Designing the innovation process

Question 1

The innovation funnel

Answer 1

Management of product and service innovation from a company perspective, link to strategy
-> funnel idea: start very broad, by looking at the market
from broad perspective: focus on goals and objectives

Question 2

ideal-well managed process of innovation funnel

Answer 2

▪ But: new processes need change in other organizational areas like training, reward systems, communication, roles
▪ Top mgmt. attention hits a project usually towards the end
→ limited attention: surviving projects
→ projects need more money in the end
→ but changing gets more expensive
▪ Stage-gate process comes in at the end of the funnel

Question 3

Reality innovation funnel

Answer 3

Source of ideas is uncertain
▪ “Product A filter” disadvantages radical PSI
▪ Pet projects of senior management
▪ Products get jammed up and recirculate
▪ A lot of hot air at the end
→ but: only few products “drip” into the market

Question 4

Open Innovation

Answer 4

Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation respectively.

Question 5

Permeable R&D funnel

Answer 5

Question 6

Stage-Gate process

Answer 6

• based on key goals and critical success factors for PSI
• stages and gates break the innovation process into defined stages, each consisting of a set of defined, parallel and cross-functional activities
• gates give an external trigger to evaluate & assess projects

stage 2 key homework because afterwards it gets more expensive

Question 7

Pros and cons of stage-gate process

Answer 7

Good:
- popular, widely used tool that clearly sharpens decision-making on many level

Bad:
- R&D is often political, the process can be “hijacked”
- use the process as a guideline, rather than a “rulebook”
- Incremental improvements or routine developments need a different stage-gate process than radical innovation

Question 8

Traditional vs agile project management

Answer 8

Question 9

Scrum framework

Answer 9

Question 10

Measurable dimensions of performance of the PSI

Answer 10

Productivity
- resources committed against new products over time

Speed to market
- the time taken between the start of a project and its commercialization

flexibility
- elapsed time between concept freeze and market introduction

quality
- the degree of fit between the PSI quality function and the actual quality achieved

Overall fit
- the relationship between the psi outcome with the goals in the strategy and feedback from the market