Innovation is the fundamental source of value creation in companies and an important enabler of competitive advantage. Innovation is inherently a highly cross-functional activity that, when it works well, creates a constructive tension between competing objectives of development cost, product value, performance, quality, and time to market. I have entitled this book Innovation Hardwired because the ability to consistently and continually bring an innovation to market involves: (a) hardwiring all the cross-functional activities in an effective way and (b) hardwiring several organizational factors - factors that, to use a biological metaphor, are embedded in a company's organizational DNA. Just as nature's DNA spells out the exact instructions required to create a unique organism, organizational DNA determines how effectively an organization will consistently and constantly innovate and create new value for all stakeholders.