Building Innovative Teams

CHRIS HARRIS has been working for the last twenty years as Programme Director, Concept Innovator and Consultant in the telecommunication, media, and aerospace industries at companies such as GEC, GTE, Rockwell-Collins and Boeing. He specializes in complex systems innovation and new product development performance. He is the author of Hyperinnovation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) and is developing his own company, House of Innovation.

• Introduction PART I: THE DYNAMICS OF INNOVATION The Unique Nature of Innovation The Unique Nature of Innovation Teams PART II: THE DYNAMICS OF BUILDING INNOVATION TEAMS The Brain, Learnt Behaviours, and Human Interaction The Creative Individual and the Innovation Team Developing an Innovation Team's Whole Mind "Live" Team Talk and Collaborative Learning The Need for Precipitant Innovation Team Values The Need for High Performance Goals and Metrics Organising Innovation Teams Leading Innovation Teams Team Compensation Systems PART III: INNOVATION TEAM BUILDING STRATEGIES AND TOOLS Profiling and Selecting Team Members Becoming an Innovation Team Accelerating Innovation Team Performance

'Chris Harris's new book fills an important gap in the library of creativity and innovation. Some books focus on the individual, and provide guidance on how individuals can enhance their personal, creative skills; others focus on the organisation, and relate how you have to get the reward structure, role models, the resource allocation system and all the rest in harmony with the corporate goal of innovation. Building Innovative Teams looks at that oh-so-important and practical middle ground - how groups of individuals can be moulded into high performing teams, with innovation as their key agenda. Written in a highly readable, pacy style, Building Innovative Teams offers great insights into something we all strive to do, and provides much pragmatic advice as to how to do it.' - Dennis Sherwood, former Vice President of SIR Consulting; distinguished fellow of the Sloan Management School at MIT; CEO of SilverBullet Machine Manufacturing Ltd; and author of Smart Things to Know about Innovation and Creativity and Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager's Guide to Applying Systems Thinking'This is an impressive book by any standards and I for one have very much appreciated that Harris has chosen to share his methodologies...I have read the book three times, such is the level of richness and guidance provided, and each time I pick it up I get new insights. I strongly recommend Building Innovative Teams.' - Robin Campbell, Journal of Management Development