Insourcing Innovation: How to Transform Business as Usual into Business as Exceptional (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Author), Michael Slocum (Author) "The act of innovation is an act conceiving the future, which is what great companies do..." (more)
Key Phrases: structured innovation, inventive principles, contradiction matrix, Six Sigma, Insourcing Innovation, Peter Drucker (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Most people and organizations struggle to come up with the next big idea is because they lack the ability to get outside their own box of thinking and practice. How do you get from what you don't know to what you know? That is the innovator's question. TRIZ defines the structured pathway for getting from what you know to what you don't know at the deepest levels of scientific inquiry and development. Using TRIZ, many companies have expedited the typically cumbersome and expensive R&D process. They've used TRIZ to streamline the process of innovation in the same way they might use Six Sigma to streamline the process of quality improvement.

From the Back Cover

"At the Sterno Group, our passion has always been building a smarter product, and that's why we take innovation so seriously and personally. That's also why we use TRIZ - because it enables us to constantly build on heritage of innovation." Walter Adams, President, The Sterno Group

"Michael Slocum’s extensive knowledge and expertise helped Exempla Healthcare implement an innovative new framework to perform strategic thinking and planning at a level none of us had ever experienced before. His work with our leadership team was extremely valuable, and has positioned Exempla to achieve breakthrough results in patient safety and clinical quality." Les Hirsch, President and CEO Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital

"This book itself is a form of innovation – a veritable cache of research liberated as a systematic approach. If you want to rapidly advance the competitive agenda of your firm, jump into these pages and let the authors show you how to drive innovation into your organization." Charles L. Fred, Author, Breakaway, Deliver Value to Your Customers –Fast!

"Systematic Innovation is tremendously powerful. It yields a breadth of potential solutions to challenges we face as we advance our heart-sustaining technologies. Because of the way we generate innovative solutions with TRIZ, we are deploying systematic innovation throughout the Cardiac Rhythm Management Division of St. Jude Medical." Jonathan Losk, Associate General Counsel and Director of Strategic Innovation, St. Jude Medical

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Product Details

• Paperback: 175 pages
• Publisher: Breakthrough Performance Press (September 9, 2005)
• ISBN-10: 0976901005
• ISBN-13: 978-0976901006
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,138,863 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Growth Through Innovation Strategy, September 17, 2007

By	Eric Duepen (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If your business goals include increasing the returns on your innovation investments, I would strongly recommend this book. Insourcing Innovation provides a clear overview of the business issues involved in a growth through innovation strategy.

After the business issues of innovation are discussed, the tactical and strategic aspects of the highly effective TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) structured innovation methodology are covered. The book ends with a synthesis of the TRIZ method into a total performance excellence model.

It is often said, "That of all the major functions of most companies, innovation has the most competitive value and is managed with the least discipline." In Insourcing Innovation, the authors present a structured innovation methodology to resolve this vital business issue.

In the study of innovation, there is also evidence that financial commitment to R&D is no substitute for creativity, analysis, and disciplined management. The methodology in Insourcing Innovation presents a structure for managing creativity and analysis in pursuit of R&D and innovation gains.

The book is divided into four parts. Part One presents the business benefits of having a structured innovation methodology. A framework for business excellence and the highlights of TRIZ are also covered.

Part Two presents the specifics of tactical TRIZ. In this section, is a discussion of how Psychological Inertia prevents real innovation from taking place in organizations. In Part Two are several case examples of how TRIZ has been implemented at different organizations. This section ends with a detailed look at how TRIZ was used to solve a number of problems in the development of a self-heating beverage container.

Part Three discusses the strategic aspects of structured innovation using TRIZ. The eight evolutionary forces defined under TRIZ are covered along with a strategic TRIZ methodology. The importance of using these forces in the creation of a technology roadmap is also covered.

Part Four discusses how a structured approach to innovation fits within the framework of total performance excellence. A total performance model is presented that shows how tactical and strategic TRIZ would work within an organization's drive for operational and strategic leadership.

