Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Earlier this year, Sruthi Thatchenkery , Michael Christensen , Stefanos Zenios and I completed a study of 231 surgical instrument ventures over a 25-year period. Any less and the company will lose sight of what its customers need; any more and the group will tend to converge on old ideas.

Innovation 8

Innovation Project Entrepreneur CEO 8

Modern Servant Leader

JANUARY 15, 2015

Contact: caduhigg@gmail 9 43,800 5,107 9,706 Clayton Christensen Innovation, Leadership Professor at Harvard Business School. Wrote The Happiness Project & Happier at Home (both New York Times bestsellers). Project Manager at @courtinnovation. Author of @MeasureYourLife. Chief evangelist of Canva. https://www.canva.com/.

Leadership 100

Leadership Executive Coaching Goleman Emotional Intelligence 100

First Friday Book Synopsis

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

In his client projects and research, Michael explores the challenges of corporate strategy, innovation and growth. Raynor, Director, Deloitte Consulting LLP, provides consulting services to senior executives in the world’s leading corporations across a wide range of industries.

Case Study 75

Case Study Consultative Innovation Project 75

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 22, 2011

"What you can know is that the markets for disruptive innovations are unpredictable, and therefore your initial strategy for entering a market will be wrong," writes Christensen. As famed angel investor Dave McClure tweeted, "DEAR VCs/ANGELS: if you ask for pro forma revenue projections for immature startups, you are wasting their time.

Disruptive Innovation 17

Disruptive Innovation Christensen Metrics Innovation 17

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 24, 2017

This scenario is characterized by many divergent projects, fragmented activities that have little in common with the initial strategic plan, and projects that do not fit together. The company had expanded into too many different and overly complex projects, which essentially created high levels of strategic stress.

Strategy 8

Strategy Strategic Planning Stress Hamel 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 1, 2012

As recounted in Kahneman's recent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow , one study found that the typical homeowner expected their home improvement projects to cost about $19,000. As investor and pundit Guy Kawasaki notes, "As a rule of thumb, when I see a projection, I add one year to delivery time and multiply revenues by 0.1.".

Innovation 14

Innovation Planning Kahneman Tversky 14

LDRLB

MAY 26, 2014

Actually, this project started probably three or four years ago when Paul’s last book came out, which is called Jumping the S-Curve. In that sense, the Christensen solution has become counterproductive; in fact, it’s become dangerous. When I read it, I thought, well, there’s something here that’s tingling my spider senses.

Early Adopters 60

Early Adopters Rogers Disruptive Innovation Innovation 60

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 24, 2013

According to Clay Christensen and his coauthors Dina Wang and Derek van Bever, the strategy consulting industry is about to blow up the same way the legal world just did. The right kind of project management — and project manager — really matters. government, excellent project management is extremely rare.

Management 19

Management Health Care Middle Management Agility 19

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 15, 2016

Most executives know that the present value of an investment comes from projecting its cash flows and discounting those numbers into today’s dollars. The general rule is projects with positive net present values should get funded, and those with negative ones shouldn’t. That assumes, however, that the base case is zero.

Net Present Value 8

Net Present Value Entrepreneur Christensen Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

Over the past six years, we have put in place a 30-person consulting team at EMC Information Infrastructure (EMC II) using a model we have found to be successful, winning projects away from external management consulting firms at a fraction of the cost, and with great “client” (that is to say, EMC) satisfaction. Win on merit.

Consultative 8

Consultative Team How To McKinsey 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 11, 2016

Amy, a food and beverage executive puts it this way, “Finish the assignment or project with excellence — anything else you do is bonus, but please start with the assignment given.” Use excess time to take on new and important work, assignments others don’t want, or projects that are needed but not yet clearly defined.

Critical Success Factor 8

Critical Success Factor Ryan Christensen Advice 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 12, 2011

This Monday, I was in Mumbai conducting market research with a project team. In their 2009 award-winning Harvard Business Review article, " The Innovator's DNA " (soon to be a book ), Jeffrey Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen discussed how successful innovators tend to be careful observers.

