Teaching

The Three Box framework is a simple and proven method that allows organizations to successfully allocate an organization’s energy, time and resources across three boxes:

Box 1 Manage the present: Managing the core business at peak efficiency
Box 2 Selectively forget the past: Abandon ideas, practices, and attitudes that could inhibit innovation
Box 3 Create the future: Develop and convert breakthrough ideas into new products and businesses

The Three Box framework makes leading innovation within your organization easier. VG has worked with CEOs and top management teams in more than 25% of the Fortune 500 firms, including Boeing, Coca-Cola, FedEx, General Electric, IBM, J.P. Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, The New York Times, Procter & Gamble, Sony, and Wal-Mart, to discuss, challenge, and escalate their thinking about strategy and innovation. VG’s extensive research and consulting has resulted in the Best Seller The Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation, on which the two courses are based.

The content of these courses is relevant for a large corporation, a mid-size business, a startup or a nonprofit organization. Because innovation is a team sport, the Professional Certificate program is useful for individuals who intend to advance careers in R&D, Engineering, Manufacturing, Marketing, Sales, Service, Human Resources, Accounting, and Finance.

This is your opportunity to learn from the best and prepare your organization for success in the future.

What You’ll Learn:

1. Why companies need to continuously innovate strategically?
2. How to identify weak signals, market discontinuities and non-linear shifts that shape the future evolution of an industry?
3. How to execute breakthrough innovation strategies?
4. How can firms build the requisite organizational DNA to create the future while managing the present?
    

Corporate Endorsements for the edX courses:

"Given the incredible pace of change disrupting industries today, no company can survive by its sole reliance on a few individual leaders at the top trying to assess, and respond, to these disrupters.  EVERY employee must take up this mantle in his, or her, respective job, function, business unit, market and/or geography.  But to upskill an entire organization to think this way in real time can seem overwhelming.  This is precisely why these two edX courses created and taught be one of the world's most capable strategists is so timely, and so critical to a company's long term success.  Any employee who wants to think, and act like a leader... one who can hypothesize what the future holds and act accordingly would benefit from completing these two courses on innovation.  The simplicity, and power of application of VG's Box 3 thinking simply cannot be overstated. Hasbro leaders have found Three Box Solution practical and impactful”.

Dolph Johnson
EVP & Chief Human Resources Officer
Hasbro, Inc
Fortune 500, Technology and Entertainment Sector

“At P&G, we take a holistic approach to innovation to meet the needs of the consumers we serve.  This means partnering across all of our functions, including marketing, supply chain, technology, human resources, and finance to create and execute winning innovations.  We have worked with Vijay Govindarajan to strengthen our approach to innovation, leveraging the insights from his latest book Three Box Solution.  As a result, we believe managers in all functional areas can benefit from developing their innovation skills through professional certificate programs like those being offered through edX.”

Kathleen B. Fish
Chief Research, Development, and Innovation Officer
Procter & Gamble
Fortune 500, FMCG

At Prudential, Vijay Govindarajan has helped shape our thinking on the theory and practice of innovation. The rate of change will only accelerate in the future. Innovation is therefore going to be even more important. Whether you are a manager in the marketing function or in human resources or in finance, you must acquire capabilities to spot unmet customer problems, conceive new business models, test critical assumptions, come up with appropriate scorecard, and build the talent and the team to convert ideas into impact.  Earning a Professional Certificate in Vijay's Developing Breakthrough Innovations and Executing Breakthrough Innovations will help you develop these critical capabilities.

Pavan Dhamija
VP and Head of Strategy
Prudential International
Fortune 500, Service Sector

“In emerging markets, the name of the game is out-of-the-box thinking and innovation. Completing Developing Breakthrough Innovations and Executing Breakthrough Innovations and obtaining a Professional Certificate increase the odds of success in leading innovation”.

Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor
Chairman and CEO
Intercorp
Peru
Largest Business House in Peru, Service Sector

“Based on 35 years of working with startups as well as established organizations, Vijay Govindarajan (VG) has distilled a Three-Box framework that shows how businesses – and their people – can take concerted action in three time horizons at once: executing the present core business at peak efficiency (Box 1); avoiding the inhibiting traps of past success (Box 2); and building a future through breakthrough innovation (Box 3). VG has developed two edX courses—Developing Breakthrough Innovations and Executing Breakthrough Innovations--  that explain the Three-Box framework and its underlying ideas, complete with Application Exercises that will help you learn to execute the framework’s various elements. A Silicon Valley startup like Edmodo must continuously innovate by anticipating and responding to changes. I consider obtaining Professional Certificate in VG’s edX courses critical for everyone involved in a startup”.

Vibhu Mittal
Chief Executive Officer
Edmodo
Silicon Valley Education Technology Start Up

"Earning a Professional Certificate in Developing Breakthrough Innovations and Executing Breakthrough Innovations will prepare you for an effective career in R&D. After all, science and technology are foundational for breakthrough innovations. These essential edX courses provide both the theory and practice of breakthrough innovations."

Donnell Walton
Director, Science and Technology
Corning Incorporated
Fortune 500, Technology Sector

“At United Rentals, we view innovation as critical to our future. Mastering the content and getting a Professional Certificate in Developing Breakthrough Innovations and Executing Breakthrough Innovations are effective ways to advance management careers in a variety of functional areas including marketing, human resources, and finance. The Three Box Solution is an effective construct as we at United Rentals think about the development, prioritization and implementation of various strategies to drive innovation and growth.”

Jeffrey Fenton
Senior Vice President, Business Development
United Rentals
Fortune 500, Largest equipment rentals company

In 2016, Vijay Govindarajan made ETS an offer it could not refuse. He invited ETSers to participate in his then new six asynchronous session MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) that is based on his book, “The Three-Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation”. The Three-Box Solution is a result of 34 years of Vijay’s global work in strategy and innovation. Vijay came to ETS eight years prior to this offer and presented the Three-Box Solution to over 100 members of ETS leadership. As a result, The Three-Box Solution entered the strategic thinking, planning and vocabulary at ETS. This MOOC then expanded the knowledge to a wider audience across ETS allowing this important work to a deeper impact. We distributed most of the 200 copies of the book to members of the ETS G & I (Growth & Innovation) network after briefing them at information sessions. 65 people joined the MOOC immediately. Study groups formed and the way in which ETSers made sense of their organization, its environment, and the way in which we pursued innovation changed from our CEO to our engineers.  For example, the ability to frame certain strategic conversations as talking about how to "selectively forget the past" led to critical decisions for specific divisions including the abandonment of several product lines that had stubbornly survived along realignments. One work-based action learning leadership development cohort put it this way:

“How interesting some of the text aligns with our discussions . . .

Three questions companies should ask about weak signals of the future:

1. What particular factors and conditions does one's current success depend on?
2. Which of these factors might change over time or are changing already, thus putting current success at risk
3. How can one begin to anticipate and prepare for these possible changes so as to cushion or even exploit their impact?

Sure sounds like SUSTAINABILITY to me.”  

That group in fulfilling its project assignment used the knowledge and insights gained through the 3 Box MOOC to offer a radically different vision for how the organization should organize its strategic efforts.

Nothing – no speaker, book, article or video – was more fundamental to our shift to a new and more dynamic approach to innovation than the work of Vijay Govindarajan as encountered in this MOOC. If as more than one expert has stated, transformative learning is learning that transforms mindsets, then this MOOC was especially and wonderfully transformative for us.

T.J. Elliott
Chief Learning Officer and Vice President Strategic Workforce Solutions
ETS
Non-Profit

“Success in emerging markets requires business model innovations due to the often turbulent nature of markets and changing consumer demand. Mastering the content in Developing Breakthrough Innovations / Executing Breakthrough Innovations, while obtaining a Professional Certificate will equip you to face these challenges and give you the knowledge and tools to drive innovation in your organizations. "

Abinash Manghani
Area Manager & Head Travel Industry
ITC Hotels    
Premier luxury hotels in India

“At Compassion International, we’ve used Vijay Govindarajan’s Three-Box Solution framework in guiding our strategy development. Vijay’s ideas are as relevant for a for-profit Fortune 500 company as for a non-profit organization. If you desire to lead in our present global environment, do all you can to master the concepts of the Three Box Solution… it’s a must! They will guide you to drive the right kind of innovation and growth in your organization.”

Jimmy Mallado
CEO
Compassion International
Non-Profit

At TheGuarantors, or any early stage, hyper growth startup, there are far more tasks than pairs of hands. The 3 Box Methodology helps us re-frame our thinking, ultimately allowing us to better match resources with opportunities."

Michael Mirandi
Chief of Staff
TheGuarantors
An Early Stage Fin Tech Start Up