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Consortium for CorporateEntrepreneurship
Peter A. Koen, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorWesley J. Howe School of Technology ManagementPhone: 201 216-5406Fax: 201 216-5385E-mail: pkoen@stevens-tech.eduSeptember 28, 2001
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Mission
To significantly increase highlyprofitable products through focusedresearch in the “fuzzy front end” of
the innovation process
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Value
Determine “Best Practices” for the Front End of Innovation andKnowledge Creation for Breakthrough Products and ServicesCreate a real and virtual environment for continuous learning by andfor inventors to provide them with a broad repertoire of bothtechnical and business management techniques for achievingbreakthrough Products and Services
Creation of Inventors Communities of Practice “the Pioneers”Create Synergy and Learning from other consortium companiesPractices employed at the very “best” companies in the worldRecommendations from the best consultants and educators in the world
Understanding and creation (if necessary) of IT tools which betterenable breakthrough inventorsCreation of an Inventors “nexus” in East Coast corridor which willbetter help attract employees
Overall Mission: To increase the number, speed and successprobability of highly profitable products entering development
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Organizational Structure
VP level meetings 2X/yearwith invited speaker
Directors meetings 3-5X/year
Two tiered Organizational Structure
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Research Themes
Optimizing the Front End of InnovationWhat are the Best Practices?
Idea Generation for Highly Profitable ProductsCase Studies of Highly Profitable ProductsCase Studies of Market Attack Teams
Knowledge Creation and Flow in the Front End ofInnovation
What are the Best Practices (Using the KnowledgeCreation Framework)Inventors Communities of Practice (“The Pioneers”)
Support Research and Disseminate Learning toConsortium Companies in:
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Optimizing the Front End of Innovation
New Concept Development ModelProvides a common language and terminology necessary to optimizethe “Front End of Innovation”
ENGINE
OpportunityIdentification
OpportunityAnalysis
IdeaGeneration
andEnrichment
IdeaSelection
ConceptDefinition
To Stage Gate
ENGINE
CoreFront EndElements
InfluencingFactors
Koen, et. al., “Providing Clarity and a Common Language to the “Fuzzy Front End,” , Research-Technology Management,(March-April 2001): pp 46-55.
Koen, et. al., “Fuzzy-Front End: Effective Methods, Tools and Techniques,” in final review for inclusion in 2002 PDMA Handbook
Ajamian and Koen, “Technology Stage Gate: A Structured Process for Managing High Risk, Technology Projects,” in final reviewfor inclusion in 2002 PDMA Handbook
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Case Studies of Highly Profitable Products
Idea Generation is dependent on a 3-dimensional landscape
Technical Novelty
Mar
ketin
g
Novel
ty
KnowledgeFlow
Well knownmethodologies that"good" companiespractice with high
proficiency
Knowledge flow issuesbegin to hamper
development time
Solutions are fortuitousLong time to pay offKnowledge flow toscientist is criticalSuperb scientists
More case studies are being done to gain further insights anddevelop “optimum” practices
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Idea Generation Insights
Highly Profitable Projects:Require a “trigger” to get startedConstancy of PurposeRequire both product and executive championsGet started based on customer and technology trendanalysisAggressive GoalsUtilize early field trialsUtlize early partnering outside their area of corecompetenceHave SUPERB inventors combined with an element offortuitous discovery
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Trigger
ExamplesNew Competitor MovementFire in PlantCEO initiatives (ex: innovation initiative, fire in plant,lower revenue, holy grails, strategic intent, proposalrequests)
IssueHow to create more opportunities for triggers
Highly Profitable Projects typically get startedwith a Trigger
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Constancy of Purpose
Leadership needs to stay the course
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Champions
Product champions are need to move products across valleyof death if adequate bootlegged funds are availableProduct champions often champion the wrong projectBusiness executive champion needed for almost all projects
Idea
Concept andTechnology
Development
Valley ofDeath
Both Product and Executive Champions are needed
Markham, unpublished
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Customer and Technology Trends
Best Projects started with early customer andtechnology trend analysis before any specific
product concepts are developed
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Aggressive Goals
Customer and technology trend analysis led to theidentification of aggressive product and process
concepts
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Field Trials
Early Field Trials identified unanticipated problems
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Partnering
Early Partnering Outside the Companiesarea of Core Competence
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Superb Inventors
Technology solutions were often fortuitousFortuitous that they had the correct core competencefor the solution to the problemInventors effectively used local scientific network
SUPERB highly inventive individuals withconsistent track record of inventionidentified solution no one else saw
Best practices would have been topursue alternate scientific approaches
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Superb Inventors
Invention is an individual sport NOT a team sport
Analysis of 1,000 Honeywell patents indicated that 10 people wereresponsible for over 85% of the patents (Smith, Herbien and Morris, R-TJournal, 1999)
vs.
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Superb Inventors
Inadequate Knowledge Flow is a SIGNIFICANTimpendent to increasing the speed ofbreakthrough product development
Information/Knowledge
Flow
ElectronicData Bases
Data/Information/Knowledge
People
PaperSuperb Inventor(s)
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Market Attack Teams
Perform Case Studies on Market Attack TeamsNew Organizational/Team structure appears toemerging (Ex: GM, Kodak, Armstrong, P&G, 3M)
Selectmarkets &
needsScope &Goals
Selectconcepts to
focus on
Select bestconcepts
3M ExampleDedicated Teams Utilizing a 4
phase lead user process toidentify breakthrough products
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Research Themes
Optimizing the Front End of InnovationWhat are the Best Practices?
Idea Generation for Highly Profitable ProductsCase Studies of Highly Profitable ProductsCase studies of Market Attack Teams
Knowledge Creation and Flow in the Front End ofInnovation
What are the Best Practices (Using the KnowledgeCreation Framework)Inventors Communities of Practice (“The Pioneers”)
Support Research and Disseminate Learning toConsortium Companies in area of:
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Definitions
DataCollection of Facts
InformationCollection of organized data
May inspire vision, but can’t bring the vision into realityKnowledge
Information combined experience, context and reflectionsthat may be used to make decisions and take actionsIs a human act (i.e. a residue of thinking)Created in the presentBelongs and circulates between peopleBreakthrough knowledge occurs at the boundaries of theold
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Explicit Knowledge
Can be put on paper, formulated insentences and captured in drawings
Explicit knowledge may be transferredthrough language (word, graphics, etc.)
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Tacit Knowledge
Individual perception, rules of thumb,intuition
Examples–Learning to ride a bike–Putting together a high precision watch–Making sense of a seismic readout for
identifying a new oil field
Language is NOT the primary mechanismfor sharing of Tacit knowledge
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Tacit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge is transferred by“socialization”
Direct ObservationImitationExperimentationJoint Execution
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Technology BasedCommunities of
Practices
KnowledgeMapping
ProjectSnapshots
Gap
Importance
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All better enabled by the useof IT Tools and Collaborative
Environment
Knowledge Creation Framework
Shared FutureVision
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Technology Communities of Practice
Creates new knowledge within the communityConnects, acquires, exchanges and builds newknowledgeNew science occurs through the process ofbuilding upon internal and external knowledgecommunities
Breakthrough Knowledge Usually Occurs at theBoundaries of the Old” McDermott, 1999
Diversity
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Skill
Importance
Gap
Importance
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Gap
Importance
Knowledge Mapping
Technology Knowledge Strategy should be basedon Core Competencies and Capabilities of theOrganization
Core Competencies and capabilities are moreenduring than product and market knowledge
Where should Communities of Practice be focused?
Technology maps which define thecore capabilities, competencies and
gaps of the organization
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Shared Future Vision
“ Nothing happens until there is a vision”“Genuine energy, enthusiasm and preference occurs, evenin the face of setbacks, when people understand the visionof the future”“It is a process of continually focusing and refocusing onwhat one truly wants”
…….Senge, Peter, “The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of theLearning Organization,” Currency Doubleday, NY, 1994.
Where will the new products of the future come from?
Shared Vision of the Future“”Strategic Arenas”
Unmet (i.e. “holy grail”)and often unarticulated
customer needs
Areas ofBreakthrough
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Project Snapshots
Captures the current and past learning of theprojectsApproaches, insights and outcomes are capturedfrom experiences of:
What is working?Has workedWhat hasn’t?
“Collaborative” Project SnapshotsLiveLink (www.opentext.com)NetMeeting(www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeetingWebEx (www.webex.com)E-room (www.)
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IT Tools
IT Tools Better Enable Knowledge Creation
Intellectual PropertyAurigin (www.aurigin.com)MapIt (www.mnis.com)Delphion (www.delphion.com
Inventing ToolsTRIZ
Tech Optimizer (www.invention-machine.com)
Mind MappingTech Optimizer (www.invention-machine.com)Mindmanger(www.mindman.com)Innovator (www.us-mindmatter.com)
Initial Focus of IT Groupfrom Ethicon, ExxonMobil
and Rohm and Haas
Technology Search EnginesSemantic search engines
Co-Brain (www.invention-machine.com)Ex-Caliber(www.convera.com)
Co-citation Literature SearchingVx Insight
Visualization ToolsClearForest (www.clearforest.com)Spotfire (www.spotfire.com)
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Collaborative Environment
Collaborative Environments Better EnableKnowledge Creation
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Knowledge Creation
Is this the right framework?What are the Best Practices in each element?How do we make improvements at each of theConsortium companies?
G ap
Importan
ce
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Inventors Communities of Practice
“The Pioneers”
Goal: Create a real and virtual environment forcontinuous learning by and for key inventors to
provide them with a broad repertoire of bothtechnical and business management techniques for
achieving breakthrough Products and Services
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Best Practices for Communities
Frequent MeetingsHighly Interactive Collaborative WebsiteCoordinators
Community CoordinatorInventor CoordinatorIT Coordinator
McDermott, R. Knowing in the Community: 10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities ofPractice, HRIM Journal, March 2000.
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Inventors Community
ExxonMobil Ethicon Rohm and Hass
InventorCoordinator
IT Coordinator
Stevens
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Best Practices for Communities
Frequent MeetingsA 1 hour meeting will occur every 2 months with:
– World experts and thought leaders in knowledge creation– Nobel Prize winners throughout the world– Lead inventors from the most innovative companies in the world– Vendor presentation– At least one inventor “story” from one of the consortium
companies2 day knowledge creation symposium to be held every 4-6 monthsfor new participants in the community (Next one to be held onKnowledge Creation IT platforms)
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IT Meeting Overview
To learn about IT Tools for Knowledge Creation for BreakthroughProducts
Nobel Prize Winner in Science to discuss ITOverview and Theoretical Underpinning of SoftwareIT Tools (Tech-Optimizer, Mindmanager and Mindmatter)
To develop a set of Ideas, Actions and Recommendations for ITTools
Assessment of IT Tools from the perspective of actual users (at least 5users)Determination of What an “Ideal” IT Knowledge Creation softwareplatform would be (Cross-Company Groups)
Closed Symposium. Only open to inventors from Consortiumcompanies and “potential” Consortium companies.
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Best Practices for Communities
Highly Interactive Collaborative WebsiteWill contain a site for threaded discussionsA virtual place which will allow PC based videomeetingsContains articles, meeting notices, web sites, books,stories from inventors, etc. etc. all related toknowledge creation in the Front End of InnovationStreaming video from speakers
– All of the speaker presentations from all of thepresentations will be digitally taped and availableon the web site for people to view
MUST be ease to use and access with on-lineimmediate phone contact for help
– Easy to use software reduces the friction inconnecting with the community
Highly interactive and eclectic web site that will emphasizeEASE of USE and encourage people to people linkages
Issue: Need to negatecompany liability from
critical comments of users
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Best Practices for Communities
CoordinatorsCommunity Coordinator – P. KoenInventor at each Consortium Company(Position is part of their job responsibilities)MUST be well respected senior inventor in thecompany with great ability to link people. Notnecessarily the “best” inventorIT coordinator at each Consortium Company(Position is part of their job responsibilities)
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Conclusions
Optimizing the Front EndGreatest weakness of Front End is Engine, Opportunity Identification andTechnology Stage GateNew Concept Development Model provides a common language
Idea GenerationDependent on a 3 dimensional landscapeEight characteristics were found in highly profitable productsFocusing current effort on Market Attack Teams
Knowledge CreationIneffective knowledge creation is a SIGNIFICANT impediment to productimplementationFramework which describes knowledge creation was identified
Creation of a real and virtual environment for continuous learning byand for inventors to provide them with the best repertoire of the BESTtechnical and management techniques for achieving breakthroughs
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