by David Silverstein, Neil DeCarlo, Michael Slocum
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Growth Through Innovation Strategy, 2007-09-18
If your business goals include increasing the returns on your innovation investments, I would strongly recommend this book. Insourcing Innovation provides a clear overview of the business issues involved in a growth through innovation strategy.
After the business issues of innovation are discussed, the tactical and strategic aspects of the highly effective TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) structured innovation methodology are covered. The book ends with a synthesis of the TRIZ method into a total performance excellence model.
It is often said, "That of all the major functions of most companies, innovation has the most competitive value and is managed with the least discipline." In Insourcing Innovation, the authors present a structured innovation methodology to resolve this vital business issue.
In the study of innovation, there is also evidence that financial commitment to R&D is no substitute for creativity, analysis, and disciplined management. The methodology in Insourcing Innovation presents a structure for managing creativity and analysis in pursuit of R&D and innovation gains.
The book is divided into four parts. Part One presents the business benefits of having a structured innovation methodology. A framework for business excellence and the highlights of TRIZ are also covered.
Part Two presents the specifics of tactical TRIZ. In this section, is a discussion of how Psychological Inertia prevents real innovation from taking place in organizations. In Part Two are several case examples of how TRIZ has been implemented at different organizations. This section ends with a detailed look at how TRIZ was used to solve a number of problems in the development of a self-heating beverage container.
Part Three discusses the strategic aspects of structured innovation using TRIZ. The eight evolutionary forces defined under TRIZ are covered along with a strategic TRIZ methodology. The importance of using these forces in the creation of a technology roadmap is also covered.
Part Four discusses how a structured approach to innovation fits within the framework of total performance excellence. A total performance model is presented that shows how tactical and strategic TRIZ would work within an organization's drive for operational and strategic leadership.
The strength of the book is in demonstrating how TRIZ works and how a structured innovation methodology fits within a total performance excellence model. Just enough technical information is presented so that the reader will be comfortable with the process.
Innovation is a skill you want as many people within your organization to understand and hopefully master. The examples presented in Insourcing Innovation provide a basic understanding of the type of skills and thinking required to implement both tactical and strategic TRIZ.
One of the highlights of the book is the comparison tables of Business as Usual versus Business as Exceptional at the end of each chapter. These tables serve two functions. First, they effectively summarize the material from the chapter. Secondly, The Business as Exceptional Column demonstrates the TRIZ concept of the Ideal Final Result (IFR) as it applies to business activities.
If you want to grow your business through innovation by using a proven and reliable methodology, I would highly recommend this book. Insourcing Innovation shows how to make innovation more manageable, effective, and profitable.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 A taste of things to come, 2006-04-20
This book does an excellent job of presenting a vision for a Grand Unification Theory of business excellence. Just as theoretical physicists seek the one theory that explains the underlying workings of everything in the universe, this book uses TRIZ, the theory of inventive problem solving, as the link that brings innovation theory together with speed, quality, and cost. The vision presented by the authors is compelling.
The book blends an overview discussion of TRIZ theory with a variety of specific examples, demonstrating how the application of the methods leads to real-world breakthrough thinking. If there is a weakness to the book, it is in its length - 150 pages is simply not enough to present anything but a tantalizing overview. Hopefully, it will serve as the sample tasting that lures the business world to the banquet TRIZ has to offer.
Admittedly, I have been a fan of TRIZ for a number of years. Judging by the number of books and conferences and seminars and consultancies there are to guide businesses through innovation, there is a deep hunger for a consistent, systematic way discovering and delivering innovative ideas to the marketplace. Whether TRIZ proves to be THE answer, or just a really good tool, will need to be proven out over time. "INsourcing Innovation" sure makes the former scenario seem like the one to bet on.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Insourcing Innovation will give you traction, 2005-12-07
Insourcing Innovation puts things in perspective. It is a great book to help business people understand the importance of Structured Innovation. Once they understand the Structured Productivity and Structured Quality movements, the Structured Innovation movement will be clear to them. I have already converted several managers with the book.
