Alistair Davidson

Why a CEO should think like a Scrum Master

Purpose – One approach for CEOs seeking to improve the effectiveness of their company’s innovation initiatives is to imitate the role that a “Scrum Master” has in high speed software development projects. Fundamentally, a Scrum Master is in the business of speeding up the rate of innovation in a software project. Design/methodology/approach – By championing Agile methodology, CEOs can focus innovation initiatives upon developing what customers prioritize and value. Pushing the organization to involve customers, and in some cases suppliers, increases the value added and value creation of the project. Findings – When a CEO practices acting like a Scrum Master, he or she does so by pursuing four goals: Keeping innovation work cycles or “Sprints” short. Focusing upon value creation and customer involvement throughout the development process. Removing barriers to development that prevent the software programmers from doing their job. Attempting to shelter developers from counterproductive interventions by exte...

Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg on redefining value in health care: an interview

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to discover the views of Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg on redefining value in health care.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is in the form of an interview with Michael Porter and Elizabeth Teisberg with reference to their book Redefining Health Care: Creating Value‐based Competition on Results.Findings – The paper reveals the subjects of cost, quality and access have reached crisis proportions in health care services and thus a value‐based competition approach would alleviate this.Originality/value – The interview provides useful information on the redefinition of value in health care

Interview with innovation guru Geoffrey Moore: seeking solutions to intractable problems

Purpose – This is an interview with innovation guru Geoffrey Moore, the author of five books that have gained an enthusiastic following among corporate managers pursuing market development. It offers a wide range of insights on innovation management.Design/methodology/approach – Two Strategy & Leadership contributing editors, one a CEO of several startups and the other a senior academic who often writes about innovation, asked Moore about his experiences advising high tech companies.Findings – Moore believes the best way of thinking about innovation is to put your company in service to an attractive target market to work on a solution to a seemingly intractable problem.Practical implications – Moore believes the biggest innovation mistake large firms make is to have amodel for “childhood” (the incipient innovation) and “adulthood” (the mature innovation) but no model or patience for adolescence (the struggling innovation). Most innovations are killed during their adolescent stage.Originality/value – Moore...

An incubator for foreign companies hoping to hatch in the USA

Interviews the founder and executive director of the International Business Incubator (IBI) of Silicon Valley, which stimulates regional growth and acts as an economic development agency. States that despite the collapse of the ‘dot‐com’ bubble, IBI has continued to nurture businesses that choose the sales growth route to expansion. Explains that the company, a traditional not‐for‐profit incubator largely funded by the City of San Jose Redevelopment Agency, helps organizations to deal with the special problems experienced by foreign companies entering the USA. Points out that they only accept firms with sales experience in their own country, which helps their success rate, but warns of a number of common misconceptions. Describes the successful incubator model, stressing the importance of working to reduce risk for the startup or new company, the entrepreneur, the investors and for the region. Regards the incubator’s most important contribution as the quality and scope of relationships with professionals ...

Interview with growth consultant Chris Zook: a less risky path to business model innovation

Purpose – Creating a fundamentally different business in the shadow of the old one – while its assembly lines continue to roll – is a daunting challenge. Bain consultant Chris Zook recently published the last book in a trilogy which addresses the question of how to make “fundamental change in your business model, while still running your business.”. This paper aims to explores his views on this subject.Design/methodology/approach – For this interview, two Strategy & Leadership senior editors – one a Silicon Valley consultant and former CEO and the other an academic – – asked Zook to take them on a guided tour of his reinvention process.Findings – The paper finds that the underlying thesis in each of the three books is that companies need to master all phases of a strategic life cycle: from extracting the full potential from their core business, to expanding their business successfully, to redefining themselves For most companies and in more industries, the strategy cycle – from Focus, to Expand, to Redef...

When co‐creating value with a customer goes wrong

In the highly competitive cellular phone market, Sprint has pioneered some marketing and sales practices that, in effect, allow the co‐creation of value in cooperation with the customer. When it works, co‐creating value with customers leads to highly desirable customization, a potent way of developing loyal customers and building profitability. But in this case, when the customer/company relationship hits a snag, the resulting dissatisfaction needs special handling. At crucial points of interaction between the consumer and the company – where the co‐creation experience occurs, where individuals exercise choice, and where value is co‐created – misunderstandings and service breakdowns can destroy the relationship. Insightful lessons for companies seeking to adopt this strategy are summarized, with the essential point being that companies need to learn to focus on customer experiences, and on learning to make accommodations when problems arise.

Harvard professor Mikolaj Piskorski’s research-based social media business development model

Purpose – The paper aims to present an interview with Mikolaj Piskorski, Associate Professor in the Strategy Business Unit at Harvard Business School, and one of the first researchers to write about the underlying economic, social and strategic drivers that make social networking important to strategists. Design/methodology/approach – The interview discusses his research-based insights that emphasize the importance of designing a network that enables transactions that would not occur otherwise, transactions of high value to both companies and individuals. Findings – Social networking that creates increased competitive advantage actually empowers customers to do things that they previously could not do or could not do easily or inexpensively. Practical implications – Social networks can potentially remedy the social failures and transaction failures that occur when an interaction that would benefit both parties fails to occur. A useful way of framing the problem to be solved looks at how to develop a socia...

Innovating by “doing both”: Cisco manages contradictions that drive growth and profit

Purpose – This interview aims to discuss Cisos approach to innovation with Inder Sidhu, Senior Vice President Strategy and Planning for Worldwide Operations and a member of the companys Operating Committee. His new book about managing seemingly contradictory alternatives is Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Todays Profit and Drives Tomorrows Growth.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents an interview with Sidhu whose thesis: “Our experience at Cisco” suggests that the concept of “Doing Both” is relevant to a wide range of management decisions and people must learneto look at every opportunity not as a choice between apparently conflicting goals, but rather a way of obtaining a multiplier effect by seeking and meeting two apparently conflicting goals.Findings – Sidhu advocates that organizations actively manage three sources of change in their organization – sustaining change that improves the existing business, disruptive change that needs to be developed outside the core business and externally...

Managing a growth culture: How Sun manages its project portfolio

Sun Microsystems is a high technology firm that depends upon innovation for survival. This interview of Sun’s Chief Information Officer, Bill Howard, gives insight into how this fast moving company balances the need for new development of innovations against limited resources. His goal: do more with less, but always try to produce the right quality and with good usability. With an extended enterprise that can go anywhere in the world in a virtualized connected supply chain, the demands on IT are three times greater than the resources available to do them. The solution for making the hard choices: a multidimensional matrix and governance process to evaluate the projects.

Weird ideas that work: an interview with Robert Sutton

In this interview Robert Sutton talks about some of the counterintuitive practices he believes spur innovation. He proposes that companies should adopt eleven practices. Hire slow learners (of the organizational code). Hire people who make you uncomfortable, even those you dislike. Hire people you probably do not need. Use job interviews to get ideas not just to screen candidates. Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers. Find some happy people and get them to fight. Reward success and failure and punish inaction. Decide to do something that will probably fail, and then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain. Think of some ridiculous or impractical things to do, and then plan to do them. Avoid, distract, and bore customers, critics and anyone else who just wants to talk about money. Do not try to learn anything from people who say they have solved the problems you face. Forget the past, especially your company’s successes. In sum, he believes that creative companies and teams are inefficient and annoying places to work.