Profitable innovation doesn’t just happen. It must be managed, measured, and properly executed, and few companies know how to accomplish this effectively. Making Innovation Work presents a formal innovation process proven to work at HP, Microsoft and Toyota, to help ordinary managers drive top and bottom line growth from innovation. The authors have drawn on their unsurpassed innovation consulting experience -- as well as the most thorough review of innovation research ever performed. They'll show what works, what doesn't, and how to use management tools to dramatically increase the payoff from innovation investments. Learn how to define the right strategy for effective innovation; how to structure an organization to innovate best; how to implement management systems to assess ongoing innovation; how to incentivize teams to deliver, and much more. This book offers the first authoritative guide to using metrics at every step of the innovation process -- from idea creation and selection through prototyping and commercialization. This updated edition refreshes the examples used throughout the book and features a new introduction that gives currency to the principles covered throughout.

Innovation may be the hottest discipline around today, in business circles and beyond. And for good reason. Innovation transforms companies and markets. It is the key to solving vexing social problems. And it makes or breaks professional careers. For all the enthusiasm the topic inspires, however, the practice of innovation remains stubbornly impenetrable. No longer. In this book the author draws on stories from his research and field work with companies like Procter & Gamble to demystify innovation. He presents a simple definition of innovation, breaks down the essential differences between types of innovation, and illuminates innovation's vital role in organizational success and personal growth. This unique hybrid of professional memoir and business guidebook also provides a powerful 28-day program for mastering innovation's key steps: (1) Finding insight, (2) Generating ideas, (3) Building businesses, and (4) Strengthening innovation prowess in workforces and organizations. Using several illustrative case studies and vignettes from a range of companies around the globe, this playbook teaches people how to turn themselves or their companies into true innovation powerhouses.

Although many leaders acknowledge and invest in creativity, we seldom see it hold a credible place in the business development process. Creativity at Work takes a practical approach to creativity, showing how to select practices to produce results and add value. The authors explain how to: * Understand the creative preferences of organizations, departments, work groups, and individuals * Identify and compare the different creativity profiles that describe specific purposes, practices, and people * Produce the desired results by developing the right practices * Blend creativity practices to meet the complex needs that characterize most work situations o Develop required creative abilities in a team and in oneself

Shortly after taking office in 1993, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore called for a shift in American technology policy toward an expansion of public investments in partnerships with private industry. The authors of this volume were invited by the Clinton administration to take a hard, nonpartisan look at how successful the new policies have been and to propose ways to make their programs more effective. The first summary report of the team's recommendations was called the "hottest technology policy property on Capitol Hill."This book, an expansion of that report, offers a new set of technology policy principles. The authors use the principles to evaluate many federal research programs and to make recommendations for change. This volume will set the terms of the debate over the national research and innovation policy for years to come.

A modern framework for practical innovation—from individual ideas to an innovative organisational culture Everyone says that innovation is important. The problem is that no one tells you how to be innovative. Innovation is a State of Mind sets out a step-by-step guide to creating innovative ideas and putting them into action. You'll learn how to generate more ideas with greater potential, how to grow and evaluate them, test their effectiveness and then implement the ones that are going to improve your business. Author James O'Loghlin has worked with over a thousand of Australia's best inventors and innovators in the eight years he hosted ABC-TV's The New Inventors. He studied what they do differently and how they are able to identify and take advantage of opportunities that the rest of us miss. Packed with engaging stories and a good dose of humour, this insightful guide helps you to make innovation a part of what you do every day. Change your thinking and identify overlooked opportunities Step around common roadblocks to innovation Generate better ideas, and find the ones that will improve your business Create a culture where innovation is part of everyone's job Harvest innovative ideas from the entire staff and find the ones that will make a difference Innovators see things differently. They solve problems that the rest of us can't, and create solutions to problems that we never noticed we had. Getting stuck in routine and procedure is the death knell for modern business. Most companies undervalue and underuse the creative potential of their people, because they underestimate the impact of continuous innovation. Innovation is a State of Mind shows you how to think like an innovator and create a culture of innovation, so you can stay out in front of the future of business.

Creative solutions can be challenged and defended in the pursuit of profitability. But first, creativity must be demystified. A process that targets innovation provides leaders with just such a problem-solving approach. The goal is to produce high-quality ideas that are appropriate to the task - which means groups and organizations can implement them with less risk. Work with the targeted innovation process consists of activities in five areas: stating the problem in a way that encourages creative problem solving, learning and understanding different problem-solving styles, learning and understanding creative pathways and their relationship to problem solving, generating ideas, and evaluating those ideas. Targeted innovation reconciles creativity with management. Managers can use it to solve problems that meet their organization's call for innovative answers to current challenges.

Reveals the importance of innovation in American global competitiveness, profiling some of today's most compelling young innovators while explaining how they have succeeded through the unconventional methods of parents, teachers, and mentors.