Customer Reviews

Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want

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Everybody talks about "innovation" these days, but here's a practical guide to getting it right. Carlson writes in an engaging manner, with real-world examples. It all just seems to make sense when you read it. Any company or organization out there that wants long-term success would do well to follow the five disciplines described in this book.

This practical and accessible book eloquently argues that innovation is much more predictable and achievable when the right process is used to guide those involved in the innovative effort. The authors leave no doubt as to what the process is, or who is involved. It's the 5 Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want. And these disciplines involve everyone in the firm--not just a few guiding superstars. Rather then a long list of new and complex concepts, the 5 Disciplines will probably appear as common sense to most readers. The authors forcefully argue that innovation is what enables the world's inhabitants to choose between living in scarcity or abundance, and that the best guide to innovation in the post-industrial "Exponential Economy" is to focus on Customer Value Creation (CVC). This is a book for practitioners, not theorists, although the latter will find the models offered provide fertile ground for validation and refinement. For the practitioner, the 5 Disciplines unfold in short, easy-to comprehend chapters that invite immediate application to one's current place of employment. Sprinkled liberally in the 300+ pages between the covers are suggestions for immediate application of a principle just presented and short stories that illustrate the authors' practical experience in putting their proposals into action. While SRI is most likely a place very unlike any firm at which you've ever worked, the book's slight bias towards fundamental research and innovation (vs. incremental product enhancement) entices the reader to always think first about what's most important. To, as the authors suggest in the early pages, put your innovative energy into new pain killers, not vitamins. At the end of the day, you want the results of your innovation to alleviate real pain, to not be just a generic undifferentiated "nice-to-have". This book is an excellent guide to anyone, or organization, ready to sign up to this goal.

This is a BAD book on innovation

As a matter of fact it is a bad book in the most general meaning of the word. First of all, it does not deliver what it promises to deliver and thus misleads the buyer. It claims that it is going to provide a `framework' for an innovative organization, but instead turns out to be a most general blah blah on every subject in the area of `management'. Apart from an abundant use of the word `innovation', there is hardly anything related to the core of innovation process in this book.

If you like, let me summarise what they say:

1. The book starts with an expose of the CHANGES in the world economy, globalization etc. The usual stuff you would expect to find in any `wake-up call' book these days. But is there anyone left who is not aware of the big changes going on around us? Do we need another book warning us that business is no longer usual?
2. The book then goes on outlining their `framework' for innovation. This is called the `five disciplines'. Disciplines indeed! And such `novel' ones. Let's look at them, if you like.
3. The first and second disciplines are about `creating customer value based on an important need'. It says that if your innovative idea does not address an unmet customer need and hence create a customer value, it will not be successful! Eureka and Wow. We all needed a thick new book to arrive at this very important finding. The many pages (106 in all) then go on `teaching' us how to write a value proposition (yes, business value proposition). Believe me, it mentions things like elevator speech, how many powerpoint sheets you must use, in how many minutes you must present your idea etc. And, we do not get anything regarding the HOW TO of innovation. But we hear a good deal about the wonderful people who work at authors' company (SRI). The many pages are simultaneously used for praising their own company staff by citing their names. The guys need some motivation, don't they. So, in those 106 pages we get illuminated on the nitty gritty details of writing business propositions (yes, business propositions!). The whole idea for them seems to be coming up with an innovative idea and selling it to some potential investor? But how can we come up with an innovative idea which will satisfy an unmet and important need? There is absolutely nothing on that subject apart from introducing you with a totally new concept: Brainstroming.

