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Title: Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It
ISBN: 0131497863
Author:
Tony Davila
Marc J. Epstein
Robert Shelton
Publicate Date: 2005-08-01
Publish: 2005-08-01
List Price: $34.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $19.50
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $19.50
Amazon Merchant Price: $20.27
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Good experience
The book arrived on schedule and in good condition. You can't ask for anything else.
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2: Good message, but you might drown in fluff
I'm a fresh MIT graduate, and found this book a fun and insightful read. Much like other reviewers, I think this book has a nicely balanced and realistic view of innovation, stemming probably from the authors' extensive experiences. After the ridiculous amount of innovation hype at MIT, this was like a breath of fresh air that put all of that into a proper context. The book considers *both* radical and incremental innovation, whereas all my other sources have pounded me with only radical innovation. Both have their place in business, and this book has down-to-earth advice about how managers can deal with them. It also helps me as an engineer to know how my work fits into the bigger picture.
So the general message and organization is good, but I give this book 3 stars because of the writing. The book is *full* of un-insightful one-liner anecdotes/examples, which dilute the message and make this a long and confusing book to read. It's difficult to get through it.
A random example: " [p. 233] ... Driving innovation into the business mentality requires learning and change. Dell learned what was important to succeed in its innovation strategy, and worked hard to ingrain the learning into the business mentality and culture."
That last sentence sounds ok, but really it adds nothing. In fact it's really distracting. Those anecdotes are taken entirely out of context and given no further support. In the end I don't understand anything that really went on in the minds of Dell, Apple, Nokia, etc. etc. etc. after reading a whole book's worth of those one-liners. Nothing in those anecdotes proves - heck, indicates - how exactly *that* strategy brought the company out of a problem or *caused* success. Tired (from reading those examples every two sentences) readers might believe the message, but critical ones will recognize it as over-simplified fluff.
This book just needs a new version. The authors need to radically cut down on the number of examples, and add in some exciting detail to the ones they keep. After I marked all the important parts in the book (about 1/4), the book is making a lot more sense on a second quick read. Now it's finally clear enough that I can critically think about what it's trying to say.
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3: Innovation: Thrive or Fade Away
The term "Innovation" has been used so much in recent years that it's become cliche. Humans have been innovative for over 30,000 years, before the day of the first fire pit. People have always utilized innovation. But now it's is more vocally emphasized in the business realm because of ultra-competitive global market forces, and because we've reached the stage where technology enables change at a more rapid pace. "Innovation" is a Mantra. For lack of better words, creativity, adaptability, and innovation have always been vital. They've always been used by the successful: the winners; the victors. Innovation has always been mandatory. Survival: both literally and figuratively.
Authors Tony Davila, Marc Epstein, and Robert Shelton list 7 rules for innovation. This book uses matrices and tables to detail the different choices and the positives and negatives of choosing these various options. There are three types of innovation: 1) Incremental 2) semi-radical and 3) Radical.
Of the tons of information in this book, some things noted are the case study of the Coca-cola company and it's drop in sales, to Individual employee motivation in the "pay-performance relationship." Why do incentives for employees fail at times? Because they are overused. What can inhibit and actually kill creativity? "Fear, Failure, and Fairness" affect calculated risk taking by individuals, staff-teams, and entire companies. As for Radical Innovation, what is the motivation for radical innovations? That groundbreaking new idea, invention, product, vaccine, or piece of technology? Answer: intrinsic motivation.
One example of the types of innovation is a combination of them, such as in "Ersatz Radical Innovation." Ersatz is when a company (e.g. Apple) combines two forms of semi-radical change to create of successful product that changes an entire industry.
One case study enumerated how a company can focus too much on
innovation and lose site of the goal, such as in the case of Xerox PARC. The creative process must have the crucial ingredient that's equally vital: commercialization. It's a symbiotic relationship. Another very relevant issue discussed is the Outsourcing of Innovation. Which developments should be kept in-house? Which should be shared and outsourced? Innovation is so critical that it can't be outsourced entirely, so partial and selective outsourcing (sharing) is done under the proven concept of "partnering." Innovation is obviously borrowed, and oft-times today, it's outright stolen.
Perhaps a lot of this new focus on "creativity," and "innovation" and "adaptability," and "co-operation" is because of the recent rise of China, India, and other parts of the world. Game Theory's concepts are sprinkled about in this book because Game theory is an underlying and also an explicit element in economics, business, and calculated risk taking. Because of the theoretical and applicable strengths of
Game Theory we see innovation and adaptability + Game Theory.
This book deserves more attention. The writing style is
reader-friendly and keeps your interest. The authors provide
numerous case studies, stats, tables & figures, theory, and
practicality, and specific ways on how to survive and thrive in
today's world. Great book that more people should know about.
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4: The first word on innovation
We recommend this book to everyone involved in innovation. Whether you're involved as a creative thinker, a promoter of new products, a manager guiding the innovation process or an investor evaluating an innovative company, there's gold here for you. Authors Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein and Robert Shelton compress a mass of research and experience in innovation practices into a set of rules and guiding principles. Then, they use stories, lucid explanations, charts and careful definitions to illustrate how these principles work. A few of these concepts could have been expanded profitably - for example, how to tell in practice when radical innovation is needed, how to determine if you're innovating too much or too fast, and how to sort out the best ideas without discouraging the creators of the rejected concepts. That's the only caveat; everything else is fascinating and immediately applicable.
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5: An Important Guide to Establishing Innovation Processes
Many executives decide they want more innovation from their organizations . . . but aren't quite sure how to encourage that result. Relax. You can read and apply Making Innovation Work, and you'll do a lot better.
The authors clearly understand today's best practices in innovation both for breakthroughs and for on-going incremental improvements. They take what seems amorphous to many and make it as concrete as is desirable to do.
The basic approach entails helping readers to understand that the processes you use to innovate determine what kind and how much innovation you will accomplish. From there, the book focuses on how to use a process that permits all of the kinds of innovation to prosper that the company's strategy pursues.
While many such books exhort everyone to go for breakthroughs, Making Innovation Works also explains when it's appropriate to have a more defensive innovation strategy . . . but to stay in the game . . . rather than to fall behind by being too defensive.
For me, though, the book really hit its stride in chapter six where the appropriate measurements are described to identify how your innovation process is doing. The book became even more impressive in chapter seven where incentives for innovation are explained. Chapter eight on how to learn innovation is perhaps the most pivotal section in the book. Chapter nine on creating a supportive culture for innovation was also solid.
I was pleased to see that Making Innovation Work looks beyond just innovating products and processes. The book also addresses business model innovation, perhaps the most important subject for innovation.
The only weakness I found in the book came in describing business model innovation and how to pursue it. The authors have too narrow a view of what's involved in business model innovation. They need to become more familiar with the less frequently cited best practices in business model innovation. Although their bibliography on innovation is a marvelous one, I was surprised to see how thin it is on the subject of business model innovation.
Until a better overview of how to manage innovation comes along, Making Innovation Work will be the standard reference.
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