If you want to emulate anybody’s success, especially if you in the business of creating things, Pixar has to be on the top list. I admired all the movies made by Pixar; I admired the creativity and the storytelling chops they showcase through these movies. But, after reading this book my admiration for this company have grown many folds.

Being an Agilist, I saw many parallels between the creative world of Pixar and my world of Agile. I was surprised and inspired to see that they have been practicing a lot of the Agile principle that we talk about. For example, they use ‘real day’ which is essentially what we call (Sprint) Review or the Demo.

This is one company worth emulating! This could be the ‘bible’ that you are looking for to build and sustain a creative company! This book definitely would be in the front of all the books on my bookshelf.

Three Quotes from the book:

• To be truly creative company, you must start things that will fail
• Our people’s intentions are good and they want to solve the problems. Give them the responsibilities, let the mistakes happen, and let the people fix them
• Mistakes are inevitable consequences of doing something new, without having them there is no originality

Three tips from the book:

• Managers should loosen the control, accept risks, and trust their people
• Pull up a chair (and start having conversations, ask open-ended questions).
• Ask yourself, what happens when a mistake is found? Whose fault is this? [If this happens, your company is vilifying the failure]

Tools/techniques mentioned in the book:

• Daily
• Research Trips
• Limits
• Notes Day
• Person week
• Bonus check, that is hand written and hand delivered
• Pull up a chair (and start having conversations)
• Brain Trust
• Good Note
• Poet’s Loft
• 5-year social compact
• Strategy Pyramid