Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11633.003.0020
Joseph Byrum, A. Bingham
Syngenta, an agrochemical and seed company based in Basel, Switzerland, was formed in 2000 by the merger of the agribusiness units of Novartis and AstraZeneca. For centuries, plant breeding has been a labor-intensive process that depended largely on trial and error. Luck played a decisive role, as breeders relied heavily on intuition and guesswork to decide which varieties to cross-pollinate. Syngenta set out to use open innovation to harness the power of data analytics so we could identify genetic combinations that unlock desirable characteristics in soybean plants, such as the highest yield. Syngenta's vision was to create a suite of software tools that would replace intuition in plant breeding with data-backed science. The tool Syngenta envisioned would conduct what's known as a residual analysis the calculated difference between the observed value of a genetic trait and the predicted value of that trait based on a statistical model across many locations. Over the past eight years, Syngenta has used open- innovation platforms to develop more than a dozen tools in its data analytics suite.
{"title":"Improving analytics capabilities through crowdsourcing","authors":"Joseph Byrum, A. Bingham","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11633.003.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11633.003.0020","url":null,"abstract":"Syngenta, an agrochemical and seed company based in Basel, Switzerland, was formed in 2000 by the merger of the agribusiness units of Novartis and AstraZeneca. For centuries, plant breeding has been a labor-intensive process that depended largely on trial and error. Luck played a decisive role, as breeders relied heavily on intuition and guesswork to decide which varieties to cross-pollinate. Syngenta set out to use open innovation to harness the power of data analytics so we could identify genetic combinations that unlock desirable characteristics in soybean plants, such as the highest yield. Syngenta's vision was to create a suite of software tools that would replace intuition in plant breeding with data-backed science. The tool Syngenta envisioned would conduct what's known as a residual analysis the calculated difference between the observed value of a genetic trait and the predicted value of that trait based on a statistical model across many locations. Over the past eight years, Syngenta has used open- innovation platforms to develop more than a dozen tools in its data analytics suite.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"5 1","pages":"43-48"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82467435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0004
Ginni Rometty
Enterprises and governments are rapidly becoming digital as they seek to capture the cost savings, agility, and collaboration enabled by cloud, analytics, mobile, and social technologies. However, digital is not the destination. Rather, it is laying the foundation for a much more profound transformation to come. The technologies required for cognitive systems not just artificial intelligence (AI), but a broad spectrum of capabilities that include natural language processing, human-computer interaction, deep learning, neural nets, and more have made exponential advances in recent years.
{"title":"Digital today, cognitive tomorrow","authors":"Ginni Rometty","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Enterprises and governments are rapidly becoming digital as they seek to capture the cost savings, agility, and collaboration enabled by cloud, analytics, mobile, and social technologies. However, digital is not the destination. Rather, it is laying the foundation for a much more profound transformation to come. The technologies required for cognitive systems not just artificial intelligence (AI), but a broad spectrum of capabilities that include natural language processing, human-computer interaction, deep learning, neural nets, and more have made exponential advances in recent years.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"314 1","pages":"28-28"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79701322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0020
M. Ballé, J. Morgan, D. Sobek
The term lean product development is relatively new, but the underlying concepts have been around for more than three decades. Operational excellence is not achieved by just applying so-called lean practices to every process. More than anything, it requires cultivating an aptitude and an expectation for continuous improvement within every employee. People, not processes, make great products. Rather than being a state, lean is really a process by which companies can simultaneously improve product design, manufacturing capability, and supply chain efficiency. In new product development, lean is about advancing developer skills through technical training and methods of collaboration so that each developer is able to design, develop, and deliver better products and services. What lean does try to specify are the things that should be fixed and the things that should be flexible. By making these determinations early, engineers know where they have flexibility and where they must operate within fixed constraints.
