Vijay Govindrajan & Chris Trimble's book on Innovation is about innovation at established companies. The book explains why established organizations find innovation difficult and offers them a prescription. Nevertheless, I think the book is essential reading for persons running start-ups and small companies. What follows, in this and a few subsequent posts are my take-aways from the book.
Innovation consists of two parts - the idea and then its implementation. Ideas are the easy part. It is in successfully implementing ideas that established companies falter. The reason is that established companies evolve for efficiency. The authors call them Performance Engines. Performance Engines value predictability, small variance, and meeting targets. Performance Engines have past data . Innovation implementation have no past data for making forecasts. The authors state bluntly, "The first rule of innovation is simple: Innovation and on-going operations are always and inevitably in conflict" (italics are the authors'). Therefore, the team responsible for implementing the innovation must be distinct from the Performance Engine. "Each innovation initiative requires a team with a custom organizational model and a plan that is revised only through a rigorous learning process" (emphasis is mine). They name such a team as the Dedicated Team. It is good partnership between the Dedicated Team and the Performance Engine that leads to successful innovation by established companies.
The way I see it, all start-ups, and small companies, are Dedicated Teams without an associated Performace Engine. Thus, what the authors have to say about the Dedicated Team, apart from the relationship with a Performance Engine, is of value to start-ups. I will post on some of these in following posts
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