Insourcing Innovation: How to Transform Business as Usual into Business as Exceptional

by David Silverstein, Neil DeCarlo

A quick overview of TRIZ and how to use it to make innovation a core competency.

Did you know that many of the world's most successful companies have a secret weapon? It's called TRIZ, or the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. Another way to think of it is innovation by analogy. For companies like Procter and Gamble, Ford, Exxon, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Motorola and others, innovation by analogy is a better way to overcome the barriers that stand in the way of product, process and business breakthrough.

Insourcing Innovation demonstrates why innovation should be a core competency of every corporation, and why it's best to cultivate innovation capability from within rather than outsourcing it. The book points out the fundamental flaws of how most companies go about innovating, and details a way to fix them. It also presents the big picture of performance excellence, and shows where TRIZ fits into that picture.

Not often does a book circumvent platitudes to give you the real guts and process for making innovation commonplace. This book does just that, and those who read it will understand innovation for what it should be - not a rare occurrence but a predictable event.

175 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2005

Reviews

[Dino · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up from a need to find and implement a systematised process for R&D at my workplace. This particular book did not leave me with much that could be directly applied in a real R&D/Product Development setting.

Aside from the shortcomings of the TRIZ framework in a commercial setting (these are covered in other online articles), I found the book did not do a good enough job in explaining the principles and how to apply these principles in a corporate environment. The book is probably good in its explanation of innovation as a general business construct and its importance and emphasis in business today.