Searching for Innovation Opportunities: Idea Generation and Technology Development

What distinguishes consistently innovative companies is their organizational capability in systematically exploring new opportunities, the second level of the innovation pyramid (discovery). This exploration capability emerges in (1) activities aimed at generating new product ideas (creative ideation) and in (2) technology development, whose objective is the resolution of knowledge gaps through research and experimentation to ensure the feasibility of new product ideas and introduce significant or radical changes in the performance and technical attributes of products. The combination of these two types of activities leads to the creation of a shelf of novel and feasible product ideas—preliminary concepts of potential future products that can range from clear statements about anticipated product features and benefits to early prototypes. As we have seen in Chap. 3 , we can identify four different approaches to creative ideation: the default mode, called idea fishing to highlight its passive and reactive nature, where product ideas are merely collected; and three proactive approaches (idea hunting). In the next paragraphs, we will examine in depth the logic of the two opposite ways of moving away from the passive approach of the idea fishing: innovation workshops (based on collaboration between a limited number of selected people) and innovation contests (centred around competition between a unknown crowd of problem-solvers). In the last section, we will direct our attention to technology development.