Customer Reviews

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

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The last time I checked, Amazon and its online partner Borders offer more than 12,000 different books on the subject of innovation. Presumably this number will continue to increase as organizations become more actively involved with strategic planning in a global marketplace which relies so heavily on both technology and innovation.

What we have in this volume is a remarkably thoughtful, indeed rigorous and insightful discussion of how to achieve superior differentiation, speed to market, and consequent increased profitability. Those who have read any of George's previously published books (Lean Six Sigma, Conquering Complexity in Your Business, and Lean Six Sigma for Service) already know that he is an expert on both process simplification and process innovation. The former achieves incremental progress while the latter (with higher risk and higher reward) enables what George and other business thinkers refer to as "breakthroughs." Highly disruptive technologies, for example. The most effective organizations (e.g. GE, 3M, and Allied Signal) are committed to sustaining both process simplification and innovation.

The subject of speed has always intrigued me. The challenge, obviously, is to determine when to increase, decrease, or sustain it. Now more than ever before, organizations must be able to respond quickly to crises, opportunities, etc. However, as James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, and the Light Brigade demonstrated at Balaclava in 1854, when decisions are based on insufficient information and/or poor judgment, the results can be disastrous. Moreover, doing nothing or doing it too late can be just as dangerous as acting impulsively rather than rationally.

George, Works, and Watson-Hemphill carefully organizes their material within 15 chapters as they respond to a number of critically important questions which include:

1. What are the most significant benefits of fast innovation?
2. What is the process by which to design a fast innovation program?
3. What are the most effective strategies when implementing that program?
4. Which tools are most helpful during implementation?
5. What is an "innovation factory"?
6. How to establish an "idea-rich" workplace environment?
7. Within which process should fast innovation projects be deployed?
8. How best to measure project progress accurately?
9. What is the "FastGate Method" and how does it work?
10. How to create "innovation incubators"?

I especially appreciate the authors' probing analysis of several case studies (e.g. Eli Lilly, Home Depot, Intel, ITT Industries, and Procter & Gamble) to demonstrate their key concepts as well as to suggest how each reader can (with appropriate modification) apply those core concepts within her or his own organization. To me, some of the most valuable material is found in Chapter 4 when George, Works, and Watson-Hemphill examine "The Value of Thinking in Three Dimensions": product-service innovation, market definition innovation, and process/business model innovation. I agree with them that products and services such as Microsoft Windows and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol telephony are the cornerstones of most innovation programs, there are perhaps even greater opportunities in the other two dimensions, market definition innovation (which reflects the leverage possible from existing customer relationships) and process/business model innovation (which can create a competitive advantage that lasts longer than that from sustaining product or service innovations).

The key point is, that the most important breakthroughs in innovation are achieved by those initiatives which are multidimensional. George, Works, and Watson-Hemphill also note that "there are many companies that have maintained above-average growth without innovating a single new product or service but rather by exploiting the market definition, or process/business model dimensions of innovation."

As indicated previously, "fast" innovation does not mean hurried innovation. More often than not, as an ancient aphorism suggests, it is often prudent to "make haste slowly." Also, as the authors would be the first to point out, decision-makers in a given organization must decide to what extent (if any) activity in one or more of the three dimensions makes sense. Moreover, although George and his co-authors offer an abundance of information, observations, insights, and recommendations, it remains for each reader to determine which (if any) are appropriate to her or his organization's needs, interests, current and imminent circumstances, available resources, etc. This is not an "easy read." On the contrary, it requires but will generously reward a careful consideration of its contents. Credit George, Works, and Watson-Hemphill with a logical organization of their material, and, an eloquent presentation of it.

If you share my high regard for this book, I urge you to check out George's previously published Conquering Complexity in Your Business: How Wal-Mart, Toyota, and Other Top Companies Are Breaking Through the Ceiling on Profits and Growth and Lean Six Sigma for Service: How to use Lean Speed & Six Sigma Quality to Improve Services and Transactions.

Also, Clayton Christensen and co-authors' Seeing What's Next, Geoffrey Moore's Dealing with Darwin, Tom Kelley's The Ten Faces of Innovation, Yoram (Jerry) Wind and co-authors' The Power of Impossible Thinking, and Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble's 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators. One other suggestion: one of the most influential books ever written on the subject of technological innovation, Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. It was first published in 1987 and, in certain respects, is even more relevant and more valuable now than ever before.

