Fast Innovation: Achieving Superior Differentiation, Speed to Market, and Increased Profitability

Part I: An Executive’s Guide to Fast Innovation
Chapter 1 Using Fast Innovation to Drive Organic Growth
Innovation’s Contribution to Organic Growth and Value Creation
The Challenges of Sustained Growth
The Fast Innovation Value Proposition
Conclusion
Chapter 2 The Three Innovation Imperatives: Differentiated, Fast, Disruptive
Imperative #1: Differentiation
Imperative #2: Fast Time-to-Market
Imperative #3: Disruption
The Power of Disruptive Innovation
The Most Important Disruptive Innovation of the 20th Century
Joining the Winning 10%: Being disruptive (even if based on sustaining innovations)
Conclusion
Spotlight On: Customers and Differentiation
Understanding the Heart of the Customer
Strategy #1: Develop strong links to both the core and fringes of your market
Strategy #2: Use ethnography to understand customer needs better than anyone else
What’s Really Different?
A Look Ahead
Chapter 3 How to Become Fast
Prerequisite 1: Attacking the biggest drivers of innovation lead time
The Law of Lead Time
The Astounding Impact of Variation
The Sources of Project Delays
Meeting Project Schedules Despite Task-Time Variation
Pre-requisite 2: Rapid Cycles of Learning Creates Differentiation
A. Ethnography:
B. Rapid Prototyping
C. The Innovation Blitz
D. Flexible Performance Target Design
Conclusion
Chapter 4 The Value of Thinking in Three Dimensions
Dimension 1: New Product/Service Innovation
Dimension 2: Market Definition Innovation
Dimension 3: Process/Business Model Innovation
The Strong Advantage of Multidimensional Innovation
Conclusion
Chapter 5 Open Innovation: Applying the Intellect of the Planet
A Quick Look at the Closed Innovation Model
Open Innovation Model
Open Innovation Case #1: Eli Lilly’s web-based InnoCentive
Open Innovation Case #2: Procter & Gamble
Open Innovation Case #3: Intel’s problem that required thousands of innovators
The Future of “R” in Corporate R&D?
Conclusion
Chapter 6 The Religion of Re-use
Why Re-use?: To become faster and more differentiated
Platforms and Operating Cost Efficiency: An organizing principle for re-use
Overcoming Resistance to Re-use: A case study
Using “External” Platforms to Capture Customers
Conclusion
Spotlight On: Leading Innovation
Disruptive Innovations Where CEO Presence Was Necessary
Characteristics of an Innovation-Enabling Executive
Defining the Burning Platform
RECAP of Fast Innovation
Part II: Building Corporate Innovation Capacity
Introduction to Part II
Chapter 7 Foundations of an Innovation Factory
Foundation #1: Leadership courage and engagement
Building Leadership Engagement
How to get there: The executive retreat
Foundation #2: Business units capable of meeting the demands of Fast Innovation
1. Design/development groups (R&D)
2. Marketing/Strategy
3. Sales/Service
4. Operations
5. Finance
Foundation #3: Superior execution capability to deliver innovations
Conclusion
Spotlight On: Conquering the Cost of Complexity
The (Often Hidden) Impact of Complexity
Conquering Complexity Accelerates Innovation
Attacking Complexity
Chapter 8 The Executive Engine of Fast Innovation: Using a Chief Innovation Officer to Drive Results
The Responsibilities of the Chief Innovation Officer
Defining Innovation Goals and Metrics
Funding Disruptive Innovation: Real Options Theory
Real Options Theory
Conclusion
Chapter 9 Becoming Customer Driven
Using Customer Knowledge Throughout the Design Process
A Case Study in VOC
VOC Translation Tools (Design for Lean Six Sigma)
Increasing Trust in Your VOC
Conclusion
Spotlight On: Creating an Idea-Rich Environment
1. Raise awareness of innovation opportunities
2. Create an Idea Forum
Chapter 10 Fast and Flexible: The New Corporate Mantra for Design Work
Flexible Performance Targets: How to be creative without sacrificing lead time
Designing to Flexible Performance Targets
Conclusion
Chapter 11 Institutionalizing Re-use
The Many Faces of Re-use
Re-use and Innovation by Analogy
Re-use and Best Practices
Re-use and Channels
Re-use and Intangible Products
Re-use Resistance (and How to Overcome It)
Argument #1: Developing re-usable designs is too expensive
Argument #2: “I’m a creator, not a re-user”
Other Ways to Facilitate Re-use
Conclusion
Part II Conclusion
Part III Deploying Fast Innovation Projects
Introduction to Part III
Chapter 12 Project Screening and Selection
Identifying Opportunities
Managing Sustaining vs. Disruptive Evaluation Processes
Screening Ideas at the Business Unit Level
Screen #1: Rough “go/no-go” filter
Screen #2: Composite scores on attractiveness and effort
Screen #3: Business case development and project selection
Hold Off on That Launch!
Chapter 13 Increasing Innovation Capacity Without Adding Resources
Gathering the Necessary Data
Step 1: Categorize your developers’ activities
Step 2: Gather time data
Optimizing Utilization: A case study
Multi-Tasking Harms Creativity
Attacking the Causes of Multi-tasking
Conclusion
Spotlight On: The Innovation Blitz
Traditional vs. Blitz Model: Trench warfare vs. a lightning attack?
Using the Blitz approach
Chapter 14 The FastGate Method: How to Control Innovation Lead Time
FastGate, Feedback and Critical Resources
The FastGate Method for Innovation Project Management
Making the Initial Adjustments
Ongoing Use of FastGate Reviews
Tracking Project Performance
Oregon Productivity Matrix
Conclusion
Chapter 15 Creating Innovation Incubators: How to Catalyze Creativity on Your Teams
Becoming a Catalyst for Creativity
1. Immerse team members in customer knowledge and other background
2. Make the problem difficult and specific
3. Push the boundaries in brainstorming
4. Help (or even force) people to think in new ways
5. Look at the whole value stream; keep their minds open to all steps
6. Allow space for thinking/ruminating
Conclusion
Recap of Part III
Appendix 1: The Impact of Task Variation and Utilization on Lead Time
Appendix 2: Time Buffers and Feedback Systems
Appendix 3: Innovation and Information Creation
Index

“How can I create an innovation engine that will consistently deliver substantial organic growth?”

This question is the number-one issue for most CEOs and senior executives today. Innovation is a critical driver of organic growth, yet based on the authors' research, only a small percent of companies effectively use innovation to sustain long-term, profitable growth. And the stakes couldn't be higher-failure to create successful new products, services, and business models causes stagnating or declining profits.

Now, for the first time, experts Michael George, James Works and Kimberly Watson-Hemphill explain the surprising and significant gap between the CEO's growth goals and actual performance. The authors, who are experts at connecting strategy to execution, give you a complete blueprint for exploiting the strategic and operational dimensions of innovation.

Using fresh insights about the true drivers of fast time-to-market and the inadequate success rate of innovation, Fast Innovation reveals:

• Why current approaches to innovation fail
• A new strategic and tactical plan that will help your company dramatically reduce time-to-market by 50 to 80 percent
• The secret for finding out what your customers really want (not just what they say they want)
• Tools and methods for turning customer insights into ideas that will generate significant ROI
• The key levers that senior leadership must engage to create innovation capability across the business

You'll receive specific actionable solutions for driving disruptive and sustaining innovation at the strategic, portfolio and project level. You'll also learn how to improve how much time your innovation teams actually spend innovating, and discover the changes that must be launched at the corporate level in order to enable the whole business to embrace and get results from this approach.