Innovation At 3M Corporation

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Professor Stefan Thomke and Research Associate Ashok Nimgade prepared this case. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class
discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations ofeffective or ineffective management.
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STEFAN THOMKE
Innovation at 3M Corporation (A)
On the evening of October 23, 1997, Rita Shor, senior product specialist at 3M, looked across the
conference room at her team from the Medical-Surgical Markets Division. She wondered when to
draw to close theintense ongoing debate on the nature of the team’s recommendations to the Health
Care Unit’s senior management. A hand-picked group of talented individuals, the team had
embarked on a new method for understanding customer needs called “Lead User Research.” But this
initiative to introduce leading-edge market research methods into 3M’s legendary innovation process
had now grown into a revolutionaryseries of recommendations that threatened to rip apart the
division.
While senior management wanted the “Lead User” team to execute a manageable project
involving surgical draping material to protect surgery patients from infections, the team now wanted
to rewrite the entire business unit’s strategy statement to also include more pro-active products or
services that would permit theupstream containment of infectious agents such as germs. This went
against the incrementalist approach that for so long had pervaded 3M. After all, as Mary Sonnack,
division scientist and an internal 3M consultant on the new Lead User methodology, noted “3M gets
so much revenue from incremental products . . . like a blue Post-it note instead of just a yellow one.”
Outside the window, the late autumnbreeze rippled through the tall Minnesota grass—a seasonal
reminder that it had been a year since the group first embarked on the Lead User process (see Exhibit
1). The method, including training, had called for less than six months dedicated to the entire
process. But the lengthy commitment from participants as well as 3M senior management might just
pay off if it took the Medical-SurgicalMarkets division from a stagnating business to a reinvigorated
enterprise. Clearly, however, unless the team came up with successful product ideas and effective
positioning, the new methodology for product innovation would die with the winter frost. And so
might the entire business unit.
History of 3M Corporation1
In 1902, on the banks of Lake Superior, five investors got together toexcavate what they thought
was high-quality corundum, a mineral almost as hard as diamond that manufacturers used for
producing abrasives. What they dug up under the banner of the Minnesota Mining and
1Much of the information on 3M history comes from G. C. Nicholson, “Keeping Innovation Alive,” Research-Technology
Management, vol. 41 (3), May/June 1998, pp. 34-40 and 3M Annual Report, 1998.Purchased by Juan Emilio Ort?z Carro (iohanus@me.com) on October 02, 2012
699-012 Innovation at 3M Corporation (A)
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Manufacturing Company, however, turned out low-grade and worthless. After filling one $20 order,
the venture folded up its mining operations and turned instead to the sandpaper business. Here,
disaster struck again: the abrasives they had imported from Spain refused to stick to the...