Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire

Essential strategies to transform your organization and boost your profits

Want to recapture your organization's original innovative spirit? Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire helps you remove the obstacles that have crippled the innovation superpowers that made your organization successful in the first place.

• Helps you identify the blockages hindering innovation within your organization
• Reveals the fundamental changes that will help your business rebuild its hidden or lost innovation capabilities
• Explores leading innovation theories you can apply right away-without expensive consultants

Get the strategies you need to remove innovation barriers, increase profits-and change the way you do business.

Foreword xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction 1

About the Companion Web Site 5

Part I Setting the Stage 7

Chapter 1 Blinded by the Light: Vision Blockages 9

Overview 9

Innovation Vision Example (Alcatel-Lucent) 11

Innovation Vision Example (Kuwait Petroleum Corporation) 12

There Is No Single Innovation Vision 13

Innovation Vision Case Study—Ford Motor Company 14

Innovation Vision Case Study—Hewlett-Packard 16

Innovation Vision Case Study—Apple Computer 16

Innovation Vision Case Study—Nintendo 18

Innovation Vision Case Study—Walmart versus Amazon 18

Innovation Vision Case Study—Intel versus AMD, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA 19

Bringing It All Together 20

Chapter 2 Peering in the Dark: Strategy Blockages 23

Overview 23

Strategy Must Be Based in Reality 24

Two Sources of Innovation, One Innovation Strategy 25

Time as a Component of Innovation Strategy 25

Innovation Strategy Case Study—The Whirlpool Example 26

Innovation Case Study—Open Innovation at Procter & Gamble 28

Not Just for Corporations 28

Innovation Maturity 30

Incremental versus Disruptive Innovation 32

Innovation Portfolios 33

Open Innovation 34

Bringing It All Together 35

Chapter 3 Setting a Course Blindfolded: Goal Blockages 37

Overview 37

The Purpose of Innovation Goals 38

The Influence of Customer Permissions and Visual Frameworks on Your Innovation Strategy and Goals 39

Setting Your Innovation Goals 39

Bringing It All Together 40

Part II The Innovation Engine 43

Chapter 4 What Are They Really Thinking?: Insight Blockages 45

Overview 45

Four Lenses of Innovation 46

Broadcasting the Voice of the Customer 46

Trend Spotting, Behaviors, and Needs 48

Insights and Execution 50

Insights Case Study—Apple iPhone 51

Insights Case Study—Apple iPad 52

Are You Innovating for the Past or the Future? 56

Bringing It All Together 58

Chapter 5 Shining a Light on the Customer Problem: Idea Generation Blockages 59

Overview 59

Generating Ideas 60

Idea Quantity 61

Idea Quality 62

Better Brainstorming 62

The Idea Generation S-Curve 63

The Nine Innovation Roles 64

Bringing It All Together 66

Chapter 6 Picking a Winner Without Looking: Idea Evaluation Blockages 67

Overview 68

You Get What You Measure 68

Separate But Equal 69

Idea Evaluation Checklist 69

Idea Challenges 71

Parallel Idea Evaluation in a Serial World 71

Saying No in the Right Way 72

The Importance of “Not Now” 73

Bringing It All Together 74

Chapter 7 Going to Market Blind: Idea Commercialization Blockages 77

Overview 77

Useful or Valuable 78

Slow Innovation 79

Slow Innovation Case Study—The iPod 79

Slow Innovation Case Study—The VCR 83

Slow Innovation Case Study—The Internet 83

Slow Innovation Case Study—Southwest Airlines 84

Slow Innovation—Conclusion 84

Idea Commercialization Stories—Apple Designs a “No!” 85

Lessons Learned 86

Bringing It All Together 87

Part III The Organization 89

Chapter 8 Have You Had an Innovation Lobotomy?: Organizational Psychology Blockages 91

Overview 91

What Are You Afraid Of? 92

The Impact of Culture 92

Organizational Hierarchy of Needs 93

Breaking Out of the Mold 95

Choose Your Own Hours—A Case Study in Flexibility 96

Bringing It All Together 97

Chapter 9 Do Your Policies and Processes Keep People in the Dark?: Information and Structural Blockages 99

