For most of the 20th century, innovation happened largely through co-location — that is, within one country, sometimes at different locations, where employees shared the same context and culture. This can no longer remain the norm, as the knowledge and skills needed for innovation are dispersed across the globe. There is only limited understanding of the difference between these two approaches, and this contributes to reluctance to embrace the opportunities of global innovation. Planning and managing global projects requires that the means of communication, co-ordination, and collaboration be approached differently. Organizational stability is a prerequisite for global innovation projects. Teams that are new to global projects and trying to build the necessary competence should start with small, non-critical collaborations between two or three geographically dispersed sites. It is important that the product or service architecture in a global project be thoroughly defined before development commences. Global projects require at least a small degree of competency overlap between sites. Senior managers of global projects, far from easing into informal roles, must not only champion projects but keep them together. A lead site should be designated in order to avoid inefficiency and lack of leadership. Communication must be built into the project, and an overreliance on information and communication technology should be avoided. Finally, multicultural managers should be sought out and the burden of managing subcontractors should be limited.

More and more companies recognize that their dispersed, global operations are a treasure trove of ideas and capabilities for innovation. But it's proving harder than expected to unearth those ideas or exploit those capabilities. Part of the problem is that companies manage global innovation the same way they manage traditional, single-location projects. Single-location projects draw on a large reservoir of tacit knowledge, shared context, and trust that global projects lack. The management challenge, therefore, is to replicate the positive aspects of colocation while harnessing the opportunities of dispersion. In this article, Insead's Wilson and Doz draw on research into global strategy and innovation to present a set of guidelines for setting up and managing global innovation. They explore in detail the challenges that make global projects inherently different and show how these can be overcome by applying superior project management skills across teams, fostering a strong collaborative culture, and using a robust array of communications tools.