Jugaad Innovation - Jugaad King

Faced with the adversity of declining revenue and brand reputation, George Buckley, who replaced McNerney as CEO in 2005, focused on reviving 3M’s risk-tolerant Jugaad culture. Buckley began rolling back Six Sigma initiatives and reinstituted the 15% programme, giving engineers more flexibility and freedom to pursue radical ideas without fear of retribution. Buckley acknowledges, “Perhaps one of the mistakes that we made as a company – it’s one of the dangers of Six Sigma is that when you value the sameness more than you value creativity, I think you potentially undermine the heart and soul of a company like 3M.” Buckley had to move fast as several of 3M’s products were becoming outmoded or increasingly commoditized. A great reality made 3M’s leadership realize that while the company was great at engineering products, it had to get better at designing them in an appealing fashion. Sensing an opportunity in this situation of adversity, 3M decided to broaden its traditional Jugaa...

Founded in 1902, 3M has come to epitomize American ingenuity. Over the course of a century, its prolific inventors have churned out breakthrough products that have become part of Americana. From Scotch Tape to Scotchguard Protector and Thinsulate Insulation to the omnipresent Post-it Notes. What made 3M so innovative is the reason being, 3M set itself a goal of generating 30% of its total revenues from new products it had introduced in the preceding five years. This bold goal is known as the New Product Vitality Index (NPVI) within 3M. This helps the company to constantly invent and reinvent products.  The 3M culture helps create and cultivate new ideas. To be one of the most innovative companies in the world it has launched one of the most radical initiatives – the 15% program for its staff. This program allows 3M employees to use 15% of their paid work time to pursue their dream projects. 3M is also very supportive towards its employees with their projects. Some o...