Think For A Change: Innovation Done Right...3M's Innovation Story...

Think For A Change: Innovation Done Right...3M's Innovation Story...

Innovation Done Right...3M's Innovation Story...

I was incredibly fortunate to be one of a very select handful of innovation thought-leaders invited to the 3M Customer Innovation Center yesterday for a behind the scenes look at how and why 3M innovates. This visit moved me in a totally unexpected way. As a person passionate about innovation and ideas, I have always used 3M as a shining example of one of the elite few organizations who champion innovation as a true business strategy. But, until yesterday, I didn't have a real hands-on understanding of the depth of just how much 3M "gets it." I was not prepared to meet so many people whose passion and dedication to innovate matched mine. So many organizations say they want to be innovative and trample new paths that you can get lost in the artificial euphoria. When confronted with legitimate and deeply sincere euphoria...it can catch you off-guard. And that is where I was as I sat at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last night...collecting my thoughts...trying to figure out why I had been moved so much.

So let's explore some snapshots of things that really took me by surprise yesterday:

1. The day was led off by Chief Marketing Officer Robert McDonald on how important innovation is to 3M and how/why it gives them a competitive advantage. Okay...you could pretty much predict something like that right? A senior executive reading the company cheerleading message to start the day. But...here's where I was taken aback. He stayed with us the entire day. The CMO of a Fortune 100 organization spent the ENTIRE day with 6 innovation thought leaders to share 3M's passion and learn from our passion. And he didn't just tag along, he was FULLY engaged. Sharing stories. Asking very educated questions about innovation management strategy. Helping us "play" with 3M's products. Impressive.
2. The VP of Corporate Research, Larry Wendling, walked us through 3M's Pillars of Innovation. I'll list these "pillars" in a moment, but what really struck me, and continued to do so all day, was just how invisible (or maybe seamless) the innovation process is at 3M. They don't talk about where they are in the process, how to move from one step to another, who owns what piece of the process, etc. They just all have this collective understanding of how, what, who, when and where things need to progress along the innovation management path. Everyone knows it because everyone lives it and the leaders facilitate it. As promised, here are specific 3M's Pillars of Innovation:
   • Research & Development
   • Corporate Culture
   • Diversified Technologies
   • Networking
   • Recognition
   • Measurement
   • Connection to the Customer
3. I never understood just how many products in the world are either direct-branded 3M products or have a 3M product in them. And nowhere was that made more apparent than the "World of Innovation" center. If 3M was going for the "WOW!" factor...they certainly succeeded. This is a Disney-esque Museum of Science and Industry, complete with plantetarium-style presentation and dozens of individual technology platform exhibits with hands-on examples of products, services and processes. Again, you could expect an organization to have a flashy showcase of products. But what made this stand out is its real purpose. 3M put this center together not to show off, but to stimulate thought. When customers come in to partner with 3M on new products, they are first brought through the center as a kind of creativity exercise. Customers are encouraged to make connections between available technology platforms. Yeah...WOW! Get your customer to help improve their own products via a unique combination of 3M products.
4. Following an engaging lunch where we shared "war stories" of innovation management, we were treated to a nice presentation about breakthrough innovation by Corporate Scientist Andrew Ouderkirk. Honestly, he was preaching to the choir with this presentation. But what was extremely valuable, and what caused me to be the most impressed with 3M's innovation approach, was how deep and broad 3M's internal network reaches. This is a culture that is built from the ground up via networking. Have a problem...call someone in your network. They don't know...they will connect you with someone who does. And this goes top to bottom folks. I really believe that any entry level scientist would be hooked up eventually with the CEO if the CEO had the answer that was needed. That's unbelievable rare. Not only that, it goes horizontal too. There are no silos at 3M. At least in the technology and R&D areas. Want one more advantage of the network? Its easy to force two or more unique viewpoints at a problem very quickly. The "collisions" of ideas necessary for a breakthrough concept happen here every day...by design. My only hope for 3M is that they protect and nurture this incredible advantage.

One other thing I'd like to mention before closing...and that is the collective brilliance in the room yesterday. We had executive level people, corporate scientists resplendent with PhD's and 3M Hall of Fame Awards along with brilliant minds on innovation from some of the finest universities, think tanks and consultancies that specialize in innovation. It would have been easy to be intimidated. But it was the most relaxed, open, honest and collaborative meeting I have been involved with in a long time. Thank you to those involved yesterday for a moving, thought-provoking and inspirational day. I have a hundred new blog ideas based on what I experienced and saw yesterday...so watch for more insights in the future.

