Lessons from the HP Inkjet Story

1
Lessons from the HP Inkjet Story

• www.ba.metu.edu.tr/nazli/BA4111/hp.ppt

2
Diversity

• All else being equal, inventors from firms that
  encompass greater technological diversity are
  more likely to put together a previously untried
  combination as they have higher access or
  inspiration.
• The inventors of the ink jet printer considered
  and built numerous (and somewhat crazy)
  combinations of inks, resistors, electrodes,
  explosives, lasers, materials, fluid mixtures,
  etc. (Similar case Pharmacology)
• Diversity also encourages evaluation from
  different viewpoints (e.g. Heat is old).

3
Downside

• Success rate will be more uncertain and poorer on
  average.
• HP also had many failures in the ink jet example.
• Investors from different backgrounds first have
  to learn how to communicate and gain each others
  respect and trust.
• Diversity within an organization will decrease
  over time if not renewed by outside learning,
  personnel movement, or adoption of outside
  technologies.

4
Technological Turbulence

• Rather than hire or fire as business needs
  dictated, HP recycled its engineers with a
  life-time employment policy.
• Managers actively relocated and redistributed
  inventors from completed or cancelled projects
  throughout the company.
• Helped with developing and sharing informal
  norms, diversity, generation of gatekeepers.
• Very careful screening before hiring investors
  should trust that their colleagues are
  technically competent.

5
Centralization vs. Decentralization

• Although HP spread its divisions out amongst many
  geographical locations, it maintained its central
  research lab in Palo Alto.
• Simple physical proximity allowed unplanned
  meetings and friendships could develop.

6
Management by Objectives

• Increased motivation and freedom while enforcing
  discipline on inventors.
• Articulate a broad goal (e.g. Invent useful
  technologies that you or other inventors can turn
  into products) and allow employees latitude in
  how to attain it.

7
Science vs. Technology

• The technologists goal is to create a useful
  tool, independent of whether he/she understands
  the intricate nuances of its functionality.
• The scientists goal is to publish a complete and
  accurate explanation of some phenomenon.
• Greater inclination towards scienceor the norm
  of publicationmay retard the possibility of a
  technological breakthrough (may be just dismissed
  as luck.)

8
Suggested Reading

• L. Fleming, Finding the Organizational Sources
  of Technological Breakthroughs The Story of
  Hewlett-Packards Thermal Ink-Jet, Industrial
  and Corporate Change, 2002.