1st Edition

Lean Innovation Understanding What's Next in Today's Economy

By Barry L. Cross Copyright 2013
    219 Pages 25 B/W Illustrations
    by Productivity Press

    Do these comments sound familiar?

    • We would love to be more innovative, but we don’t have the resources
    • Innovation works in some companies; we just aren’t that creative
    • We get some good ideas, but nothing ever happens with them

    Unfortunately, they reflect the general perception and environment for innovation in many firms today. In Lean Innovation: Understanding What's Next in Today's Economy, Barry Cross explores how to use Lean to free up resources from within the organization to support and ‘fund’ innovation and inspire a culture of creativity. Easy to read and humorous, Cross’ stories resonate and his tactics are very applicable. He demonstrates that you likely have the people needed to drive innovation.

    Based on Cross’s twenty-five years of experience, and filled with stories and anecdotes from a number of industries, the book presents a different look at innovation and how to recognize opportunities for moving past merely talking about innovation to action and making it a priority. The author examines roadblocks and how to use enablers like Lean to facilitate and focus the approach on driving the focus forward, to the place where creativity in our ranks is more important that responding to an email and where the organization isn’t afraid to make an existing product redundant in favor of a new opportunity.

    Preparing the Organization for Innovation
    The Need for Innovation
    Innovation at CVS Pharmacy: Reimagining the Prescription Fulfillment Process
    Notes
    What’s Lean Got to Do with It?
    Three Steps to a Lean Culture Shift
    Step 1: Watch and See
    Step 2: Think and Learn
    Step 3: Get Our Hands Dirty
    A Lean Opportunity: Research in Motion and Blackberry Product Complexity
    Cirque du Soleil and Lean Innovation
    Notes

    Driving Innovation
    The Innovation Framework
    Cool Ideas: Saunders Farms
    Cool Ideas: Noble Crop Science and Innovation
    Note
    Innovation Culture
    DN101 Lighting Program and Innovation Culture: Applying the Innovation Framework
    Innovation Culture
    Generating Ideas
    Refining Ideas
    Spreading Ideas
    Adoption
    Notes
    Generating Ideas
    Create an i-space
    Storyboarding
    Breaking Paradigms
    Cool Ideas: Tim Horton’s Tim Card
    Cool Ideas: Walshy Stick Repair
    Notes
    Refining Ideas
    Lean Evaluation
    The Sounding Board
    The Devil’s Advocate
    Idea Failure
    Motorola Iridium Satellite Phone System
    Notes
    Spreading the Ideas for Adoption
    Launch Well
    Know Your Customer
    Commit the Right Organization
    Effective Launch: Crocs
    Notes

    Embedding Innovation for Long-Term Growth
    Back to Culture
    BC’s Innovation Calisthenics
    Shake Up Your Routine
    Take a New Route Home
    Turn Off Your E-mail
    Electric Cars and Disruptive Innovation
    Notes

    Appendix 1: Fearless Predictions and Things to Create or Kill
    Home Phones and Land Lines Will Disappear by 2020
    The Number of Wristwatch Manufacturers Will Drop by 50%
    Meter Maids/Traffic Ticket Police/Parking Attendants Will Not Be Necessary
    Desktop Computers Will Disappear by 2017
    Plastic Bottle Use Will Decline 75% and Take Paper Cups with It by 2018
    "Occupy" Movement Becomes a Tax Revolt by 2016
    A Rehumanization of Communication by 2015
    Ten Things to Create or Kill
    Create: No-Brainer Food Labels We Can All Read
    Kill: Cyberbullying
    Create: "Express" Departments in Grocery Stores
    Kill: The Facebook "Like-Me" Marketing
    Create: A Better Password System
    Create: Smarter, Synchronized Traffic Lights
    Kill: The "Reply All" Button
    Create: Better Kitchen Timers
    Create: Doggie DNA Testing
    Create: Active Messaging on Clothing
    Note

    Appendix 2: More Thoughts on Lean
    Personal Lean Tactics
    Index

    Biography

    Barry Cross joined Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in 2006 after spending 20 years in various leadership positions with several companies. While in industry, Mr. Cross led many key strategic initiatives, including significant development projects in Asia, Brazil, Mexico, and Europe.</p>