Agile Innovation

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.

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.

Agile has the power to transform work--but only if it's implemented the right way. For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack. Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way. The key, they argue, is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, and at the same time innovate. Agile, done well, enables vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to reap its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise. Agile isn't a goal in itself; it's a means to becoming a high-performance operation. Doing Agile Right is a must-have guide for any company trying to make the transition--or trying to sustain high agility.

Growing Up Fast is a practical book about how to implement an agile marketing process in modern business to create the necessary collaboration between marketing and innovation for business success. The first half of the book covers the philosophical underpinnings of complementary opposites in nature, human interaction, and the workplace. It surveys business management over the last 100 years and shows how we've come to the "Agile Age," which is not about big ideas Mad Men-style, but lots of little ideas to test and try. The second half of the book discusses the mindsets and tools required for success in agile work, and examples are given throughout the text in the form of case studies on companies like Netflix, 3M, Microsoft, Domino's Pizza, and Dell Computer. The introduction and conclusion of the book set up the metaphor of the book's title, to personify the current impasse between big regulation government and total free market capitalism. Agile is posed as a third option between the Mom and Dad's battle between over-planning and wild speculation, concern for the future and obsession with "what worked" in the past-as both occupy our resources without agile process or priorities for the innovations we need going forward in society. Agile is portrayed as an inquisitive, experimental, brilliant child who still lives above the garage at her parents' house-and it's time for her to move out. "There are also plenty, plenty of high-level remarks out there about how businesses need to be agile - with very little insight about how. Hey, we should all be rich and good-looking too... But there have been few guides that address the gap between the fluffy and the functional. Growing Up Fast: How New Agile Practices Can Move Marketing and Innovation Past the Old Business Stalemates by Jascha Kaykas-Wolff and Kevin Fann brilliantly spans that chasm." Scott Brinker @chiefmartec

As contrary as it sounds, "planning" -- as we traditionally understand the term--can be the worst thing a company can do. Consider that volatile weather events disrupt trusted supply chains, markets, and promised delivery schedules. Ever-shifting geo-political tensions, as well as internal political upheaval within U.S. and global governments, derail long-planned new ventures. Technology failures block opportunities. Competitors suddenly change their product or release date; your team cannot meet the pace of innovations in your market niche, leaving you sidelined. There are myriad ways in the current business environment for a company's well-considered business plans to go awry. Most business schools continue to prepare managers to be effective in stable and predictable environments, conditions that, if they ever existed at all, are long gone. The Agility Shift shows business leaders exactly how to make the radical mindset and strategy shift necessary to create an agile, entrepreneurial organization that can innovate and thrive in complex, ever-changing contexts. As author Pamela Meyer explains, there is much more involved than a reconfiguration of the org chart and job descriptions. It requires relinquishing the illusion of control at the very foundation of most management training and business practice. Despite most leaders' approaches, "Agility is not simply accelerated planning." Unlike many agility books on the market, The Agility Shift provides specific, actionable strategies and tactics for leaders at all levels of the organization to put into practice immediately to improve agility and achieve results.

This edited collection addresses the need of evaluating innovative or non-traditional academic schemes for understanding their feasibility in extraordinary educational environments. The individual chapters are enriched with robust appraisals of policies and practices linked to academic innovations in higher education during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. The case studies report wide-ranging teaching, learning and academic support practices within online, open, blended and distance learning models. The findings supply two domains of scholarship: evidence-based scenarios through real-world case studies, and a critical evaluation of educational quality through research-informed argument. The evidence gathered from countries, such as Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the UK show empowering and deterring elements of academic innovation amid disruptions. Although this book highlights academic innovations in disruptive situations, they emerge as powerful tools and approaches to be considered in traditional face to face learning.

Best practices for managing projects in agile environments—now updated with new techniques for larger projects Today, the pace of project management moves faster. Project management needs to become more flexible and far more responsive to customers. Using Agile Project Management (APM), project managers can achieve all these goals without compromising value, quality, or business discipline. In Agile Project Management, Second Edition, renowned agile pioneer Jim Highsmith thoroughly updates his classic guide to APM, extending and refining it to support even the largest projects and organizations. Writing for project leaders, managers, and executives at all levels, Highsmith integrates the best project management, product management, and software development practices into an overall framework designed to support unprecedented speed and mobility. The many topics added in this new edition include incorporating agile values, scaling agile projects, release planning, portfolio governance, and enhancing organizational agility. Project and business leaders will especially appreciate Highsmith’s new coverage of promoting agility through performance measurements based on value, quality, and constraints. This edition’s coverage includes: Understanding the agile revolution’s impact on product development Recognizing when agile methods will work in project management, and when they won’t Setting realistic business objectives for Agile Project Management Promoting agile values and principles across the organization Utilizing a proven Agile Enterprise Framework that encompasses governance, project and iteration management, and technical practices Optimizing all five stages of the agile project: Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close Organizational and product-related processes for scaling agile to the largest projects and teams Agile project governance solutions for executives and management The “Agile Triangle”: measuring performance in ways that encourage agility instead of discouraging it The changing role of the agile project leader

This book presents unique insights and advice on defining and managing the innovation transformation journey. Using novel ideas, examples and best practices, it empowers management executives at all levels to drive cultural, technological and organizational changes toward innovation. Covering modern innovation techniques, tools, programs and strategies, it focuses on the role of the latest technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence to discover, handle and manage ideas), methodologies (including Agile Engineering and Rapid Prototyping) and combinations of these (like hackathons or gamification). At the same time, it highlights the importance of culture and provides suggestions on how to build it. In the era of AI and the unprecedented pace of technology evolution, companies need to become truly innovative in order to survive. The transformation toward an innovation-led company is difficult – it requires a strong leadership and culture, advanced technologies and well-designed programs. The book is based on the author’s long-term experience and novel ideas, and reflects two decades of startup, consulting and corporate leadership experience. It is intended for business, technology, and innovation leaders.