Innovation 15

Innovation Licensing Christensen Learning-by-Doing 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 28, 2018

Conversely, when teams and organizations enjoy too much harmony, they will gravitate toward inaction and complacency, which, as Clayton Christensen noted 20 years ago in The Innovator’s Dilemma , will breed decline and extinction.

Creativity 13

Creativity Team Christensen Innovation 13

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

As Clay Christensen and colleagues point out in the latest issue of HBR , the consulting industry is ripe for disruption. The odd thing about this case is that afterwards the lead consultant felt that the project was a success, and was even proud to use some of the research insights with other clients.

Consultative 8

Consultative Definition Christensen Constraint 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 27, 2010

I thought it would be helpful to provide the list of 31 questions, and my one sentence perspective on each question, as it dovetails with my current book project (tentatively titled, The Little Black Book of Innovation.) Almost always longer than initial projections; be patient for growth and impatient for profits.

Innovation 16

Innovation Govindarajan Disruptive Innovation Business Model 16

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 30, 2014

Questioning is also seen by many business leaders as “inefficient,” according to the author and Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. Within that structure, questioning by employees can be perceived as a challenge to authority.

Company 11

Company Ries Christensen Innovation 11

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 15, 2011

You and I work on a six-month consulting project, for example. If we don't create additional ties during the project, when the project's done, the relationship wanes. After one of the sessions, I saw Gretchen Rubin , the author of the NY Times bestseller The Happiness Project. But here is another SXSW example.

Christensen 15

Christensen Project Social Capital Banking 15

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 3, 2017

As a firm, McKinsey finds consulting projects and then matches them with people they have recruited and trained. Others began databases of freelance consultants where they searched for suitable people for the projects they secured. It has been a stable and quite homogeneous industry for many decades.

McCallum 13

McCallum Competitive Advantage Business Model Consultative 13

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

The promise of job creation — the refinery project is expected to employ 8,000 engineers and create jobs for 85,000 Nigerians — has excited many commentators. This is not the first time a multi-billion dollar refinery project has been announced in Nigeria. First, Dangote’s deal is likely to happen.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Disruptive Innovation Politics Christensen 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

The promise of job creation — the refinery project is expected to employ 8,000 engineers and create jobs for 85,000 Nigerians — has excited many commentators. This is not the first time a multi-billion dollar refinery project has been announced in Nigeria. First, Dangote''s deal is likely to happen.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Disruptive Innovation Politics Christensen 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 15, 2013

Unhappily shocked by Sputnik''s unexpected 1957 success, President Eisenhower quickly pushed the Pentagon to establish the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). With apologies to Clay Christensen , this other "innovator''s dilemma" asks, "Is it better to be ''predictably surprising'' or ''surprisingly predictable''?"

Innovation 8

Innovation Christensen Brand Globalization 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 2, 2014

As Steve Blank, Clay Christensen, and many others have pointed out, once firms reach a certain size, most of their resources (and investment dollars) are rightly devoted to executing and defending their existing business model. It’s not easy for big companies to innovate.

Innovation 9

Innovation Metrics Christensen Workshop 9

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 1, 2012

How do you avoid wasting millions, if not billions, on projects destined for failure? In his seminal work, The Innovator's Dilemma , Clayton Christensen made the point that for disruptive innovations to be pursued effectively, they require autonomous business units. The answers to these questions aren't simple. He was completely right.

Innovation 15

Innovation Company ROI Disruptive Innovation 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 12, 2012

That's a mouthful, so here's an example: Nordic countries have been particularly active in using urban reclamation projects as sustainable development laboratories that, on a small, manageable scale, are designed to create entirely new, holistic market ecosystems (see Hammarby Sjostad in Stockholm).

