Research shows that innovators have a poor track record of predicting which of their own ideas will result in breakthroughs. But some ideas that appear to be incremental at first eventually prove to be blockbusters. Carrying more ideas through to incubation gives both the company and the broader market a chance to learn more about them and for unanticipated use cases to emerge.
Large companies say they want to be innovative, but they fundamentally mismanage their talent. Expecting innovators to grow along with their projects - from discovery to incubation to acceleration - sets them up to fail. Most people excel at one of the phases, not all three. By allowing innovation employees to develop career paths suited to their strengths, companies will create a sustainable innovation function.
Within the context of the large established organization, breakthrough ideas are frequently lost. This article describes how breakthrough innovations are captured through opportunity recognition. Based on evidence from a six-year-long study of twelve radical innovation projects in ten large U.S. firms. Highlights inefficiencies in current managerial processes and provides examples of organizational structures, mechanisms, and roles directed at reducing these inefficiencies. Presents a set of approaches for improving opportunity recognition capabilities and identifies several mechanisms for senior management to encourage "radical innovation" people and processes.