{"title":"Why learning is central to sustained innovation","authors":"M. Ballé, J. Morgan, D. Sobek","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0020","url":null,"abstract":"The term lean product development is relatively new, but the underlying concepts have been around for more than three decades. Operational excellence is not achieved by just applying so-called lean practices to every process. More than anything, it requires cultivating an aptitude and an expectation for continuous improvement within every employee. People, not processes, make great products. Rather than being a state, lean is really a process by which companies can simultaneously improve product design, manufacturing capability, and supply chain efficiency. In new product development, lean is about advancing developer skills through technical training and methods of collaboration so that each developer is able to design, develop, and deliver better products and services. What lean does try to specify are the things that should be fixed and the things that should be flexible. By making these determinations early, engineers know where they have flexibility and where they must operate within fixed constraints.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"14 1","pages":"63-71"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79774648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0005
T. Davenport
Just as contemporary autonomous vehicles can take the wheel under certain conditions, well see situations in which strategic decision making can be automated. Other situations, however, will require that a human strategist take the wheel and change direction. Big-picture thinking is one capability at which humans are still better than computers and will continue to be for some time. Machines are not very good at piecing together a big picture in the first place, or at noticing when the landscape has changed in some fundamental way. Good human strategists do this every day. In a world of smart, strategic machines, humans need to excel at big-picture thinking in order to decide, for example, when automation is appropriate for a decision; what roles machines and people will play, respectively; and when an automated strategy approach their organization has implemented no longer makes sense. There is a level of sense-making that only a human strategist is capable of at least for now. Its a skill that will be more prized than ever.
{"title":"Rise of the strategy machines","authors":"T. Davenport","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Just as contemporary autonomous vehicles can take the wheel under certain conditions, well see situations in which strategic decision making can be automated. Other situations, however, will require that a human strategist take the wheel and change direction. Big-picture thinking is one capability at which humans are still better than computers and will continue to be for some time. Machines are not very good at piecing together a big picture in the first place, or at noticing when the landscape has changed in some fundamental way. Good human strategists do this every day. In a world of smart, strategic machines, humans need to excel at big-picture thinking in order to decide, for example, when automation is appropriate for a decision; what roles machines and people will play, respectively; and when an automated strategy approach their organization has implemented no longer makes sense. There is a level of sense-making that only a human strategist is capable of at least for now. Its a skill that will be more prized than ever.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"156 1","pages":"29-30"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79890833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0021
E. Conforto, E. Rebentisch, D. Amaral
This article discusses findings from a study on improvisation in product development projects and how managers can create a team environment conducive to improvisation. In general terms, improvisation is the ability to create and implement a new or an unplanned solution in the face of an unexpected problem or change. It is often seen as a spontaneous, intuitive, creative problem-solving behavior. The authors of this article examined project and team characteristics related to improvisation practices in product development, software development, and the implementation of software projects. They found that projects with extreme changes in requirements (90% or more changes) employed 41% more improvisation practices than projects that had relatively stable requirements (10% or fewer changes). This suggests that higher levels of improvisation, deliberate or not, are more likely to happen in projects that have fluid and unstable requirements. Based on the research findings, the authors believe that the capacity of a team to improvise can be developed and enhanced.
{"title":"Learning the Art of Business Improvisation","authors":"E. Conforto, E. Rebentisch, D. Amaral","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0021","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses findings from a study on improvisation in product development projects and how managers can create a team environment conducive to improvisation. In general terms, improvisation is the ability to create and implement a new or an unplanned solution in the face of an unexpected problem or change. It is often seen as a spontaneous, intuitive, creative problem-solving behavior. The authors of this article examined project and team characteristics related to improvisation practices in product development, software development, and the implementation of software projects. They found that projects with extreme changes in requirements (90% or more changes) employed 41% more improvisation practices than projects that had relatively stable requirements (10% or fewer changes). This suggests that higher levels of improvisation, deliberate or not, are more likely to happen in projects that have fluid and unstable requirements. Based on the research findings, the authors believe that the capacity of a team to improvise can be developed and enhanced.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"44 1","pages":"8-10"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80622114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0018
B. Parmar, R. Freeman
Advances in information technology have made the use of data principally data about human behaviors ubiquitous in the online experience. Companies tailor their offerings based on the technology people employ. News stories are suggested based on previous reading habits and our social network activities. It is important to note that the software code used to make judgments about us based on our preferences for shoes or how we get to work is written by human beings, who are making choices about what that data means and how it should shape our behavior. That code is not value neutral. Despite advances in information technology, data collection, and analysis, judgments about morality and ethics are just as important as ever maybe even more important.
