Boeing: The Wrong Way to Manage Innovation?

BNET (7/23, Silverthorne) – Two years ago, Boeing’s 787 “Dreamliner” was the exemplar of how companies should manage innovation with partners. The company had overcome its bias favoring internal invention to instead work with more than a hundred companies in creating their next-gen aircraft, and enjoyed many early design and process wins as a result.

But now, nearly two years behind schedule, it turns out Boeing got it mostly wrong…Boeing’s problems are something many companies need to take note of and learn from. Why? Because in this era of global resources, the best innovation and solutions to problems will usually be found outside our own corporate walls. How you manage those partnerships will determine success or failure.

Harvard Business School professor Karim R. Lakhani argues that companies faced with managing external innovation partners must first decide the proper model… For additional insights into these challenges and rewards read “How to Manage Outside Innovation” (free registration required) in the current issue of MIT Sloan Management Review, by Lakhani and collaborator Kevin J. Boudreau.