The Other Side of Innovation
The Other Side of Innovation - A book review
The hunt for a breakthrough idea and the strive to bring out the next best successful product that will change the course set by its predecessors. Is this the hallmark of the most innovative companies in the world right now? Most of us would agree. But how do they execute innovation initiatives? How do they put their money where their mouth is?Authors, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble reveal how to overcome the challenges that lie ahead of the 'eureka moment'. This book is not about strategy formulation.It is about solving execution challenges that revolve around resources, organisation and planning.
It is no secret that most young companies continue to struggle to make innovation happen. Ideas are plentiful but more often that not commercialisation hits a road block.This is the premise of this study which is based on 10 years of research in pursuit of the answer to one critical question :What are the best practices for executing an innovation initiative?Many a time the newly appointed 'innovation leader' tries to break the rules and challenge the process and status quo. Shaking things up can be fruitful as long as you do not disrupt the ongoing operations of the organisation. The ongoing operations which are repetitive and routine are driven by the 'performance engine' of the organisation. The book prescribes that the 'performance engine' should work in tandem with a 'dedicated innovation team' and provides guidelines on the composition and management of this dedicated team. The special team is necessary to carry out the non routine activities and deal with uncertainty.While reading this book you will observe that the book covers 4 concepts in sequence viz.The three models of innovation , overview of a special team and plan, building the special kind of team & building the special kind of plan.
The authors stress on the unique role of the dedicated team and that it should be granted unlimited flexibility. It should essentially be treated like a start up where responsibilities may be designed from scratch and organisational hierarchy might be unfamiliar. Some of the notable case studies which demonstrate the successes of this approach were based on observations made in organisations like John Deere, Dow Jones, Polaroid, New York Times digital,Infosys consulting, to name a few.
The latter chapters of the book put forward the basic mechanics for creating plans for running disciplined experiments. They also offer tools and techniques for clearly communicating and rigorously updating a single hypothesis of record.The authors also address the biases that might affect the learning process, particularly the poisonous defensiveness that takes stage when innovation leaders are evaluated based strictly on results. Interesting case studies about Hasbro Interactive, Analog Devices, Hewlett Packard demonstrate what goes wrong in the absence of a special kind of plan.
The most important take away from the execution techniques discussed in this book is that learning comes before results.Typically companies with strong cultures of accountability put results second to nothing. But the learning here doesn't refer to the 'feel good' learning which gets lost in the 'blah blah'. They talk about specific learning that helps predict outcomes while taking wild guesses and turning them into more informed estimates by conducting disciplined experiments. All this leads to better decision making for e.g. timing the entry of the product into the market or better estimation of the customer's willingness to pay for a certain product or service. The case studies are suited to dive deep into the triumphs and failures of a special innovation plan. So who is this book for ? CEOs ,project sponsors, young innovation leaders, HR professionals, Finance professional, all have something to gain from the concepts and techniques discussed. My personal take away is that you can accelerate learning and improve your maturity at decision making by carefully analysing all the case studies covered in the book.Such a book can be vital early in your career because 10 years worth of experiential learning can be attained by spending a few hours by the coffee table. We don't all have time to make our mistakes and learn from them, do we? Those who learn from history are leading the way for our future.
Siddhant Prasad
Corporate Research and Technology
Eaton Corporation
The authors stress on the unique role of the dedicated team and that it should be granted unlimited flexibility. It should essentially be treated like a start up where responsibilities may be designed from scratch and organisational hierarchy might be unfamiliar. Some of the notable case studies which demonstrate the successes of this approach were based on observations made in organisations like John Deere, Dow Jones, Polaroid, New York Times digital,Infosys consulting, to name a few.
The latter chapters of the book put forward the basic mechanics for creating plans for running disciplined experiments. They also offer tools and techniques for clearly communicating and rigorously updating a single hypothesis of record.The authors also address the biases that might affect the learning process, particularly the poisonous defensiveness that takes stage when innovation leaders are evaluated based strictly on results. Interesting case studies about Hasbro Interactive, Analog Devices, Hewlett Packard demonstrate what goes wrong in the absence of a special kind of plan.
The most important take away from the execution techniques discussed in this book is that learning comes before results.Typically companies with strong cultures of accountability put results second to nothing. But the learning here doesn't refer to the 'feel good' learning which gets lost in the 'blah blah'. They talk about specific learning that helps predict outcomes while taking wild guesses and turning them into more informed estimates by conducting disciplined experiments. All this leads to better decision making for e.g. timing the entry of the product into the market or better estimation of the customer's willingness to pay for a certain product or service. The case studies are suited to dive deep into the triumphs and failures of a special innovation plan. So who is this book for ? CEOs ,project sponsors, young innovation leaders, HR professionals, Finance professional, all have something to gain from the concepts and techniques discussed. My personal take away is that you can accelerate learning and improve your maturity at decision making by carefully analysing all the case studies covered in the book.Such a book can be vital early in your career because 10 years worth of experiential learning can be attained by spending a few hours by the coffee table. We don't all have time to make our mistakes and learn from them, do we? Those who learn from history are leading the way for our future.
Siddhant Prasad
Corporate Research and Technology
Eaton Corporation
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