This document provides an overview of the 15.912 Technology Strategy course taught by Professor Jason Davis at MIT Sloan. The course aims to help students develop strategies to answer three key questions: how companies can create value through technology, capture value in the market, and deliver value through execution. The course uses case studies and lectures to discuss frameworks like industry life cycles and the challenges companies face at different stages of a technology's development. It outlines logistics like grading based on class participation, short papers, and a final paper. The next session will involve discussing strategic options for eInk and preparing a first short paper analyzing an industry's life cycle curves.

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15.912 Technology Strategy
Fall 2008
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2. 15.912
Technology Strategy
Professor Jason Davis
MIT Sloan School of Management

3. “Seamless Mobility” What is it?
According to the Article:
• “Brings simplicity to complexity” by tying everything to mobile
handsets
• Focuses on “ease of use”
• A rationale for staying in many markets:
– automotive electronics
– home‐theatres
– emergency‐radios
– base‐stations
• A way to justify new “transition” products:
– high‐speed internet access on trains
– email in cars
– Videophones
– Cellular plane‐coverage

4. Organizational Context: Why they
devised “seamless mobility”
According to the Article:
• Resolve “internal strife” and “strategic paralysis”
• Make decisions:
– Spin off smaller divisions / concentrate on phones ?
– Retreat from handsets / focus network equipment ?
– Focus on communications & entertainment markets ?
• …that is, be like Nokia, Ericsson, or Samsung?

5. Who am I?
• New strategy professor in the MIT Sloan School
• Studied Computers & Brains at MIT (SB) and Caltech
(MS)
– Genetic Engineering @ MIT
– Neural Network Algorithms @ Caltech
• Worked at McKinsey, Intel, and IBM doing tech
strategy related work
• PhD in Management Science from Stanford
University
– Research Focus on Collaborative Innovation: how do pairs of firms manage joint
technology development?
– Compared relationships between 10 large IT firms in Silicon Valley, Seattle, and
Portland that co‐developed new Web2.0, mobility, and security technologies
– Case research based on ~100 interviews with execs, managers, and engineers,
supplemented with computational modeling

6. Who are you, and why did you come?
• Need to know how to do tech strategy when you
graduate: work in consulting, big tech‐firms, or new
ventures....
• Realize that technology will shape management in your
non‐technology‐centric industry – i.e., retail, banking,
government, etc.
• You’re a scientist/technologist thinking about
technology entrepreneurship…
• Fun set of cases (Google, Apple, RedHat, etc.) and
fascinating concepts (innovator’s dilemma, network
effects, co‐opetition, complexity theory, simple rules)
• Others?

7. What is a “strategy” anyway?

8. Effective strategies answer three key
questions:
How will we
Create value?
How will we
Capture value?
How will we
Deliver value?

9. Effective strategies tackle 3 key questions:
• How will we create value?
– How will the technology evolve?
– How will the market change?
– How do we organize effectively?
• How will we capture value?
– How do we compete to gain sustainable competitive advantage?
– How should we compete if standards are important?
– How to manage technology platforms?
• How will we deliver value?
– How should we execute the strategy?
– How do we make strategic decisions and take decisive action?

10. Why have a strategy?

11. Why have a strategy?
1. To make choices and take actions

12. Is This Your Project Pipeline? (A Log Jam)

13. Overcommitment destroys
Average
100%
Value-Added
Time on 80%
Engineering
Tasks 60%
40%
20%
0%
productivity
1 2 3 4 5 6
Number of Projects per
Engineer

14. The Timing and Impact of
Management Attention
Phases
Knowledge Concept Basic Prototype Pilot Manufacturing
Acquisition Investigation Design Building Production Ramp-Up
High
ABILITY
TO INFLUENCE
OUTCOME
Index of
Attention and
Influence
Low
ACTUAL
ACTIVITY
MANAGEMENT
PROFILE

15. Why is it so hard to kill
project #26?
• It’s a “good” project!
• Good managers can meet stretch goals
(and I’m a good manager)
• Making difficult decisions takes time & energy
It’s very hard to kill projects without a strategy

16. Reasons to have a strategy:
2. To be able to change it

17. A Key Framework:
The industry life cycle
Era of Ferment/
Discontinuity
Maturity
“Dominant design”
emerges
Incremental
Innovation

18. Maturity
The Industry Life Cycle as an S curve
Performance
Discontinuity
Takeoff
Ferment
Time

19. The S‐curve Maps Major Transitions
Performance
Ferment
Takeoff
Maturity
Discontinuity
Time

20. The nature of technical work changes
Performance
We need to be
responsive & flexible
but controlled
Will it work?
Exploration, fun,
Can we make creativity key
100,000?
And service them?
Core Ideas:
Will it work? Forecasting S curves?
Exploration, fun,
creativity key
Time

21. The marketing challenge evolves
Performance
Stay close to your
customer – really close
Who
Do we have
needs this?
any reference
customers?
Core Ideas:
Market segmentation
Who The Innovator’s
Dilemma
Time
needs this?

22. The ways in which a firm captures value also evolve
dramatically
Performance
We may not be leading edge
but you’d rather buy
from us because…
We can sell it,
make it,
service it, ship it
Most of the time
Speed, IP
Differentiation,
Frontier performance key
Time
Speed, IP
Differentiation,
Frontier performance key
Core Ideas:
5 forces
Appropriability
Complementary assets

23. The organizational challenge changes
significantly
Performance
“Entrepreneurial
Energy” critical
“Coordination &
control” critical
“Entrepreneurial
Energy” critical
Core Ideas:
Managing the
organizational
dynamics of discontinuity
Time

24. 15.912: Technology Strategy Course Outline
• How will we create value?
– How will the technology evolve?
– How will the market change?
– How do we organize effectively?
• How will we capture value?
– How do we compete to gain sustainable competitive advantage?
– How should we compete if standards are important?
– How to manage technology platforms?
• How will we deliver value?
– How should we execute the strategy?
– How do we make strategic decisions and take decisive action?

25. Logistics
• The Waitlist
• Grading:
– Class attendance and participation 50%
– Four “Two pagers” 20%
– Final paper 30%
• Case Method + Readings & Lectures

26. Professional Standards
• Attendance
• Coming on Time
• Being Prepared to Discuss Cases
– I encourage you to form discussion groups; focus on syllabus questions
– I prefer you not use laptops
• Teamwork
– Aim for 3 people teams

27. For Session 2:
• eInk
– What should eInk do next? Which applications should they target?
Why?
• First “two pager” due Session 3
– Find a couple of teammates, choose an industry, sketch out the
relevant S curves
– Only 2 pages!