Thursday June 10, 2004

The following diagram is adapted from a truly great book on innovation entitled, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation by James Utterback of MIT. Hokey title, but well worth reading. For those of you familiar with The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, know that the latter was based on work done for a PhD while the former is the result of 30 years of research into innovation. Not to denigrate Christensen's work, which is also well worth reading. In fact, you certainly shouldn't use the term "disruptive technology" without having read Christensen -- the term is so over-used that it is losing much of its real meaning.

Back to Utterback. Here is my version of one of his graphics:

As time progresses and a market matures, the mix of innovation that is important for a product changes. Product Innovation is what us technologists think of as "innovation" -- the next cool thing or next cool feature. But what about the term "Process Innovation"? We don't often mix those two words in polite company. What's it mean? It's about EXECUTION. In the most traditional sense it refers to innovation in the manufacturing process, but there is a more general lesson here for all engineers: How you do things can matter as much as, if not more than, what you are doing.

As is often the case, no one size fits all. Sun has products at various points on this evolutionary curve. Where do your company's products fall?