4. Then we move on to the third discipline which says that you need an innovastion `champion' in the company who will lead the projects (10 pages on this subject). The role models for champions? Easy: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak etc. Just be like Steve Jobs!
5. Our amazing fourth discipline is about innovation `teams'. As the subject of teams is an area where a lot has already been written, the authors are expectedly also prolific on this issue: 66 pages on the importance of teams. Yes, importance of teams, and teams in general! A general cut-and-paste from the existing team literature, decorated with a few anectodes and some SRI company-staff names. Then you have another earth-shaking DISCIPLINE. What the guys in effect say is `teamwork is important' and move on to show that it is indeed important. Pathetic.
6. The final and fifth discipline is about organizational alignment, and wer are already at page 235. And I am exhausted for trying to find any beef in this thick piece of nonsense and do not care about whether there is another dicscipline or not. By looking at the heading of the chapter though, I guess taht they will again chit-chat about `continuous innovation' as in kaizen. What else do you expect.
7. I hence decide to skip those two little chapters (together, 19 pages long) and move to the final piece: Chapter 17, A Foundation for National Competitiveness in a World of Abundance. However, it doesn't take too many pages to immediately realize that the authros' have been particularly impressed by Thomas Friedman's `The World Is Flat'. Still, I decide to finish reaing it and complete the ordeal. I decide I much prefer Friedman.

All in all, this was really an ordeal. No exagerration. This is a patchwork of things, and not even ideas. What is more distressing is that even though it promises to provide a framework for an innovative organization, it does not even come near the subject. It grossly misleads the reader. I hence feel that I not only wasted my valuable time, but more importantly was cheated. I believe the authors should stick with their business of inventing computer mouses, HDTVs, robotic surgery etc. and refrain from writing such shallow and misleading stuff on a critical subject like `innovation'.

It has been often suggested that innovation comes from an isolated Aha! Carlson and Wilmot strongly contend that successful innovations come from a disciplined approach that creates value through new products, processes, services, or even marketing campaigns. One of their messages is to work on ideas that are profitable not just interesting. They suggest quantifying value in order to identify important innovation opportunities. They teach the reader how to create well tuned value propositions, and even those 10-minute elevator pitches. The authors provide examples their Need, Approach, Benefits per costs, Competition thinking process. This is not one of those magical matrices, it is a realistic approach that requires understanding customer and market needs, identifying costs and benefits, as well as, the value to investors and management. I thought this was a great book even before Business Week (18 Dec 2007 p.156) identified it as one of the top 2006 Business Books. "Innovation: The five disciplines for creating what customers want" is an easy to read, useful volume that helps readers to focus on the value of their idea or innovation as compared to alternatives. I would like to use this book in a course to help students to examine their business ideas

Would you like to have some fresh new tools for growing your business? Then read this book.
Inside the black and silver covers of Innovation, is a Technicolor landscape of anecdotes, ideas, possibilities and specific disciplines for promoting innovation, on a regular basis, from an organized climate of creativity.
Though the ideas in Innovation originate from a research lab environment of scientific inquiry and invention, which has produced may successes in the market place, these ideas are also personally and globally useful in all types of other disciplines, such as music, art, writing and more. In fact, these ideas thrive on the interaction of different disciplines.
Innovation helps creative people not only survive, but flourish, in a time of fast technological change,
Even the first few pages of Innovation changed my point of view, and spurred me on to improve my contribution as a writer and illustrator.
A positive optimistic useful book in these times is a treat. So thank you Curtis Carlson and William Wilmot!

-Lonni Sue Johnson, Lonni Sue Johnson Inc

Rarely does a business book strike such a delightful balance between content and readability. Carlson and Willmott collaborate to share theory, formula, and proof in "Innovation." While the case studies can at times appear boastful, they provide hard evidence. The concept of a "Value Proposition" is elegantly portrayed...a must read for anybody who has something to sell (in other words, everybody). This book's a jewel.

Are you working on a project you'd like to have succeed? If so, this book is essential reading. It provides a set of tools and best practices that will greatly improve your likelihood of success. It is presented in a way that is accessible to people in any field. The book is about giving people the skills for charting a path to making a positive difference in our world.

Many books on innovation talk about the people involved and the results of innovation. But this book's rare perspective is on the "how" of innovation - the Five Disciplines of INNOVATION.

INNOVATION explains the tools and processes that CEO co-author Carlson honed and used to turn around SRI International, one of the largest independent research corporations in the U.S. At the time he became CEO, the company had been in a long, slow slide. But only a few years later, the company had turned around with double digit growth, when the economy was only in single digit growth.

