The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth

by David Silverstein; Philip Samuel ( ; ); Neil DeCarlo

• ISBN13: 9780470406632
• ISBN10: 0470406631
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2008-11-01
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

If you?re a business leader, a new product developer, or an inventor, The Innovator's Toolkit is one handy guide you shouldn't be without. It presents fundamental tools and concepts for innovation and includes methods and strategies for improving products and service or creating new ones. You'll master a four-step innovation methodology that takes you through problem identification, into ideal generation, to idea selection, and finally implementation. This one-of-a-kind guide presents an effective plan for achieving constant innovation for business success.

Table of Contents

Part I. Define the Opportunity.Techniques and Tools For Identifying High-Potential Innovation Projects.TECHNIQUE 1. Jobs To Be Done.Determine the human need you're trying to fulfill.TECHNIQUE 2. Outcome Expectations.Give customers more of what they desire.TECHNIQUE 3. Value Quotient.Identify opportunity gaps in the marketplace.TECHNIQUE 4. Ethnography.Observe your customers to uncover unarticulated needs.Techniques and Tools for Scoping and Focusing Innovation Projects.TECHNIQUE 5. Heuristic Redefinition.Draw a picture of your system and its parts to focus ideation.TECHNIQUE 6. Nine Windows.Looking at your opportunity through nine different lenses.TECHNIQUE 7. Job Scoping.Broaden or narrow your innovation focus.Techniques and Tools for Effectively Managing People, Projects, and Innovation ROI.TECHNIQUE 8. Stakeholder Management.Get key influencers involved and on your side.TECHNIQUE 9. Cognitive Style.Leverage the diversity of your exploiters and explorers.TECHNIQUE 10. Project Charter.Keep your innovation team focused and on track.TECHNIQUE 11. Innovation Financial Management.Constantly improve your assumption-to-knowledge ratio.Part II. Discover the Ideas.Techniques and Tools for Re ning Innovation Opportunities.TECHNIQUE 12. Resource Optimization.Make sure you use all available resources.TECHNIQUE 13. Functional Analysis.Scrutinize your system for innovation.TECHNIQUE 14. Trend Prediction.Learn from evolution's genetic code.TECHNIQUE 15. Creative Challenge.Sacrifice the sacred cows.Techniques and Tools for Leveraging Brainpower and Turbo-Charging Creativity.TECHNIQUE 16. HIT Matrix.Compare existing solutions to spark new breakthroughs.TECHNIQUE 17. Scamper.Ask eight important questions.TECHNIQUE 18. Brainwriting 6-3-5.Encourage equal opportunity ideation.TECHNIQUE 19. Imaginary Brainstorming.Get silly for the sake of creativity.TECHNIQUE 20. Concept Tree.Leverage current ideas to generate many ideas.TECHNIQUE 21. Random Stimulus.Use an unrelated picture or word to spawn new ideas.TECHNIQUE 22. Provocation and Movement.Step over the roadblocks in your thinking.Techniques and Tools for Exloring All Human Knowledge and Nature.TECHNIQUE 23. Structured Abstraction.Guide your innovation using 40 proven principles.TECHNIQUE 24. Separation Principles.Split your innovation problem in four ways.TECHNIQUE 25. 76 Standard Solutions.Learn how substances interact with fields to form solutions.TECHNIQUE 26 Biomimicry.Seek nature's eons of experience to find answers.Techniques and Tools for Selecting the Best Ideas for Further Development and Design.TECHNIQUE 27. KJ Method.Group and organize ideas by their natural affinities.TECHNIQUE 28. Idea Harvesting and Treatment.Organize and shape ideas to improve their yield.TECHNIQUE 29. Six Thinking Hats.Evaluate your solution ideas in six different ways.Part III. Develop the Solution.Techniques and Tools for Formulating an Initial Design.TECHNIQUE 30. Performance and Perception Expectations.Identify what customers want in your solution.TECHNIQUE 31. Axiomatic Design.Transform what customers want into the best products and services.TECHNIQUE 32. Function Structure.Identify how the sol