Do these comments sound familiar? We would love to be more innovative, but we don't have the resources Innovation works in some companies; we just aren't that creative We get some good ideas, but nothing ever happens with them Unfortunately, they reflect the general perception and environment for innovation in many firms today. In Lean Innovation: Understanding What's Next in Today's Economy, Barry Cross explores how to use Lean to free up resources from within the organization to support and 'fund' innovation and inspire a culture of creativity. Easy to read and humorous, Cross' stories resonate and his tactics are very applicable. He demonstrates that you likely have the people needed to drive innovation. Based on Cross's twenty-five years of experience, and filled with stories and anecdotes from a number of industries, the book presents a different look at innovation and how to recognize opportunities for moving past merely talking about innovation to action and making it a priority. The author examines roadblocks and how to use enablers like Lean to facilitate and focus the approach on driving the focus forward, to the place where creativity in our ranks is more important that responding to an email and where the organization isn't afraid to make an existing product redundant in favor of a new opportunity.

The parameters of competition in business today are changing -- big does not necessarily beat small anymore; fast is beating slow. Agility, speed, and flexibility are the key elements of a successful strategy and execution in the corporate world as wells as in government agencies, health care, and education.. How well will your firm execute its strategy? What barriers exist that inhibit your execution? Are you keeping one eye on tomorrow's customers, while you manage those of today? These are all key questions as we strive to deliver value on an ongoing basis. Simple: Killing Complexity for a Lean and Agile Organization is about agility and simplicity, in which achieving simplicity comes from a focus on the customer. Agility begins with planning, and leadership teams must develop decent vision. Generally, leaders know what they want to do, but many organizations break down, however, I when trying to implement the action plan. With over 25 years of industry, teaching, and consulting experience, the author illustrates how organizations can: Recognize who their true customers are, and appreciate what those customers want Begin to eliminate the products, services, processes and 'work' that gets in the way of delivering value to those customers Focus people and processes towards value creation, even in what are perceived as non-customer centric operations Avoid brand confusion and the 'all things to all people' mentality The complexities of managing in today's world both obscures decision making and layers on challenges that bog an organization down, preventing leadership from understanding what their customers want. By understanding who those customers are, and what they want, leaders can focus innovation strategy and projects in ways that deliver sustainable value. Even in not-for-profit and government agencies, executing in an aligned organization can become the profitable standard business process.

Look around your organization: can you identify who owns project management? Would that person appreciate that they own responsibility for your projects? Project Leadership: Creating Value with an Adaptive Project Organization highlights the importance of these questions-underlining the importance not only of the project team but on the culture of executive leadership to the success of projects. It offers straight-forward takeaways and solutions to provide executives with the tools to implement an effective project environment. The book begins with a discussion of the project environment and what it means for a project to succeed or fail in today's world. It introduces the Adaptive Project Management Model followed by a review of the systems and tools that give firms increasing ability to maintain priority on strategic projects and manage their associated uncertainty. Working through the book, you can progressively apply tactics from each chapter to increase your project leadership capability and improve your process so that your projects adapt as required depending on the nature of the portfolio itself. Ask yourself this-what is my customer buying? What do they really want? The one element that all organizations have in common is that customers are buying execution, and not much else. Therefore, ultimately, this book is about execution-getting things done and making things happen. It details methods and tactics that help you execute projects more effectively and give your organization the edge in the current, fast-paced marketplace.