To build on this discussion, some of my counterparts have also shared their thoughts. Please review and participate!

Jeffrey Phillips - OVO - Innovate on Purpose Blog
Michael Lippitz - Clareo Partners - Grow From Within Blog
Nick Schulz - American Enterprise Institute - The Enterprise Blog
Lisa Bodell - FutureThink
Joe Sinfield - Innosight
Mary Tripsas - Harvard Business School & NY Times Contributor

The Global Innovation Machine: How P&G, GE, Google, IBM, Sony, 3M, Toyota Run Their Global Innovation Management

The Global Innovation Machine: How P&G, GE, Google, IBM, Sony, 3M, Toyota Run Their Global Innovation Management

The Global Innovation Machine: How P&G, GE, Google, IBM, Sony, 3M, Toyota Run Their Global Innovation Management

Global Innovation Machine, Innovation Machine, Innovation Management, global innovation management Comment

Which are the most innovative companies in the world? The Innovation Survey by Boston Consulting Group attempts to provide an answer. Ten companies are named the leading innovators: Apple, Google, Toyota, GE, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, 3M, Walt Disney, IBM and Sony. What can we learn from these innovation leaders in respect of their global innovation management?

Procter & Gamble has a real global presence. It exploits the advantages of its global presence to the fullest extent. Its Japanese competitor Kao has made this painful experience several times. Kao had successfully launched its Quickle Wiper dusting mob in the Japanese market already in 1994. In the following years Kao introduced it in other Asian countries. However, in many parts of the world Kao has no active business in the household segment. This turns out to be a major strategic disadvantage. Because the global competition keenly observed Quickle Wiper´s success. Starting in 1999 Procter & Gamble launches a similar product under the new brand name Swiffer in the USA, in Europe, and in many other countries. In those territories in which Quickle Wiper is not available Swiffer is being celebrated as the great innovation, and it is hugely successful.

Global innovators steer their innovations via global innovation centres. But they increasingly distribute them over the whole globe. There are several important reasons favour this organizational set-up: the respective regions “feel” a greater importance; the employees working in the regions can be offered more interesting career opportunities; the innovation centres of individual product divisions can be placed in those countries where the local divisions of the company have specific strengths, or where they have to compete against particularly strong competition; centres can be located where there is lots of talent, which furthermore often costs less. General Electric´s Health Division these days has its magnet resonance tomography machines, which normally cost millions of dollars, developed in its innovation centre in Shanghai at a target price of half a million dollar, with the option to later export these machines to other countries. Even Google is decentralizing its innovation activities away from its central innovation centre in Mountain View, and it already has 25 F&E centres worldwide.

A fundamental recommended action to improve global innovation is: “Lift treasures via global communication”. It is amazing to see how often undiscovered treasures are ”dozing away” in the companies. Oftentimes the knowledge of successful company innovations in other corners of the world is underdeveloped with the ensuing risk that the wheel is going to be re-invented. Top innovators such as IBM, 3M, P&G, GE and Toyota have become aware of this potential waste, and they are fostering the worldwide exchange of information and knowledge. Their global communication occurs either online or offline, on a permanent basis or event-driven.

IBM´s “Innovation Jam” is a good example of an event-driven online communication. Worldwide, IBM employees, family members and customers are invited to a moderated online brain-storming session. 140 000 persons participated last year, and 37 000 innovation ideas were generated.

Despite the growing weight of the online communication, the classic face-to-face co-operation retains a high importance. While incremental innovations to a certain degree can be managed by means of virtual innovation teams, radical innovations require the permanent co-location of the team members. That is why all 400 engineers of the IBM-Sony-Toshiba design team which developed the “Cell Chip” for e.g. the Sony Playstation 3, were pulled together in one location, i.e. IBM´s Design Ccntre in Austin, USA.

Idea generation encompasses the adoption and the adaption of existing ideas, and the creation of original new ideas. In many corporations the “Non Invented Here” syndrom gets in the way of adopting or adapting available ideas. The leading innovators turn “Non Invented Here” on its head and make it a badge of honour.

Global innovation machines give a global dimension to their search for existing ideas. Already at the end of 1997, 3M had 28 active projects with Russian research institutions. Key for this initiative was the insight that after the collapse of the Soviet Union a third of all researchers with a Ph.D. degree worldwide lived in the territories of the former Soviet Union. P&G has picked up on the idea of an external idea and solution sourcing, and has executed it with an up to then unseen consequence. For this it has given birth to the Connect + Develop (C+D) Organisation. Offline and externally, every member of P&G´s 75-men Connect+Develop team is establishing personal global networks via which P&G can then easily receive external ideas and solutions.

