This is the book that introduced the world to Goldratt's Theory of Constraints over 20 years ago. It's a love it or hate it kind of book: mostly because it's written in a novel format rather than a traditional business book format.  However,  "The Goal" has sold over 3 million copies worldwide making it one of the best selling business books of all time. After being published in Japan a few years ago became a bestseller there in almost no time.

"It's Not Luck" is the sequel that introduces the TOC thinking tools.  And those who prefer a more traditional text can find the basic concepts in Goldratt's "Theory of Constraints." If you've been blessed with a recent ERP implementation, you might also like "Necessary But Not Sufficient."

While Goldratt and TOC don't address innovation specifically,  "The Goal" is a  "must-have" if you want to learn how to focus your improvement efforts. If you're interested in application of TOC to innovation, download my free report.

The book on disruptive innovation. "The Innovator's Solution" and its predecessor,"The Innovator's Dilemma," made the term disruptive innovation a bit of a buzzword. We'll forgive them for that because there are some extremely useful frameworks here that can help predict a new product's chances for success: very helpful for assessing new product and new technology programs.

A very useful little primer on how to get maximum impact from a minimum number of customer visits. And we're not talking about sales calls here, but structured customer interviews to find unmet needs.

If you're company is one of the many that have struggled to implement voice of the customer, Ulwick hits on a primary reason. Voice of the customer provides data in the customer's language, which is usually structured around what they want; you have to try to translate that into what they need, and we all know that translation is where it sometimes ends badly. His approach is a simple structured question format based on the things the customer either wants to maximize (e.g. time between maintenance intervals) or minimize (e.g. high-speed fuel consumption).

At first glance, this book may seem out of place in this listing.  But a critical part of innovation is being able to generate the leads required to sell your newly lanched product. And Google pay per click is fast becoming the best and most cost effective lead generation venue for many product categories: Even niche and industrial markets.  Not only that, but you can actually use it to do inexpensive market research into what problems customers are trying to solve; this book gives you a view into what they will buy and how you should position your offerings before you spend a dime on product development.  A  practical guide that walks you through the entire process to, as they say, "Access 100 million people in 10 minutes." 

Goldratt's application of TOC to the project planning discipline. The critical path that everyone is so familiar with is actually a special case where there are no resource conflicts with other projects. But in the real world, resources are usually shared between projects and even between different parts of the same project. Critical Chain is a business novel offering strategies and tools for getting resource-constrained projects done on time and on budget. For a traditional text, see "Critical Chain Project Management, Second Edition."

No- it's not another sequel to the goal, and No - this one isn't a novel. But it is a comprehensive overview of how you can apply TOC to improving a services business. Step by step, an IBM Consulting engineer, walks you through the application of TOC across all the functions of a services business.

A brief, easy to read overview of what's required to start a new business venture successfully. None of the usual stuff on legal formation or organizational structure. But a very entertaining read on how to pitch new business ventures and raise financing. Also applies to pitching new customers and even internal projects.

A brief leadership fable about how an extraordinary leader creates clarity and focus in his company. A great little book that helps you move from the analytic side of focus, to the people side of making it all work. Yes, like "The Goal," it's a story, but it also has a very useful section at the end that summarizes the concepts and gives advice on putting them into action.

Other highly recommended books by Patrick Lencioni are "Five Dysfunctions of a Team;" "Five Temptations of a CEO;" "Death by Meeting;" and "Silos, Politics and Turf Wars."

If you have done everything possible to get the most out of your constraint, raising the capabilities of your staff is an important next step. Smart provides a practical framework for determining if employees are capable of being top talent in their current roles, for developing their potential if they can, or if they can't then moving them to a role where they can. Also provides an in-depth hiring process for getting to candidates real motivations and traits.

If you have done everything possible to get the most out of your constraint, raising the capabilities of your staff is an important next step. Volumes of Gallup research shows that people are more satisfied and productive when they are in a job that allows them to use a high percentage of their strengths. "Now Discover Your Strengths" provides an on-line tool for understanding your key strengths. Very useful tool when used in a top-grading organization.

"Go Put Your Strengths to Work" is a useful follow on guide for employees struggling with how to work to their strengths.