{"title":"Ethics and the algorithm","authors":"B. Parmar, R. Freeman","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0018","url":null,"abstract":"Advances in information technology have made the use of data principally data about human behaviors ubiquitous in the online experience. Companies tailor their offerings based on the technology people employ. News stories are suggested based on previous reading habits and our social network activities. It is important to note that the software code used to make judgments about us based on our preferences for shoes or how we get to work is written by human beings, who are making choices about what that data means and how it should shape our behavior. That code is not value neutral. Despite advances in information technology, data collection, and analysis, judgments about morality and ethics are just as important as ever maybe even more important.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"23 1","pages":"16-17"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83689106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0014
R. Austin
Technology can be deployed to augment the creative abilities of people and organizations and make new and valuable forms of innovation possible. Today's digital technologies have reached a level of maturation that enables, across many domains, a practical capability that may be called cheap and rapid iteration. To iterate is to try something different from what you tried last time. Iteration is the process that enables most forms of artistry. Painters often create numerous versions of a painting. Processes often become more creative when rapid iteration is affordable. Unfortunately, this is not the case in a lot of business domains. In the next five years, managers will awaken to a wide range of new possibilities. They'll act to improve creative capabilities, by figuring out how to deploy technologies to replace expensive physical trying with cheap virtual trying. In effect, they'll be constructing virtual rehearsal spaces, virtual laboratories, and inexpensive prototyping facilities. The aim won't be to design machines to take over peoples jobs, but rather to augment human capabilities.
{"title":"Unleashing creativity with digital technology","authors":"R. Austin","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"Technology can be deployed to augment the creative abilities of people and organizations and make new and valuable forms of innovation possible. Today's digital technologies have reached a level of maturation that enables, across many domains, a practical capability that may be called cheap and rapid iteration. To iterate is to try something different from what you tried last time. Iteration is the process that enables most forms of artistry. Painters often create numerous versions of a painting. Processes often become more creative when rapid iteration is affordable. Unfortunately, this is not the case in a lot of business domains. In the next five years, managers will awaken to a wide range of new possibilities. They'll act to improve creative capabilities, by figuring out how to deploy technologies to replace expensive physical trying with cheap virtual trying. In effect, they'll be constructing virtual rehearsal spaces, virtual laboratories, and inexpensive prototyping facilities. The aim won't be to design machines to take over peoples jobs, but rather to augment human capabilities.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"6 1","pages":"22-23"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83935510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0011
Rita Gunther McGrath
New technologies are eroding transaction costs and in the process creating a world that is increasingly connected. The resulting level of interdependence creates a radically new set of challenges for management. In particular, complicated business situations are being replaced with complex ones. In a complicated system, even though there may be many inputs and outputs, one can predict the outcome by knowing how the system works. Connecting parts of a system that used to be sealed off from one another can create enormous benefits. For instance, companies installing enterprise resource management (ERM) systems benefit from having different operations across silos able to share information. Managing in such a complex environment requires not only traditional management skills such as planning and controlling, but also new ones, such as negotiating complex agreements, quickly detecting the unexpected, accelerating organizational learning, and fostering the creation of trusting relationships among groups and teams.