Additionally, P&G is in contact with hundred thousands of registered researchers and inventors through external online services such as Your Encore, NineSigma and InnoCentive in order to obtain solutions to well defined technical problems. Mr. Clean AutoDry and Pringle Prints are examples of product innovations that P&G gained through Connect + Develop.

A global product design is another key success factor for a global innovation management. Empirical studies have proven that an international product development approach, which from the start incorporates the needs of all countries, beats a local product development approach. This is explained by the fact that the demands on the innovation project and the performance expectations of the innovation team automatically rise if a company benchmarks itself against the world-best competitors, and not only against the best local competitors. The new Camry which Toyota introduced globally at the beginning of 2006 exemplifies a globally designed and implemented world car. Indicative is Toyota´s motto for its world car: “Global best, local best”.

Innovators with a strong global innovation management synchronize their innovation processes globally. Instead of a product launch in only a few countries (see Kao), and in lieu of a gradual roll-out of a new product across the globe, innovators with a top global inovation management launch an innovation into the whole global market within a short time window. The global co-ordination in Toyota´s case occurred electronically, and this was complemented by regular international face-to-face meetings. During the whole global innovation process representatives of the affected countries and functions were continuously providing their input, starting from the development of the car vision and extending up to the design reviews, the finalization of the technical master drawings and the joint pilot production in the Motomachi factory in Toyota City. Procter & Gamble, too, today rolls out its innovations much faster than formerly, i.e. in 18 months instead of three years.

Global organization, however, must never mean forgetting the local side. Global enterprises must try hard to involve all business units and employees in their global innovation management. This above all implies involving the local subsidiaries in the early process phases of idea and insights generation, and in the permanent review of the used insights and the newly developed products during the whole innovation process.

Noteworthy in the above discussion of the global innovation machine and of global innovation management is the absence of Apple. This no.1 innovator according to the BCG Innovation Survey, which outshines all others based on its superior product design and superior product usability, until now seems to be rather a hesitant supporter of a growing globalisation of innovation management. Apple is still very centrally organized with a strong US focus, and it is still relatively slow in rolling out its innovations worldwide. This could particularly be observed in the context of the global introduction of the “software” innovation iTunes Store, whose global roll-out is by far not yet completed. And equally, although to a somewhat lesser extent, in the context of the launch of the iPod and of the iPhone. It is pretty safe to speculate that Apple will increasingly exploit the potential of global innovation management in the future.

Dr. Rolf-Christian Wentz

新竹五峰 探迷霧巨木林 眺聖稜線 | 家庭 | 副刊 | 蘋果日報 | 20100518 |

新竹五峰 探迷霧巨木林 眺聖稜線 | 家庭 | 副刊 | 蘋果日報 | 20100518 |

Findbook > 商品簡介 > 德國AIM創新管理：系統化理論、方法與案例

Findbook > 商品簡介 > 德國AIM創新管理：系統化理論、方法與案例


為能有系統地進行整合性創新管理，阿亨大學發展了一套「創新地圖法」 (The Innova-tionRoadMap-Method,IRM)，包含七步驟組合而成：
　1.創新目標界定：符合公司潛能與未來發展之策略考 量。
　2.未來環境分析：運用QFD等方法，分析未來趨勢與衍生商品。
　3.創意產生：對創新目標、理想產品，運用 TRIZ 等方法，找出創意具體內涵。
　4.創意評估：針對公司利益，市場與科技組合評估，找出最適的創意方案。
　5.創意具體細項：結合市場 研究，確認產品的特色與概念的具體化。
　6.產品概念評估：評估需求的滿足，技術可行性與獲利能力。
　7.創新推動規劃：整合未來市 場預測與創新目標，規劃創新的執行方案。

DQA簡介產品生命週期 I

工作狂人: 簡介產品生命週期 I

Engineering Requirements Specification

設計魔力 • 檢視主題 - 【閱讀】7-ELEVEN的創新管理「要多樣化，不要

設計魔力 • 檢視主題 - 【閱讀】7-ELEVEN的創新管理「要多樣化，不要

[PR] 宵遙山莊(買地造屋) @ 陸敬民的住宅週報 :: 痞客邦 PIXNET ::

[PR] 宵遙山莊(買地造屋) @ 陸敬民的住宅週報 :: 痞客邦 PIXNET ::