Overview 100

Some Secrets of Continuous Innovation Are Nothing New 101

Should They Call Them Silos or Bunkers? 103

Get Your Hands Off My Bonus 104

A Case Study in Breaking Down Information and Structural Barriers Cisco 104

Another Case Study—GE and Reverse Innovation 106

Bringing It All Together 108

Chapter 10 Keeping the Lights On: Sustainability Blockages 109

Overview 109

Who Innovates? 110

Innovating in a Crisis 111

Innovation Is Not a Project 111

If You Want Systemic Innovation, You Need Systems to Manage It 112

Innovation versus Flexibility 114

Managing Innovation Is About Managing Change—A Case Study 115

Purpose and Passion 119

Blogging Innovation as a Case Study in Passion 119

Passion versus Obsession 120

Innovation Is Social 121

Bringing It All Together 123

Epilogue 125

Appendix A Customer Exploration 131

Appendix B Visual Frameworks for Guiding Your Innovation Efforts 139

Appendix C The Innovation Baker’s Dozen 161

Bibliography 175

About the Author 179

Index 181

"Kelley may have become an online media personality, but he's probably more well-known within the innovation community as author of the book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, published October 2010 by John Wiley & Sons. I wanted to provide a book that helps people identify and remove barriers to innovation and is an innovation primer for people who are looking to get started," (Seattle Times, 4 September 2011)

BRADEN KELLEY is the founder of Business Strategy Innovation and has been advising companies, including Microsoft, Misys, Millicom International Cellular, Wunder-man, and HomeAway.com on how to increase their revenue and cut their costs since 1996. Braden is a thought leader on the topic of continuous innovation and works with clients to create innovative strategies, effective customer marketing, organizational change, and improved organizational performance. He has published more than 400 articles for online publications such as CustomerThink and Blogging Innovation. On Twitter, he is an innovation leader with over 6,000 followers.

For more information, visit blogginginnovation.com

Every successful organization began as a nimble, innovative start-up with the ability to course-correct and quickly adapt to the needs of its customers. But along the way, success and growth may have caused changes in the structure, the culture, and sometimes even the vision of the business.

Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire equips your organization to identify and remove those barriers to innovation that have prevented it from achieving sustainable growth and change. Braden Kelley shares the profound insight, simplicity, and uncommon sense that have helped countless organizations get back their innovative spirit and leverage the collective wisdom and passion of their employees.

Filled with case studies and proven guidance, this book evolves leading innovation theories into coherent, practical applications that you can implement in reinvigorating your own organization—without expensive consultants. You'll find world-class guidance on overcoming your business's blockages in the areas of:

• Vision
• Strategy
• Goals
• Insight
• Idea generation and evaluation
• Idea commercialization
• Organizational psychology
• Information and structure
• Sustainability

In today's fast-paced marketplace, those unwilling to change are often left behind.??With an interactive Web site including health checks and an innovation audit, as well as video and text interviews, Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire provides you with the tools you need to reframe your business's innovation strategy and goals and successfully supply the marketplace with revolutionary solutions to your customers' issues. Knock down your barriers to innovation. Create a healthy cooperation with the need for operational excellence. Let your corporate brilliance shine. Get the fire started with Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire.

Every successful organization began as a nimble, innovative start-up with the ability to course-correct and quickly adapt to the needs of its customers. But along the way, success and growth may have caused changes in the structure, the culture, and sometimes even the vision of the business.

Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire equips your organization to identify and remove those barriers to innovation that have prevented it from achieving sustainable growth and change. Braden Kelley shares the profound insight, simplicity, and uncommon sense that have helped countless organizations get back their innovative spirit and leverage the collective wisdom and passion of their employees.

Filled with case studies and proven guidance, this book evolves leading innovation theories into coherent, practical applications that you can implement in reinvigorating your own organization—without expensive consultants. You'll find world-class guidance on overcoming your business's blockages in the areas of:

• Vision
• Strategy
• Goals
• Insight
• Idea generation and evaluation
• Idea commercialization
• Organizational psychology
• Information and structure
• Sustainability

In today's fast-paced marketplace, those unwilling to change are often left behind.??With an interactive Web site including health checks and an innovation audit, as well as video and text interviews, Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire provides you with the tools you need to reframe your business's innovation strategy and goals and successfully supply the marketplace with revolutionary solutions to your customers' issues. Knock down your barriers to innovation. Create a healthy cooperation with the need for operational excellence. Let your corporate brilliance shine. Get the fire started with Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire.