Companies typically treat their innovation projects as a portfolio, aiming for a mix of projects that collectively meet their strategic objectives. The problem, say the authors, is that portfolio objectives have become standardized, and innovation projects are often only weakly related to a company's distinctive strategy. This article introduces a new tool to help leaders better align their innovation investments. The strategic innovation tool kit has two elements: a strategy summary framework and an innovation basket. Leaders start by clarifying a unit's strategy and determining what needs to change to achieve it. The change needs are translated into innovation goals, and leaders create their "innovation basket" by plotting each project against those goals. They can then cut projects that aren't aligned and create new ones that are. It's an iterative and creative process: Projects are adjusted to fit the strategy but can also shape it. Examples from the authors' research demonstrate how the process of creating an innovation basket gives managers fresh insight into what their innovation activities are really doing for their strategy.

A business model that can link a new technology to an emerging market need is the key to industry transformation. When Apple coupled the iPod with iTunes, it revolutionized the audio devices market. But most attempts to introduce a new model fail. The authors did an in-depth analysis of 40 companies that had launched new business models in a variety of industries, and here they present the key takeaways from their research. They looked for recurring features in the models and found six: personalization, a closed-loop process, asset sharing, usage-based pricing, a collaborative ecosystem, and an agile and adaptive organization. No model displayed all of them, but having a higher number of features usually correlated with a greater chance of success at transformation. (The taxi service Uber can claim five of the six.) Companies that are thinking about changing their business model or entering an industry with a new model can rate themselves on the six features to assess the likelihood that they'll be transformative.