Agile Innovation: The Revolutionary Approach to Accelerate Success, Inspire Engagement, and Ignite Creativity

Agile Innovation: The Revolutionary Approach to Accelerate Success, Inspire Engagement, and Ignite Creativity

by Langdon Morris, Moses Ma, Po Chi Wu
Released September 2014
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118954201

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Book description

Find your company's unique innovation style, and nurture it into a powerful competitive advantage

Praised by business leaders worldwide, Agile Innovation is the authoritative guide to survival and success in today's "innovate-or-die" business world. This revolutionary approach combines the best of Agile with the world's leading methods of Innovation to present a crisp, articulate, and proven system for developing the breakthrough capabilities every organization must master to thrive today and tomorrow.

You already know that effective innovation doesn't happen by accident—it is achieved by careful design. Agile Innovation addresses the three critical drivers of innovation success: accelerating the innovation process; reducing the risks inherent in innovation; and engaging your entire organization and your broader ecosystem in the innovation effort.

The key frameworks described here build on the proven success of Agile to provide a comprehensive and customizable Innovation Master Plan approach to sustained innovation improvement in the five critical performance areas: strategy, portfolio, process, culture and infrastructure.

Major topics include: the power of Agile in the innovation process, how to overcome innovation risk, the best tools to evoke engagement and collaboration, branding as an integral element of innovation, and the best leadership skills and practices that create the special environment that enables transformative growth. Readers will learn specifically how to create better ideas, develop them more efficiently, and work together more profitably and effectively to achieve breakthroughs.

The insights offered in this book are highlighted in 11 detailed case studies illustrating the world's best innovation practices at Wells Fargo, Nike, Volvo, Netflix, Southwest Airlines, NASA,The New York Times, and others, in dozens of specific business examples, in two dozen powerful and unique techniques and methods, and a full set of implementation guidelines to put these insights into practice.

Key Insights:

  • Understand how to implement the many ways that innovation efforts can be accelerated to achieve even greater competitive advantage

  • Learn to create a culture of innovation, greater engagement, and rich collaboration throughout your organization

  • Discover how to reduce risk and accelerate learning

  • Implement your own unique plan to enhance collaborative innovation, from leadership through operations

  • Integrate key agility principles into your strategic planning decisions for sustained improvement

  • Explore dramatic new approaches to open innovation that optimize large scale innovation

  • Apply the latest and best technology tools to enhance innovation, reduce risk, and promote broad participation.

  • This is a must read book, a practical guide for fostering a culture of innovation, nurturing creativity, and efficiently developing the ideas that drive strategic growth.

    • And since innovation is not imitation, you know that copying the ideas and strategies of other successful organizations will not produce the desired outcomes. Hence, all leaders must develop their own way of innovating and nurture the right style of collaborating for their own organization. This book will guide you to find your own unique pathways to success.

    Blaze your own trail to the high levels of innovativeness and organizational agility by learning from the expert guidance and practical, actionable advice offered throughout this important book.

    Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Praise for Agile Innovation
    3. Title Page
    4. Copyright
    5. Dedication
    6. About this Book
      1. Mastery of Innovation
      2. Why Don't Large Firms Innovate?
    7. Part I: The Innovation Revolution
      1. Chapter 1: Starting at Sprint Zero
        1. Wait, Is There…Resistance to Change?
        2. The Secret Sauce of Innovation
        3. Be Your Own Revolution
      2. Chapter 2: Becoming Agile Rapidly and Painlessly
        1. Individuals and Interactions
        2. Working Innovations
        3. New Habits
        4. Customer Collaboration
        5. Adapt or Die
        6. The Challenge
      3. Chapter 3: Transforming How We Work
        1. Innovating Is Learning
        2. Transforming Ideation
        3. From Insight to Disruption
        4. The World Is Changed
        5. Transforming Execution: From Assumptions to Evidence
        6. Transforming Time: From Meetings to Productivity
        7. Transforming Organizations
        8. Summary: Eight Organizational Principles
      4. Chapter 4: Thriving in Change
        1. Defining the Innovation Process
        2. Change and Mind-set
        3. A Framework for Transformation
        4. The Innovation Master Plan
    8. Part II: Managing Innovation for Tomorrow
      1. Chapter 5: Accelerating Success
        1. The Need for Speed
        2. The Scrum and the Sprint
        3. The Agile Software Sprint
        4. Innovation and Extreme Sports at Wells Fargo
        5. Uncertainty
        6. The Agile Innovation IdeaScrum
        7. Social Workflow
        8. The Research Cycle: Need Finding, Modeling, Ideation, and Prototyping
        9. Volvo + Apple + Symbio + Agile = Creating a New In-Car Interface in Record Time
        10. The Agile Innovation Process
      2. Chapter 6: Reducing Innovation Risk
        1. A System for Innovation
        2. Strategy for Agile Innovation
        3. Four Types of Innovation
        4. Innovation Portfolio Design
        5. Portfolio Success Factors
        6. Measure to Manage
        7. Broader Innovation Portfolio Metrics
        8. Automating Portfolio Management
        9. Summary
      3. Chapter 7: Engaging with Collaborative Teams
        1. Transcending Limitations
        2. What Is Innovation?
        3. People Are the Core
        4. The Virtuous Cycle: Key Elements of the Innovation Culture
        5. Promoting Comprehensive Transformation at Wells Fargo
        6. Summary: Innovation Culture Metrics
      4. Chapter 8: Building Agile Innovation as a Core Competence
        1. Agile Coaching
        2. Facilitating and Managing Collaboration
        3. Removing Roadblocks
        4. Orchestrating Team Rhythm
        5. Innovation Is a Team Sport
        6. Summary: Courage Is a Core Competence
    9. Part III: Leading the Revolution
      1. Chapter 9: Developing Agile Leadership
        1. How Apollo 13 Was Able to Return to Earth1
        2. Is Failure an Option?
        3. Leadership and Uncertainty
        4. Don't Settle
        5. The Self-Actualized Innovator
        6. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
        7. Self-Actualizing Organizations
        8. Metavalues
        9. Action Steps: It's All about Leadership
        10. What Is Your Passion?
      2. Chapter 10: Cultivating Core Creativity
        1. Seeing More Deeply
        2. Multivisioning
        3. Great Stories
        4. Practice
        5. From Fear to Flow
      3. Chapter 11: Achieving an Iconic Brand
        1. Branding and Totems
        2. Overcoming Brand Blind Spots: A Case Study
        3. Brands and Archetypes
        4. Storytelling
        5. The Business Panorama™5
        6. Creating Your Icon
      4. Chapter 12: Optimizing Your Infrastructure
        1. Exploration and Production
        2. Dealing with Uncertainty
        3. The Virtual Infrastructure
        4. Collaboration and Ideation
        5. Workflow
        6. Portfolio Management
        7. Engagement
        8. Connectability
        9. Dashboards
        10. Engagement in a Shared Mental Space
        11. Facilitating Innovation
        12. The Physical Workplace for Innovation
        13. Summary
      5. Chapter 13: Advancing Open Innovation
        1. Engaging Smart People in Your Innovation Effort
        2. Agile + Open = Ecosystem Innovation
        3. Openness in Business Ecosystems
        4. Technology-Enabled Openness
        5. IdeaXML
        6. The Next Generation Tool Set
        7. The Promise of Intelligent Openness
      6. Chapter 14: Traveling the Road to Revolution
        1. 10 (Easy) Steps
        2. The Revolutionary Leader: What Kind of Revolutionary Are You?
        3. The Power of Commitment
      7. Chapter 15: Using Agile Strategy to Shape Your Organization's Future
        1. Acceleration
        2. Agile Strategy: The Evolution of Innovation
        3. Three Eras of Innovation Tools
        4. Agile Strategy and the Acceleration of History
        5. The Approaching Singularity
        6. The Agile Economy
        7. Our Conclusion: Agile Capitalism
    10. Appendix A Critical Questions
    11. Appendix B Resources for Your Revolution
    12. Appendix C Definitions
    13. Acknowledgments
    14. About the Authors
    15. Index
    16. End User License Agreement

    Product information

    • Title: Agile Innovation: The Revolutionary Approach to Accelerate Success, Inspire Engagement, and Ignite Creativity
    • Author(s): Langdon Morris, Moses Ma, Po Chi Wu
    • Release date: September 2014
    • Publisher(s): Wiley
    • ISBN: 9781118954201