Gary Klein’s 2013 book “Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights” is a good read, as I’ve found with his his other books. He likes to explore a topic from stories and search for corroborating links to draw together new conclusions. And as this book is about insight, the overall story of this book describes his journey of discovery as he delved into the topic. I particularly liked his discussion of the challenges that organizations face in gaining and using insights.
All in innovation
Unlocking Innovation Productivity
Unlocking Innovation Productivity (Proven Strategies that Have Transformed Organizations for Profitable and Predictable New Product Growth Worldwide) by Mike Dalton is a guide to the challenges of product innovation and how to overcome them. He provides seven cumulative strategies to improve innovation, all based on Critical Chain Project Management and the underlying Theory of Constraints.
Steve Holt gave a talk entitled "Stay on the Red Curve by Making Your Own Products Obsolete." He touched on a lot of topics, but the general idea is that the competitive advantage linked to innovations (in product, service, etc) can only last so long for a business.
One of the challenges all along for TOC Thinking Processes has been the perception that it is very focused on Logic without connection to the more "human" elements. It's not accurate, of course. Rami Goldratt discussed this in the context of Kristen Cox's morning keynote at the TOCICO conference.
It's a short book, meant to be a quick read and guide to start thinking about thinking. Or maybe, more accurately, to get people doing something differently about thinking. The tone is light, but insistent - change the way you think to create fantastic new solutions.
The (Australian) Financial Review has a list of 12 things that kill innovation in your organization. For people that pay attention to this space, the entries should sound familiar: A culture of fear, Lack of meaningful mission and vision, Too much hierarchy, Old-School HR practices, The blame game, Overly prescriptive job design, Filtering, Micromanagement, Lone wolf thinking, Silos, Low autonomy, Dissatisfaction
Review of Eric Von Hippel's "Democratizing Innovation" which looks at the spread of user-inspired and user-created innovations throughout all industries. What creates it? What sustains it?
Kevin Kelly at The Technium talks about The Shirky Principle, which is "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." This reminds me of the 5th Theory of Constraints Focusing Step: don't let inertia become your constraint.
A Robert Scoble video interview with Lisa Petrides of ISKME, where they talk about education and technology and a pending revolution. A number of discussion elements touch on knowledge management too.
Pointers to a couple case studies on process improvement from MIT and focusing on a division of Ford Motor Complany.
I don't quite know how I got on this kick of reading, but in the last year or two, I have read a number of books that are centered around the 18th and 19th Centuries and many of the discoveries and social upheavals that happened around that time. It's fascinating to learn about how these things are all inter-related. The Invention of Air by Stephen Johnson is another of those books.
Chris Grams writes "Three tips for escaping the creativity peloton without giving up on collaboration" and Robert Scoble gives us "Coming soon: the disruptive molecular age of information." Both contain interesting metaphors.
My review of Simplifying Innovation by Michael A Dalton, a business novel that shows how Constraints Management principles can be applied to new product development and other areas that require a lot of innovation.
The organization is a system. If a piece of that system is taken away, then that system changes.
There was an interesting opinion piece in Sunday's Boston Globe by Tom Scocca, The Downward Spiral of Progress. The tone was somewhat tongue-in-shoe (sic!), but the idea was something I hadn't considered in this way before.
Business Week has an article that talks about A Struggle Between Efficiency And Creativity at 3M. It's a classic problem: tighten down operations and innovation gets squelched.
Matt Homann dug up a 1997 article on Honda from CIO Magazine that has an interesting description of their collaborative environment. I couldn't help think of "what good looks like" as I read the excerpt.