You can't teach TRIZ with a book, and that's not the goal of the book. Having said that, I will be using the book as a required text in my "Creativity and Innovation in Management" course (which is a required course for the Master of Arts in Creativity and Innovation at the University of Malta - I am a Visiting Lecturer). There is enough TRIZ in the book that students will be able to use it as a reference book and refer back to the TRIZ information I cover in the course. Had the book been available in August, it would have been a required text this fall in my Management course "Creativity and Innovation" at Luther College, where I am a full-time Professor of Management.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
The TRIZ book that you should give your boss, 2005-10-27
"Insourcing Innovation" is the answer to the perennial question "Which one TRIZ book should I show my boss?" It is short, with a very clear emphasis on the business issues of innovation-driven strategy. It is comprehensive, so that the newcomer to TRIZ can learn the real how-to of the basic skills of TRIZ and the philosophical basis of TRIZ so that she/he can learn advanced TRIZ with no further preparation. The TRIZ community has been talking about the integration of TRIZ into Six Sigma since 1998, but "Insourcing Innovation" makes that integration very obvious, with introductory notes by Michel Harry, one of the founders of Six Sigma, and the use of stories from Design for Six Sigma projects and DMAIC projects throughout the book.
This book is the result of a unique collaboration-David Silverstein is President of BMG, a leading Six Sigma consultancy, Neil DeMarco is a Six Sigma author, and Dr. Michael Slocum is an international TRIZ consultant and instructor, founder of Inventioneering Co., and co-editor of the TRIZ Journal. (Notes re apparent conflicts: the reviewer is the editor of the TRIZ Journal and co-author of the book "Simplified TRIZ." BMG, Inventioneering, and the reviewer's company PQR Group are all corporate sponsors of the TRIZ Journal.) The material from Michael Slocum's popular and effective TRIZ classes forms the basis for the how-to and TRIZ background parts of the book. The refinement that comes from continuous improvement based on feedback from real students shows clearly in the clarity and simplicity of the presentation. I particularly like the elegance of the repetition of the 4-box model in a wide variety of contexts.
Michael Slocum takes advantage of his experience with Ontro (later Ontech) leading the development of the self-heating beverage can to create a case study that runs throughout the book. This product, now being marketed by Wolfgang Puck, has been named one of 25 products of the year by Fortune magazine, and the intellectual property developed by Michael's team is now being incorporated into a wide variety of self-heating products.
I am delighted to be able to recommend "Insourcing Innovation" to my students and clients, to the readers of the TRIZ Journal, and to Amazon's customers. It is a valuable addition to the short list of TRIZ books that are useful on the technical and business levels simultaneously.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Thoughts on TRIZ & innovation, 2005-10-08
I just finished reading the much anticipated book by Michael Slocum Insourcing Innovation.As a senior executive involved with Corporate Development I am focused on a daily basis with how to grow (mature)businesses. It seems that everyone understands why Innovation is critical to build a differential sustainable growth strategy but few,if any,have successfully tackled the key issue of how to do it on a systematic basis.
Dr Slocum is one of the pioneers to succesfully undertake this tremendous challenge.
Dr Slocum outlines a methodology that bridges the why & the how which is a critical leap forward.
I saw Dr Slocum's work first hand with Sterno, a very mature brand with a dominant share of market . Using in part the TRIZ methodology we were able to develop a new flameless heat technology that will put Sterno on an accelerated and aggressive growth trajectory.
The words of Dr Drucker do resonate: "The best way to predict the future is to create it"
The book is clear in illustrating the potential of TRIZ and what it can do for systematic innovation.
The book is very thorough with good examples as well .
It is also obvious that the TRIZ methodology is so strong and that the topic of innovation so critical in business that this book is,I hope ,a first of several more books by Dr Slocum on this very dynamic and important yet complex topic.
I believe that Dr Slocum's contribution to Innovation will be what Dr Harry did with Quality & Six Sigma.
The next wave in Performance Excellence will be Systematic Innovation.
I highly recommend this book and a cannot wait for sequel.
Looking forward to INsourcing Innovation II
Eric
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