This book gives a "can-do" perspective on innovation through successful innovation practices, from different fields and companies such as Apple and Toyota. It gives valuable insights into paradigm-changing innovations of the past and of the emerging opportunities in what the authors describe as today's "exponential economy." From this solid grounding, the book also gives recommendations for how innovation best practices can be embraced by the U.S. government to help keep the U.S. in a leadership position.

This is the first book I have read which I have been able to put into action almost immediately. My Manager asked me recently where I come up with such brilliant ideas. I use NABC in all areas of my life. This one works. Must read.

Innovation is a well-written and well-researched account of how to create and sell sound innovative ideas within your team and enterprise and then bring them successfully to market. Two of the Five Disciplines of Innovation given by the authors are customer centered. The first discipline is to focus on "important" customer needs instead of what is interesting to you. The second discipline is to use a tool-set that leads to rapid creation of new customer value. Generation of customer value and the development of a sound value proposition are recurring themes in the book and rightly so. Disciplines three, four, and five highlight the needs for a strong champion, for an innovation team, and for the team and enterprise to be on the same page. Think of the Five Disciplines as the "standard work" for innovation!

In addition to practitioners, academics should find the book of considerable interest for it also raises issues that pose excellent topics for further research. For example, their discussion of the "exponential economy" raises intriguing questions. They argue that the rapid progress experienced in the exponential economy (i.e., those large, and increasing market segments where 100% improvements in price-performance occur every 9-36 months) is a consequence of the transition to a knowledge age.

Exponential growth in the value of a new technology is seen on the early portion of Foster's well-known S-curves. Diminishing returns then appear as the technology matures. Exponential growth likely arises from the learning that occurs with each improvement in the technology in that things are learned which are then applied to a future release. Maturity means that learning is exhausted and a new technology needs to emerge to advance the value proposition. The authors suggest that Foster and Kaplan's finding of the dramatically reduced lifetime of S&P 500 companies seen over the last eighty years is caused by failing to adapt to change fast enough in the exponential economy. As they say, many companies appear to be "built to fight the last war" as opposed to being built to last.

Does this mean that large companies delay or resist developing the next wave of new technology needed to protect their product positions? Are the large companies being knocked off by other large companies or by smaller companies? As companies become large, do they become less of a learning organization and more of a political organization? As companies become large, are they less likely to recruit the talent needed to foster innovation because they are seen as bureaucratic? This is but one area where the authors' insight leads to fascinating questions regarding the technological and human forces that drive and limit innovation.

In summary, I highly recommend the book and I plan to re-read it several times for the stimulating ideas that it brings to the innovative process and the development of value propositions.

This is the best source out there innovation, in my opinion. This book is a good, clear and concise statement of what is necessary to be successful in innovation. Unlike other books in this field, it doesn't focus on some neat new tools for innovation (e.g. another 2 X 2 matrix, or survey, etc.) but on the fundamental important concepts for making innovation work: focus on the customer, understanding value from the customer's perspective, the importance of champions, the need for cross-functional collaboration and the right culture. From over 16 years of experience in the field, I've (as I'm sure others) have learned this through trial and error. Now YOU can learn this in a concise and well written book. Also, unlike other works in this field that focus on the CEO of the company, and what this individual should do, this one focuses on the individuals within the organization and how they can make innovation happen. In my opinion, the role of the CEO and other senior executives is important, but the roles of the individual innovators within the company are more important. As mentioned in another of the reviews, the best chapter is probably number five which describes the process of creating an innovation value proposal - the NABC process. This acronym stands for Need, Approach, Benefit (or value to the customer) and Competition. The authors not only clearly define how to do this, but they give examples, and explain clearly what is necessary to do this effectively, e.g. iterate, iterate and iterate, and e.g. "watering holes" (their term for learning communities). This is only one example - discipline 2 - provide value to the customer. The rest of the four disciplines, all tied to the fundamentally important concepts mentioned above, are handled similarly. Because of this focus on the key fundamental concepts for innovation in a very readable style with lots of examples, I highly recommend this book. This is, in my opinion, the best book out there on innovation.