where the money meets the models.” They walk through the lifecycle of an AI company, from risky angel and seed checks to the Series A/B bottleneck and eventual exits. Salman explains why he prioritizes high-value problem spaces and defensible IP over flashy founders and AI-heavy pitches. Hear how AI is transforming venture work at the top of the funnel, while still falling short on trustworthy probabilities. The conversation zooms out to a liquidity crunch, IPOs “queued like planes after a storm,” and too much money chasing a few household AI names while real applications go underfunded.

For corporate innovators, Salman’s takeaway is clear: align incentives with upside, kill weak ideas early, and treat internal ventures more like startups where compensation and consequences track real value creation.

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Guest: Salman Azhar, Azimuth Opportunity Fund & Duke University

Dr. Salman Azhar has unique access in the venture world after investing in 250+ startups over 20+ years and generating a positive return with his first 12 exits. He specializes in buying pre-IPO unicorns’ shares from early investors.

Dr. Azhar is a General Partner of Azimuth Opportunity Fund and Executive in Residence at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He is a Charter Life Member of OPEN Global and an advisor to several funds, including Quartus, Moment, and Regiment. His former business partners and clients include Toyota, Sony, SAP, and others.

Dr. Azhar earned his MS and PhD in Computer Science from Duke as a James B. Duke Fellow and a BS in Math and Physics from Wake Forest University as a Carswell Scholar.

If you want to learn more about:

Our guest Salman Azhar: LinkedIn
SAP Signavio

Email us your questions or comments: [email protected]

Innovation needs story. In this episode, Lukas Egger and Susan Lindner reveal why storytelling is a survival skill for innovators: turning failure into learning, imagination into possibility, and inertia into action. Explore the tension between “show me the data” and the human emotions that actually drive decisions. Learn to earn buy-in by naming shifts, pointing to winners, and co-creating a promised land your audience cares about. Packed with practical guidance for meetings, presentations, and pilots, this episode shows how to design change journeys that stick, and how AI can accelerate your narrative craft.

Guest:
Susan Lindner
Susan Lindner is the Founder and CEO of Innovation Storytellers, a leading innovation storytelling consulting firm. She is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, workshop leader, messaging strategist, storytelling coach, and the world’s leading expert on innovation storytelling.

Susan draws from her initial experiences as an anthropologist and international aid worker in rural Thailand in the 1990s, where she shared stories that helped at-risk populations disproportionately affected by AIDS to slow the virus’ spread. Today, as a 20-year communications expert, she is committed to using those same storytelling skills to inspire innovation leaders everywhere to become incredible storytellers and ensure that their innovations get the resources, runway, and recognition they deserve.

Susan is the host of Innovation Storytellers, a weekly podcast that takes the mystery out of how to communicate breakthrough ideas to the people who matter most. Every week, Susan interviews top global innovation leaders from companies like Amazon, Bloomberg, Cisco, Corning, and Tesla about the stories that moved their innovations past the boardroom, lab, and production line and into our everyday lives.

Susan speaks at global conferences, consulates, and trade organizations. She has worked with C-level leaders and teams from over 60 countries at Fortune 100 companies like GE, Corning, Citi, AT&T, Arm & Hammer on their innovation storytelling strategies. The result? Those innovation leaders become incredible storytellers who go on to change the world. Susan is driven to ensure every breakthrough idea reaches its finish line through powerful stories that connect to every listener and power that brilliant idea forward.

Host:
Lukas N. P. Egger
Head of the Innovation Office & Strategic Projects team at SAP Signavio
Lukas leads a team of experts, steering innovation projects. His approach blends a strong technical understanding with a keen eye for product discovery and digital transformation. Lukas regularly contributes to discussions and panels, sharing his perspectives on AI, the digital zeitgeist, and philosophy. Lukas funded multiple startups, published a humorous philosophy book, and received silver screen quotation for special effects work for an animated movie.

If you want to learn more about:
Our guest: LinkedIn | Innovation Storytellers
SAP Signavio: www.signavio.com
If you have questions or comments, email: [email protected]
Additional downloads:
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Join Lukas Egger and Peter Temes as they reimagine work for the age of AI. Peter shares pilots of the Match platform that expand task diversity, promote self‑management, and use AI to match people to roles through micro‑credentials and human‑in‑the‑loop recommendations. Hear practical stories from warehouses to industrial plants, and learn how listening to workers, modular tasks, and career path planning boost retention, safety, and training outcomes. If you want actionable insight into adapting your workforce, this episode will inspire leaders to start with understanding people and to design flexible, humane systems for the future.

Guest:
Peter Temes
Founder & President of the ILO Institute
Peter began his career as a full-time member of the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and went on to found Enterprise Interactive, a consulting and research firm.

Peter has led research initiatives for Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Disney, EY, Pfizer, GM’s autonomous vehicles group and many other companies in the technology, finance and consumer marketing sectors. Peter has also served as Dean and Campus Chief Executive for Northeastern University, President of the Antioch New England Graduate School and President of the Great Books Foundation.

He is the author and editor of several books, including Teaching Leadership, The Just War, and Against School Reform. Peter holds a Ph.D. and three master’s degrees from Columbia University.

Host:
Lukas N. P. Egger
Head of the Innovation Office & Strategic Projects team at SAP Signavio
Lukas leads a team of experts, steering innovation projects. His approach blends a strong technical understanding with a keen eye for product discovery and digital transformation. Lukas regularly contributes to discussions and panels, sharing his perspectives on AI, the digital zeitgeist, and philosophy. Lukas funded multiple startups, published a humorous philosophy book, and received silver screen quotation for special effects work for an animated movie.

If you want to learn more about:
Our guest: LinkedIn | ILO Institute
SAP Signavio: www.signavio.com
If you have questions or comments, email: [email protected]
Additional downloads:
Download transcript as PDF file