The Manager S Pocket Guide To Innovation

Innovation is necessary for your survival and your organizations. But the process is fraught with obstacles. How can you keep yourself and your team moving forward? You start with this how-to guide to innovation written specifically for todays busy manager. This quick-read is full of practical, easy-to-implement techniques that will help you avoid the unending details and stops and starts, distractions that cause your focus to shift, false starts and market shifts that lead you down the wrong path and steep learning curves that slow the process down.

Actionable tools, processes and metrics for successfully managing innovation projects Conventional project management methods are oftentimes insufficient for managing innovation projects. Innovation is lost under the pre-determined scope and forecasted environments of traditional project management. There is tremendous pressure on organizations to innovate, and the project managers responsible for managing these innovation projects do not have the training or tools to do their jobs effectively. Innovation Project Management provides the tools, insights, and metrics needed to successfully manage innovation projects—helping readers identify problems in their organization, conceive elegant solutions, and, when necessary, promote changes to their organizational culture. There are several kinds of innovation—ranging from incremental changes to existing products to wholly original processes that emerge from market-disrupting new technology—that possess different characteristics and often require different tools. Best-selling author and project management expert Harold Kerzner integrates innovation, project management, and strategic planning to offer students and practicing professionals the essential tools and processes to analyze innovation from all sides. Innovation Project Management deconstructs traditional project management methods and explains why and how innovation projects should be managed differently. This invaluable resource: Provides practical advice and actionable tools for effectively managing innovation projects Offers value-based project management metrics and guidance on how to establish a metrics management program Shares exclusive insights from project managers at world-class organizations such as Airbus, Boeing, Hitachi, IBM, and Siemens on how they manage innovation projects Explores a variety of types of innovation including co-creation, value-driven, agile, open versus closed, and more Instructors have access to PowerPoint lecture slides by chapter through the book’s companion website Innovation Project Management: Methods, Case Studies, and Tools for Managing Innovation Projects is an essential text for professional project managers, corporate managers, innovation team members, as well as students in project management, innovation and entrepreneurship programs.

Use this guide to unleash the creative potential in others by understanding the key enablers and barriers to creativity. Directed creativity is possibly the most important problem solving skill. Is there a secret to creativity? Can a simple change in the way we think about problems dramatically cut the cycle time for generating state-of-the-art solutions? Yes! And this book will show you how. It presents practical tools and suggestions for creative thinking while never losing touch with the essential components of the process: its looseness, its freedom, its risk-taking. You'll learn how the elements of creative thinking-the methods that help us get un-stuck-can themselves be creative. What better way to drive home the power of the creative thought process than to go out on a limb and be creative about creativity!. Includes: .: Personal Creativity Assessment.; Checklist of common workplace behaviors that block creativity.; A realistic, useful model of the creative thought process.; Creative thinking methods-process tools that help you do creative thinking.; Training Transfer Assessmen

Somewhere, a startup is at work disrupting your business. What can you do about it? How can your company avoid the fate of once highly successful firms such as Kodak or Blockbuster? This book unravels the mechanisms of disruption, explains why great companies fail, and proposes concrete ways to turn disruptions into opportunities. Its key message is this: Failure in the face of disruption is not due to a lack of creativity, limited resources, or a resistance to change. Failure is the unintended consequence of applying "good" management practices. The solution to success lies in modifying these practices and this book will tell you how. An ideal introduction to the topic, A Manager's Guide to Disruptive Innovation is packed with interesting case studies and anecdotes of organizations faced with disruptive innovation. This book offers you: * A deep insight into the workings of disruptive innovation * Actionable steps to protect and nurture disruptive projects * Practical suggestions to transform your company's management practices to become more innovative

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.

Troubleshooting tips and techniques for keeping projects and management careers on track Bestselling author James P. Lewis has become today's number one authority on the rules of project management in virtually any industry or environment. Now, in The Project Manager's Pocket Survival Guide, Dr. Lewis focuses on areas that are often the largest stumbling blocks to project managers both new and experienced, and provides the practical skills and hidden keys necessary for completing projects on time and within budget. Providing numerous case studies of project management successes and failures in the field, this no-nonsense book explains how to maintain project consistency and success in today's environment of fast change and even faster innovation. Managers will obtain new tools and insights for: Understanding the politics of projects Running a successful, results-driven meeting Managing effectively in the project environment

Innovation may be the hottest discipline around today, in business circles and beyond. And for good reason. Innovation transforms companies and markets. It is the key to solving vexing social problems. And it makes or breaks professional careers. For all the enthusiasm the topic inspires, however, the practice of innovation remains stubbornly impenetrable. No longer. In this book the author draws on stories from his research and field work with companies like Procter & Gamble to demystify innovation. He presents a simple definition of innovation, breaks down the essential differences between types of innovation, and illuminates innovation's vital role in organizational success and personal growth. This unique hybrid of professional memoir and business guidebook also provides a powerful 28-day program for mastering innovation's key steps: (1) Finding insight, (2) Generating ideas, (3) Building businesses, and (4) Strengthening innovation prowess in workforces and organizations. Using several illustrative case studies and vignettes from a range of companies around the globe, this playbook teaches people how to turn themselves or their companies into true innovation powerhouses.

Marketplace complexity and dynamics create an environment that increases the uncertainty of innovation activities. In this context systematic management of innovation and product management are increasingly important for company success. This book presents the fundamentals of innovation and product management and introduces the reader to a holistic process model with particular focus on innovation and uncertainty. This integrated consideration of innovation management and product innovation within an interdisciplinary approach represents a unique characteristic of this book. The book is designed to address the needs of managers who want a practical but well-researched guide to innovation and product management. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students would also find the chapters in this book particularly useful.