Identify opportunities

To identify and define opportunities the organization should consider the following inputs:

i) an understanding of the organization and its context; ii) the innovation intent;

iii) the scope of the innovation initiative;

iv) learnings and experiences from previous innovation initiatives.

The organization should:

a) acquire insights and knowledge about stated and unstated needs and expectations;

b) acquire insights and knowledge about relevant trends and challenges, e.g. related to competitors, technologies, intellectual property, and markets;

c) identify and define opportunities or areas of opportunity, e.g. the impact to be achieved, the value that can be realized, or problem statements;

d) prioritize the opportunities.

Knowledge acquisition can include losses and benefits of current and potential users, customers, citizens, and other interested parties of the organization, market, or society.

Tools and methods can include basic research, scanning, prospective analyses, benchmarking, internal and external searches, interviews, ethnography, crowdsourcing, focus groups, foresight activities, user scenarios, risk analysis, dynamic system models, etc.

These activities can result in the following outputs:

— understanding of the potential value to be realized and other potential impacts;

— identified, defined, and prioritized opportunities, areas of opportunity or problem statements;

— understanding of state of the art, including intellectual property rights.

Create concepts

To create concepts the organization should consider identified and defined opportunities as inputs.

The organization should:

a) generate new ideas, potential solutions, or combinations of existing ones, from internal and external sources, using creative problem solving, ideation, or other methods;

b) investigate, document, and evaluate ideas and potential solutions, e.g. with regard to degree of novelty, risk, feasibility, viability, desirability, sustainability, and intellectual property rights;

c) select the preferred ideas and potential solutions based on established criteria;

d) develop concepts from ideas and potential solutions, including value propositions;

e) develop alternatives for how value can be realized, e.g. hypothetical business, operational, or marketing models.

These activities can result in the following outputs:

— concepts with preliminary value realization models that can be validated;

— understanding of the critical uncertainties or assumptions for each concept to be validated;

— initial assessment of risks, degree of novelty, and its implications for further development in terms of processes, structures, etc.

Validate concepts

To validate concepts, the organization should consider created concepts as inputs.

The organization should:

a) start validation early with an initial version of the concept;

b) consider one or more approaches to validation, e.g. tests, experiments, pilots, and studies;

c) address the concept, starting with the most critical uncertainties, hypotheses, or assumptions, to learn, get feedback, and create new knowledge to reduce uncertainty related to:

1) interaction with users, customers, partners, and other interested parties;

2) support, including resources;

3) technical, legal, marketing, time to market, financial, and organizational aspects;

d) adjust and improve the concept based on lessons learned, feedback, and new knowledge;

e) evaluate the feasibility of the concept and if remaining uncertainties, hypotheses or assumptions need to be addressed;

f) consider further validation, if necessary.

These activities can result in the following outputs:

— validated concepts or proof of concepts with acceptable levels of uncertainty for further development;

— relationships with users, customers, partners, and other interested parties;

— new knowledge.

Develop solutions

To develop solutions, the organization should consider validated concepts as inputs.

The organization should:

a) develop the concept into a working solution, including the value realization model;

b) consider whether to develop the solution internally or through acquisition, licensing, partnering, outsourcing, etc.;

c) identify and address risks associated with deployment, e.g. user acceptance, legal requirements, scalability, budget cycle, and timing;

d) check the state of art to avoid infringement of existing intellectual property rights;

e) determine whether the solution can, and needs to, be protected;

f) develop and establish the necessary deployment capabilities, e.g. promotion, production, supply, partnerships, and ecosystems.

These activities can result in the following outputs:

— developed solutions with value realization models, including value propositions;

— plans with established activities, resources, relationships, and timing for a full or phased deployment of the solutions;

— fulfilment of deployment needs and requirements, including intellectual property rights considerations.

Deploy solutions

To deploy solutions, the organization should consider developed solutions as inputs.

The organization should:

a) make the solution available to users, customers, partners, and other interested parties, e.g. by launching, implementing, or delivering the solution;

b) promote and support the solution, e.g. sales, marketing, communication, awareness creation, and engagement with users, customers, partners, and other interested parties;

c) monitor adoption rates and feedback from users, customers, partners, and other interested parties;

d) monitor the impact in terms of realization or redistribution of value;

e) identify new implications for intellectual property;

f) capture new knowledge from the deployment to improve solutions, develop relationships, and trigger new opportunities.

These activities can result in the following outputs:

— realized value, financial or non-financial;

— impact in the form of adoption and new behaviours of users, customers, partners, and other interested parties;

— insights and new knowledge to improve solutions.