{"title":"Is your company ready to operate as a market","authors":"Rita Gunther McGrath","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"New technologies are eroding transaction costs and in the process creating a world that is increasingly connected. The resulting level of interdependence creates a radically new set of challenges for management. In particular, complicated business situations are being replaced with complex ones. In a complicated system, even though there may be many inputs and outputs, one can predict the outcome by knowing how the system works. Connecting parts of a system that used to be sealed off from one another can create enormous benefits. For instance, companies installing enterprise resource management (ERM) systems benefit from having different operations across silos able to share information. Managing in such a complex environment requires not only traditional management skills such as planning and controlling, but also new ones, such as negotiating complex agreements, quickly detecting the unexpected, accelerating organizational learning, and fostering the creation of trusting relationships among groups and teams.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"31 1","pages":"14-15"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82252358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0012
S. Jha, Ishwardutt Parulkar, R. Krishnan, C. Dhanaraj
For more than a decade, multinational enterprises from developed countries have been moving a substantial part of their research and development (R&D) activity to emerging markets such as India and China. While the location of R&D centers in other developed countries has been driven by lucrative markets or specific expertise available in the local ecosystems of those countries, the location of R&D in developing countries has been driven largely by the availability of skilled manpower at low cost. R&D subsidiaries in emerging markets are uniquely positioned to play an important role in multinational companies innovation strategies. The research method employed for this study was a combination of quasi-participatory action research and the case study method. A large market opportunity combined with unique customer requirements is a key enabler of innovation for emerging markets. While most emerging markets do present a sizable market opportunity, it is the uniqueness of customer requirements that creates a compelling need to innovate. Cisco India's R&D had all three enablers of innovation in place: a critical mass of end-to-end product development capability, a growing market with unique needs, and executive champions.
{"title":"Developing new products in emerging markets","authors":"S. Jha, Ishwardutt Parulkar, R. Krishnan, C. Dhanaraj","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11858.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"For more than a decade, multinational enterprises from developed countries have been moving a substantial part of their research and development (R&D) activity to emerging markets such as India and China. While the location of R&D centers in other developed countries has been driven by lucrative markets or specific expertise available in the local ecosystems of those countries, the location of R&D in developing countries has been driven largely by the availability of skilled manpower at low cost. R&D subsidiaries in emerging markets are uniquely positioned to play an important role in multinational companies innovation strategies. The research method employed for this study was a combination of quasi-participatory action research and the case study method. A large market opportunity combined with unique customer requirements is a key enabler of innovation for emerging markets. While most emerging markets do present a sizable market opportunity, it is the uniqueness of customer requirements that creates a compelling need to innovate. Cisco India's R&D had all three enablers of innovation in place: a critical mass of end-to-end product development capability, a growing market with unique needs, and executive champions.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"20 1","pages":"55-62"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89640204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-01DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0019
G. Westerman
Three technology-driven forces are transforming the nature of management. Automation is making it more and more possible for companies to do work without humans involved. Data-driven management supplements intuition and experience with data and experimentation. Resource fluidity matches tasks to the people who can best perform them, whether inside or outside the organization. Taken together, these three forces are helping leaders rethink the way work is organized and managed. Computers can diagnose situations and identify challenges that humans don't see. Real-time information makes it possible to run experiments rather than guessing what might work. On the whole, these forces will help managers to increase productivity, innovation, and customer satisfaction in the coming years. However, if you lead a traditional company, be careful not to let these forces push your management approach to extremes.
{"title":"Why digital transformation needs a heart","authors":"G. Westerman","doi":"10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11645.003.0019","url":null,"abstract":"Three technology-driven forces are transforming the nature of management. Automation is making it more and more possible for companies to do work without humans involved. Data-driven management supplements intuition and experience with data and experimentation. Resource fluidity matches tasks to the people who can best perform them, whether inside or outside the organization. Taken together, these three forces are helping leaders rethink the way work is organized and managed. Computers can diagnose situations and identify challenges that humans don't see. Real-time information makes it possible to run experiments rather than guessing what might work. On the whole, these forces will help managers to increase productivity, innovation, and customer satisfaction in the coming years. However, if you lead a traditional company, be careful not to let these forces push your management approach to extremes.","PeriodicalId":48169,"journal":{"name":"Mit Sloan Management Review","volume":"1 1","pages":"19-21"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2016-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83038011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}