The Innovator's Hypothesis:How Cheap Experiments Are Worth More than Good Ideas

What is the best way for a company to innovate? That’s exactly the wrong question. The better question: How can organizations get the maximum possible value from their innovation investments? In this, the author advocates a cultural and strategic shift: small teams, collaboratively -- and competitively -- crafting business experiments that make top management sit up and take notice. Creativity within constraints -- clear deadlines and clear deliverables -- is what serious innovation cultures do.

What is the best way for a company to innovate? That’s exactly the wrong question. The better question: How can organizations get the maximum possible value from their innovation investments?

Advice recommending “innovation vacations” and “the luxury of failure” may be wonderful for organizations with time to spend and money to waste. But in our summary of The Innovator's Hypothesis, innovation expert Michael Schrage addresses the innovation priorities of companies that live in the real world of limits. They want fast, frugal, and high-impact innovations. They don’t just seek superior innovation; they want superior innovators.

Schrage is a Research Fellow at the Center for Digital Business at the MIT Sloan School of Management. A sought-after consultant on business innovation, he is the author of Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate and What Do You Want Your Customers to Become?

Now, in this summary of The Innovator’s Hypothesis, Schrage advocates a cultural and strategic shift: small teams, collaboratively -- and competitively -- crafting business experiments that make top management sit up and take notice. Creativity within constraints -- clear deadlines and clear deliverables -- is what serious innovation cultures do.

The 5×5 framework you’re about to learn makes people more effective innovators, and more effective innovators mean more effective innovations.