Editor’s Choices for Week Ending Jul 27, 2012

Article of the Week
How Fast Should You Innovate? (Innovation Excellence)
Big Idea: The rate of change in the environment has increased and firms must accelerate their product and service development capabilities.  Although no “one size fits all” model exists, Jeffrey Phillips suggests that organizations should be pursuing both incremental and disruptive innovation, using the Three Horizon framework as a guide.

Editor’s Choice Articles
Using Analytics to Prevent Next Major Crisis? (Forbes)
Big Idea:  Risk analytics is increasingly important for banks as they cope with a complex regulatory and competitive environment.  Research indicates that banks are increasingly committed to improving their analytics technologies, tools and teams. Successful banks leverage risk analytics not only to identify and mitigate risk, but to provide competitive differentiation.

Retailers’ Idea: Think Smaller in Urban Push (NY Times)
Big Idea:  As young Americans move to cities, retailers that grew up in the suburbs are following them. Unlike previous efforts, they are doing it the cities’ way.  With little room to expand in the suburbs, retailers, including Office Depot, Wal-Mart and Target, are betting that opening small city stores will help their growth.

5 Key Success Factors to Enable Transformational Innovation within Businesses  (Innovation Management)
Big Idea:  Transformational innovation for many businesses is inherently complex and, in many cases, high risk. It can be a big distraction, expensive in terms of cost and resource bleed from other key activities, must be managed carefully and will frequently not be successful. This article explores some key factors to work with when looking for transformational innovation.

Agile Vs. Waterfall Product Engineering (Innovation Management)
Big Idea: Author Eric Ries illustrates the difference between waterfall and agile product development theories, and outlines when each is best employed. Waterfall – the linear path of product build-out – is best used when the problem and its solutions are well-understood. Agile development, on the other hand, is a less-risky model of what can happen when the product changes with frequent user feedback and minimal waste.