Growth through innovation is key to Eli Lilly and Company. To serve our commitment to meeting medical needs and achieve our growth goals requires more innovation, faster innovation and, at the same time, less resource consumption and risk. This book identifies some of the significant changes in strategy and tactics needed for an innovation process to achieve these goals. Every executive concerned with the changing business of innovation would do well to become familiar with the principles contained in this book." -ALPHEUS BINGHAM, Vice President, Strategy, Lilly Research Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Company

After finishing this book I thought my time was wasted. Actually I should have guessed from the jacket cover that this would be six sigma forced into the popular (an also lucrative) topic of innovation. The book did indeed trurn out to be just that. Hence, lack of coherence. The only useful part for me was the one on Re-Use, which I thought, was brilliant. This was a very good handling of an often neglected but very important issue. But apart from that the whole book could be squeezed into a little article and all the arguments made here could succinctly be made in only a few pages. If you are after a good book on implementation of innovation, I recommend "Making Innovation Work" by Tony Davila et.al. Fast Innovation will not provide answers to most of your questions.

This book is full of concrete, grounded ways to maintain dominance in the market - or battlefield, in the case of the military systems I work on. An excellent book for anyone who wants to guide their organization to a pre-eminent position in the coming decade and beyond.

Having worked at several Silicon Valley start-ups and with several visionaries, I can honestly say that innovation, especially the product and new market definition types, are somewhat easily arrived. However, once envisioned, most start-ups/visionaries fail miserably to execute. Visions without execution are just hallucination!

This book not only presents the what's and why's of innovation but also the how's. It details some solid guidelines for being fast and productive in an uncertain environment where disruptive innovations reign.

I would recommend reading this book along with the following books:
- Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen
- Innovator's Solution, Clayton Christensen
- Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore
- Inside the Tornado, Geoffrey Moore
- Harvard Business Review's Darwin and the Demon, Geoffrey Moore
- Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done, Larry Bossidy et al

Texas Instruments recognizes the importance of creating highly differentiated products with faster time to market as the driver of profitable growth. In this book, you will receive the strategic insight and the practical tool set needed to significantly improve your company's rate of successful innovations. I encourage every executive who is interested in accelerating the growth of his business to read this book.

EMERY POWELL, New Product Development, Texas Instruments Inc.

Be careful to inquire with the seller about what version is being advertised and shipped. There is a hardbound 335-page book which is the full version, and there is a 143-page paperback executive overview version that only includes part 1 of the full book.

I ordered what I thought was the hardbound version and was dissappointed to actually recieve the paperback version from the seller, which did not disclose this in their item description. I suspect there are others like that judging from the variance in prices. I have returned the paperback and now have the hardbound and am happy.

This was the first of George's books I picked up; I have since read
through some of his other works: Lean Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma for
Service, and Conquering Complexity. Here in Fast Innovation, the author
draws on his deep and broad experience in Process Improvement to show
how such techniques can be brought to bear on dealing with innovation.
Those versed in Lean and Six Sigma techniques themselves should find this
a very useful tool to extend their range towards planning effectively
to go after new work close(r) to the cutting edge of their industries.
Those with more reading in Prof. Clayton Christensen's works on innovation
will find here many good pointers to show that "Innovation" is not some
magic only available to the lucky few, but most often comes from solid
groundwork in aligned fields, done with one's mind kept open to the next
possibilities. Useful to both camps are the discussions on keeping the
hunt for innovations focused on something the organization can manage to
complete in a timeframe that's relevant to the balance sheet. This is
where George's experience in complexity management shows, including the
ideas on reuse of modules, teams, and existing processes, and focusing
the new innovation efforts only where they are truly needed.

At last! An authoritative source of step-by-step information that allows an organization to create what the title promises -- fast innovation. The instructions are crystal-clear and demonstrated with examples of recent developments at leading businesses. The writing is colorful and lively. Altogether, an essential resource for anyone responsible for organizational growth.

"My understanding of innovation has been enlarged through my interactions with Mike. I am grateful that in the writing of this book Mike has relied upon my research and that I have similarly been able to build upon his understanding. I thank him for providing all of us with the set of practical implementation tools presented in this book."
-CLAYTON CHRISTENSEN, Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, author of The Innovators Dilemma, The Innovators Solution, and Seeing What's Next