Kevin B. Mahoney
"At PennMedicine we have conducted a number of innovation tournaments ranging from focused workshops at the department level to tournaments that involved our entire network. The tournament process not only created exceptional ideas but also helped us foster a culture of innovation."
Neil Blumenthal
"Innovation is one of the greatest opportunities to address the challenges we face in the world. In The Innovation Tournament Handbook, Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich offer a method for generating winning ideas that will drive great outcomes."
Phil Kim
"Clarity, accessibility, and usefulness are the hallmarks of The Innovation Tournament Handbook. Despite being a quick read for anyone short on time, the step-by-step ideas presented by Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich are easy to remember, and even easier to apply. After completing the book, you’ll be able to run a tournament of your own with confidence—and in no time flat."
Ravi Viswanathan
"At last, Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich have distilled their experience running more than 100 innovation tournaments to provide a roadmap anyone can use to run their own. The Innovation Tournament Handbook is a must-read for anyone who wants to find an optimal match between a challenge and an exceptional solution."
Eurie Kim
"Accessible and fast-reading, Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich’s new book is filled with stories of organizations that have run innovation tournaments that have generated game-changing successes. In The Innovation Tournament Handbook, the authors break down how they did it and offer a step-by-step guide for anyone wishing to do the same."
Andres E. Sadler
"With The Innovation Tournament Handbook, Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich apply their vast experience in innovation to offer organizations of all sizes a novel way to generate ideas to address a broad range of challenges."
Kirkus Reviews
2023-03-09
Wharton School professors Terwiesch and Ulrich present a compact guide to innovative problem-solving.
The authors explain that, in the business world, an innovation tournament “convenes opportunities for creating value. These opportunities might be ideas for new products, approaches to process improvement, names for a new venture, or candidates for entirely new lines of business. And they can originate from individuals, teams, or organizations.” Adapting the underlying concept to a broader context, Terwiesch and Ulrich contend that the concept of innovation is simply “finding a new match between a solution and a need.” They highlight the universality of this approach, which can be applied to everything from looking for a new romantic partner to getting more sleep to picking the right vacation. In all cases, the authors assert, the essence of the approach boils down to three principles: “Value is driven by the exceptional few,” “You do not know from the outset which opportunities will prove to be the most valuable,” and “You can invest a little to learn a lot.” The central idea is to start with a varied batch of raw possibilities and gradually winnow them down to those “exceptional few.” The authors take the reader through a series of practical applications of the “tournament” principle, such as crafting a watertight “problem statement” or setting out clear, practical goals. The authors employ a concise, extremely readable prose style and flesh out every concept they mention, with examples drawn from their experiences with businesses that have used the “tournament” approach, such as Proctor & Gamble. Although the book is primarily concerned with structuring and running actual innovation tournaments, most of the organizational advice in these pages will be equally applicable to businesses and entrepreneurs who’ve never held such an event.
A lively, thoughtful primer for generating solutions to a wide range of problems.