The strength of the book is in demonstrating how TRIZ works and how a structured innovation methodology fits within a total performance excellence model. Just enough technical information is presented so that the reader will be comfortable with the process.

Innovation is a skill you want as many people within your organization to understand and hopefully master. The examples presented in Insourcing Innovation provide a basic understanding of the type of skills and thinking required to implement both tactical and strategic TRIZ.

One of the highlights of the book is the comparison tables of Business as Usual versus Business as Exceptional at the end of each chapter. These tables serve two functions. First, they effectively summarize the material from the chapter. Secondly, The Business as Exceptional Column demonstrates the TRIZ concept of the Ideal Final Result (IFR) as it applies to business activities.

If you want to grow your business through innovation by using a proven and reliable methodology, I would highly recommend this book. Insourcing Innovation shows how to make innovation more manageable, effective, and profitable.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The TRIZ book that you should give your boss, October 26, 2005

By	Ellen Domb "TRIZ Journal editor" (California, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Insourcing Innovation" is the answer to the perennial question "Which one TRIZ book should I show my boss?" It is short, with a very clear emphasis on the business issues of innovation-driven strategy. It is comprehensive, so that the newcomer to TRIZ can learn the real how-to of the basic skills of TRIZ and the philosophical basis of TRIZ so that she/he can learn advanced TRIZ with no further preparation. The TRIZ community has been talking about the integration of TRIZ into Six Sigma since 1998, but "Insourcing Innovation" makes that integration very obvious, with introductory notes by Michel Harry, one of the founders of Six Sigma, and the use of stories from Design for Six Sigma projects and DMAIC projects throughout the book.

This book is the result of a unique collaboration-David Silverstein is President of BMG, a leading Six Sigma consultancy, Neil DeMarco is a Six Sigma author, and Dr. Michael Slocum is an international TRIZ consultant and instructor, founder of Inventioneering Co., and co-editor of the TRIZ Journal. (Notes re apparent conflicts: the reviewer is the editor of the TRIZ Journal and co-author of the book "Simplified TRIZ." BMG, Inventioneering, and the reviewer's company PQR Group are all corporate sponsors of the TRIZ Journal.) The material from Michael Slocum's popular and effective TRIZ classes forms the basis for the how-to and TRIZ background parts of the book. The refinement that comes from continuous improvement based on feedback from real students shows clearly in the clarity and simplicity of the presentation. I particularly like the elegance of the repetition of the 4-box model in a wide variety of contexts.

Michael Slocum takes advantage of his experience with Ontro (later Ontech) leading the development of the self-heating beverage can to create a case study that runs throughout the book. This product, now being marketed by Wolfgang Puck, has been named one of 25 products of the year by Fortune magazine, and the intellectual property developed by Michael's team is now being incorporated into a wide variety of self-heating products.

I am delighted to be able to recommend "Insourcing Innovation" to my students and clients, to the readers of the TRIZ Journal, and to Amazon's customers. It is a valuable addition to the short list of TRIZ books that are useful on the technical and business levels simultaneously.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insourcing Innovation will give you traction, December 6, 2005

By	Timothy P. Schweizer (Decorah, IA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Insourcing Innovation puts things in perspective. It is a great book to help business people understand the importance of Structured Innovation. Once they understand the Structured Productivity and Structured Quality movements, the Structured Innovation movement will be clear to them. I have already converted several managers with the book.

You can't teach TRIZ with a book, and that's not the goal of the book. Having said that, I will be using the book as a required text in my "Creativity and Innovation in Management" course (which is a required course for the Master of Arts in Creativity and Innovation at the University of Malta - I am a Visiting Lecturer). There is enough TRIZ in the book that students will be able to use it as a reference book and refer back to the TRIZ information I cover in the course. Had the book been available in August, it would have been a required text this fall in my Management course "Creativity and Innovation" at Luther College, where I am a full-time Professor of Management.