Building the Innovative Organization

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

Abstract

Under the best circumstances, innovation is an uncertain endeavor. Developing a new product may take months, even years. It can involve many different tasks, different people, and different competences. Many things can go wrong. Ideas may not come when they are needed. It may be difficult to find funds or the people needed to develop the product. Development may be slowed by technical problems or by coordination problems if more than a few people are involved.

James A. Christiansen

2. How Innovation Works and How Corporate Managers Can Influence the Process

Abstract

In my previous book, Competitive Innovation Management, I recounted the story of the Chemical Residues project. This project ran into many different kinds of roadblocks during its first four years of existence. Many different management structures, systems, and practices caused delays in the project. Later, division management changed many of these same systems and practices in an effort to improve innovation performance. I will recount the story of the project briefly here.

James A. Christiansen

3. Corporate and Business Unit Management Tools 1: Strategy and Goals

Abstract

As I noted in Chapter 2, the nine types of business management tool can be divided into three groups. In this chapter I will deal with the first group, which includes tools related to strategy and goals, or purpose. Three types of tools appeared under this entry in Figure 2.3:

• Strategy
• Components of the company (competences and mergers and acquisitions)
• Goals.

I will discuss each of these areas in turn.

James A. Christiansen

4. Corporate and Business Unit Management Tools 2: Structure and Process

Abstract

I will discuss three types of management tools in this chapter: those related to organization structure and the allocation of power, those related to communications systems and information management, and those related to decision making methods. The first of these is at the core of traditional discussions of structure. Communication is so closely linked with organization structure that I discuss it immediately after. The third, decision-making methods, is so closely related to both communication and to the application of power within an organization that I discuss it in the same chapter.

James A. Christiansen

5. Corporate and Business Unit Management Tools 3: Personnel Management and Culture

Abstract

So, once you have decided to innovate, how do you get your people to do it? In the ‘Strategy and goals’ section (Chapter 3), I described three things: how strategy setting guides innovation, how goal structures bring strategy to life at all levels of the company, and how mergers and acquisitions activity and competence management ensure that the company has the competences needed to achieve its innovation goals.

James A. Christiansen

6. Corporate-level Tools for Managing Projects and Ideas

Abstract

The tools I have discussed so far impact an entire company. Culture impacts business units and innovation projects alike. So does organization structure. So do incentives. So does strategy. But there are other management tools that are less broad in their scope. Some tools, like a project funding system, impact projects without having any perceptible impact on a company’s ongoing business. Others are even smaller in scope, impacting only one project at a time. Supervisory actions, like replacing members of project team, fall into the latter category. In this chapter, I will discuss tools which impact a company’s project management system. In the next chapter, I will discuss tools which impact individual projects.

James A. Christiansen

7. Ways General Managers Can Influence Individual Projects

Abstract

General managers often have links with individual projects. They may supervise them, participate in them, or otherwise have an impact on them. In this chapter we will discuss the variety of ways they impact individual projects.

James A. Christiansen

8. Asking People to Help Improve Your Innovation Management System

Abstract

Sometimes general managers ask people to look at how their company’s innovation system works. Sometimes they ask outsiders to do a formal study. At other times they ask insiders to do the same. Doing a study doesn’t immediately change the way the company innovates. But such reflection can lead to substantial changes later.

James A. Christiansen

9. Conclusion

Abstract

My purpose in writing this book was twofold. First, I wanted to demonstrate to the reader that many, many different aspects of corporate management practices influenced innovation performance. Second, I wanted to show how the most effective innovators used these corporate management practices to encourage innovation. Chapters 3 through 8 covered both these things. In those chapters, I showed that twenty different types of management tools can be used to impact innovation performance. (See Figure 9.1 for a summary of the twenty types of tools.) I also discussed how the most effective innovators use these tools.

James A. Christiansen

Backmatter