Disruptive Innovation 10

Disruptive Innovation Competitive Advantage Business Model Technology 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

And once they’ve attained a position of leadership, they may feel the need to project confident expertise. To acknowledge uncertainty by wondering aloud and asking deep questions carries a risk: the leader may be perceived as lacking knowledge.

Christensen 8

Christensen Open-book CEO Entrepreneur 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 15, 2014

Hayes and Abernathy laid the blame instead at management’s doorstep – citing in particular the short-termism that had infected the managerial community and caused them to underinvest in long-term innovation projects.

Management 11

Management Drucker Short-term Technology 11

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 25, 2016

It’s even become a noun of sorts — uberization — which people use to describe a disruptive change to a staid industry ripe for innovation (though, to be sure, the popularization of the word “disruptive” means that it is often used in ways that the concept’s author , Clay Christensen, didn’t intend).

Organization 8

Organization Airlines Constraint Power 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 3, 2014

The World Bank puts the figure at 38% in Nigeria , while the Economist projects 55% for young black South Africans. In his work on interdependence vs. modularity (pdf, page 13) , Harvard Professor Clay Christensen predicts that firms with integrated architectures perform very well in under-served markets with ‘not-good-enough’ products.

Training 8

Training Company Metrics Real Estate 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 5, 2014

Clayton Christensen and Derek van Bever dig in on this topic , and they identify a number of reasons companies are being pressured to act with an increasing short-term focus. Projects that take longer than that to materialize — particularly those that result in an upfront dip in earnings due to investment — get deprioritized.

Finance 10

Finance Short-term Long-term Christensen 10

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 2, 2013

It's why Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma is so difficult to overcome. Without a senior executive taking an active role in a project to overcome organizational antibodies, even the most thought-through plans can fail. What information is likely to get them interested in your project?

Innovation 9

Innovation Execution How To Ries 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 7, 2015

According to Kathleen Christensen, Program Director at the Alfred P. According to Stewart Friedman, director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, this means clarifying desired job outcomes. And these options improve employee engagement and productivity.” workers is to focus on becoming a results-only organization.

Survey 8

Survey Christensen Globalization Human Capital 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2013

He was not your standard internet entrepreneur — the student presenting was pitching a project to increase sub-Saharan farm income, by helping farmers shift from traditional crops to rubber trees. Anyone who has operated inside a big corporate will tell you that for any project, you might have an executive mandate.

Company 9

Company Ries Maturity Innovation 9

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 21, 2011

As we moved from idea to execution, I asked another friend to take a key role in the project. When doing a deal, I now spell out the rules of engagement early on, and hew closely, if not religiously, to the mantra of Clayton Christensen , our managing partner at Rose Park Advisors — "patient for growth, impatient for profits."

Due Diligence 14

Due Diligence Magazine SWOT Christensen 14

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 30, 2015

We’ve used this data for public-health projects such as tracking the impact of the Affordable Care Act in practices , monitoring the spread of influenza, surfacing novel insights about pediatric mental health , and synthesizing the first national map of antibiotic resistance.

Health Care 8

Health Care Benchmarking Short-term Gordon 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 10, 2014

See comments by Clayton Christensen and Mark Cuban ). Meanwhile, every post-secondary institution in America is scrambling to bring more full-pay foreign students to their degree programs just to make the numbers work. There are examples of universities forging ahead.

Real Estate 8

Real Estate Education Disruptive Innovation Asset Management 8

N2Growth Blog

JANUARY 13, 2011

Be careful of high level, pie-in-the-sky projections. Moore and Christensen tell us what to do, but their prescription is rarely followed. Realistic : Adopting a new idea should be based upon solid business logic that drives corresponding financial engineering and modeling. I look forward to hearing more from you.

Blog 384

Blog Innovation Strategic Planning Brand 384

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 8, 2015

Our favorite way to think of this is in terms of what Clay Christensen has famously called the “ job-to-be-done. Some of our students, for example, believed there was a need for an improved collaborative project management tool (akin to Base Camp ). But was that so?

Innovation 8

Innovation Business Model Uncertainty Advertising 8