The discipline behind organizations that improve themselves
Since 1986, we have turned ideas into results, and taught organizations to build the systems and skills to keep doing it on their own.
Schedule a CallWhat we do, and what it makes possible.
Two terms run through everything on this site. Here is what each one means, and how they connect.
Innovation Engineering
A practical, research-grounded discipline for turning ideas into results. It joins the creativity of invention with the data and rigor of engineering, giving people a method to create, communicate, and commercialize ideas that they can learn, repeat, and improve.
A Systems-Powered Organization
An enterprise designed to improve itself. People share common methods, work runs on visible systems, and everyone is equipped to find what is broken, invent a better way, test it, and make it stick, so the organization gets smarter every year.
Innovation Engineering is the discipline. A Systems-Powered Organization is what becomes possible when that discipline is embedded across the enterprise.
From inventing group to innovation education.
Eureka! Ranch is an innovation think tank and consulting firm founded in 1986 by Doug Hall, a former Procter & Gamble Master Marketing Inventor. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, the company grew from an outsourced corporate inventing group into a leader in innovation education and systems training.
The Corporate Inventor Era
Doug Hall founded the Ranch after setting a record at Procter & Gamble, shipping nine innovations in twelve months with a team of three. The method was applying the systems thinking of Dr. W. Edwards Deming to innovation. Early on, the Ranch helped brands such as Nike, American Express, and Disney create big, disruptive ideas, and published Jump Start Your Brain to teach people how to think more creatively.
The Commercialization Challenge
The Ranch was successful at creating unique ideas, and it became clear that ideas also need help reaching the market intact. The team expanded beyond early-stage invention, published two more books on business and marketing, and trained a network of facilitators to bring the Eureka! process to small and midsize manufacturers.
The Pivot to Education and Systems
Innovation Engineering was first taught at the University of Maine in 2009 and has since spread to more universities. The team built software so leaders could apply the skills at their own organizations, and the focus shifted to helping companies build the systems and culture that keep improving on their own.
Milestones along the way.
Four decades of building, teaching, and refining the system.
To change the world by enabling innovation by Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.
We aim to move innovation from a random art to a reliable system, so organizations can move faster and carry less risk.
Diverse thinkers, built for this work.
We are the team organizations lean on to fill their pipelines with ideas for growth, improve their innovation systems, and train their people to think and act innovatively.
Maggie Nichols
CEO
Maggie leads Eureka! Ranch with 28 years of experience in enterprise innovation, strategy, and transformation. She guides a team of innovators, engineers, educators, and programmers who help organizations fill their innovation pipelines, improve their systems, and train their people.
Doug Hall
Founder and Chief Innovation Officer
A chemical engineer by training, Doug rose to Master Marketing Inventor at Procter & Gamble before founding Eureka! Ranch in 1986. His work applying Deming's systems thinking to innovation led to Innovation Engineering. He has been named one of America's top innovation experts by Inc. Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and CIO Magazine, and remains actively engaged on major strategic projects.
Lydia Carson
Innovation Systems
Scott Dunkle
Technology
Cross-trained by design
We reject the one-dimensional consulting model. Our people bring many disciplines to every project, which is what lets us see problems and possibilities that a single specialty would miss.
Engineers Educators Innovators Programmers Marketers Scientists Operators Chefs Statisticians PhDs R&D Experts Entrepreneurs Six Sigma Black Belts Founders of Innovation EngineeringA laboratory that keeps inventing.
Eureka! Ranch operates as an R&D laboratory, generating proprietary methods, training software, and physical patents.
Innovation Engineering®
Our central body of intellectual property: a system that merges creative ideation with the data discipline of engineering. It comes with structured training tracks where professionals earn Green Belt, Blue Belt, and Black Belt certifications.
Jump Start Your Brain
Online training and digital tools that give everyone in an organization the skills for ideation, project management, market research, and more, built to turn learning into real work.
Eureka! Inventing and Rapid Testing
Idea-generation methods, overnight concept testing, and statistically validated consumer feedback loops that screen ideas with data and raise their odds of market success.
Cycles to Mastery
Our patented teaching approach, which builds lasting skill through videos, lab assignments, and application work on real projects.
Inventions beyond consulting
Our inventors file patents on technologies outside of business consulting. One example is compression aging, which replicates years of whiskey aging in about 40 minutes. It is the technology behind Brain Brew Custom Whiskey, developed in collaboration with Edrington, the makers of The Macallan.
A library backing the method
Our approach is documented in books that have shaped how organizations think about innovation.
- Jump Start Your Brain
- Jump Start Your Business Brain
- Jump Start Your Marketing Brain
- Driving Eureka!
- Proactive Problem Solving
©, ® and/or patentable technology used under license from Eureka! Institute, Inc.
Designed for innovation.
Our headquarters is a custom-built facility on 80 acres just east of Cincinnati. With an open-plan design, flexible space, and plenty of natural light, it is a getaway built for team building and for inventing.
Tour Our FacilityLet's build an organization that improves itself.
Start with a quick call. We will get to know each other, talk through your goals, and find the right place to begin.
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