Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit...

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 368 pages
• Published by: Wharton School Publishing August 1, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0131497863
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0131497863
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 1.3 pounds

Reader Reviews
A book's subtitle is often very informative and that is certainly true of this book. I also appreciate the fact that its co-authors explain why their book was written, what its key points are, and how its material has been organized. According to Davila, Epstein, and Shelton: "The truth is that there is not much that is truly new about innovation. The basics have not changed for centuries. However, we have become smarter about managing innovation." There is a compelling need in 2005 to view it from different perspectives. The co-authors suggest three: "Innovation, like many [other] business functions, is a management process that requires specific tools, rules and discipline -- it is not mysterious." "Innovation requires [accurate] measurement and [generous] rewards to deliver sustained, high yield." "Companies can use innovation to redefine an industry by employing combinations of business model innovation and technology innovation." It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these three separate but interdependent perspectives when attempting (struggling?) to determine how to manage, measure, and profit from innovation. The co-authors have obviously done some innovative thinking about innovation, especially in terms of its practical applications. The most valuable business books tend to be those whose narrative is driven by a question. In Jim Collins' Good to Great, "How can a good company become a great company?" In Jason Jennings' Think Big, Act Small, "What traits do America's best performing companies share?" In this book, the co-authors seem to be primarily interested in answering two questions: "Why is innovation a necessary ingredient for sustained success?" and "Why is innovation an integral part of [any] business?" When responding to these two questions from the three aforementioned perspectives, they reveal the most effective strategies and tactics for managing, measuring, and profiting from innovation. There is overwhelming evidence that almost all process simplification initiatives have failed. Why? Several reasons but the most common one seems to be that the process by which change agents attempted to simplify process was itself too complicated. "Old wine in new bottles" is still old wine. As with process simplification, the ultimate result -- quality of wine -- also requires a sequence of initiatives and is determined by many factors which include ingredients (i.e. grapes), soil, climate, timing, etc. The same is true of innovation initiatives. I wholly agree with the co-authors that "how you innovate determines what you innovate." So to repeat: In 2005, there is a compelling need to view innovation from different perspectives. In other words, to think innovatively about innovation. Obviously, easier said than done. Much easier. Those initiatives are most effective when they involve communication, cooperation, and collaboration between and among everyone involved. Hence the importance of what Davila, Epstein, and Shelton offer in this book. As I read their informative and thought-provoking book, I was again reminded of the fact that the same principles which they cite and then explain have -- for decades -- guided and informed the pragmatic innovation of countless teams and even communities. For example, those which Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman examine in their book, Creating Genius: the Disney studios which produced so many animation classics; Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) which developed the first personal computer; Apple Computer which then took it to market; those in the so-called "War Room" who helped to elect Bill Clinton President in 1992; the so-called "Skunk Works" where so many of Lockheed's greatest designs were formulated; Black Mountain College which "wasn't simply a place where creative collaboration took place" for the artists in residence from 1933 to 1956, "it was about creative collaboration"; and Los Alamos (NM) and the University of Chicago where the Manhattan Project eventually produced a new weapon called "the Gadget." Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the aforementioned Organizing Genius as well as Evan I. Schwartz's Juice: The Creative Fuel That Drives World-Class Inventors; three volumes in the Harvard Business Review Paperback Series on Breakthrough Thinking, Innovation, and The Innovative Enterprise; Tom Kelley's The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm; Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change co-authored by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony, and Erik A. Roth; and The Design of Things to Come: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products co-authored by Jonathan Cagan, Craig M. Vogel, and Peter Boatwright. Comment | | (Report this)