Signalling in Innovation Management
No matter the context, there will never be enough resources to do everything.
This can be especially evident when it comes to managing Innovation Pipelines. The 'new' and the ‘possible’ is a very large search space. There is simply no way to swallow and digest the entire buffet of options. So decision-making needs to be applied, to weed out the ideas with the least potential. Typically this materialises as an Innovation Pipeline with validation stage-gates ranging from concept to experiments to Pilot.
Restricting what ideas move forward toward launch and commercialisation is a necessary, sensible practice. How these ideas should be restricted is always imperfect and often debated.
A less appreciated factor is the impact of this decision-making upon what ideas enter the pipeline in the first place.
We like to think that ‘good ideas will win out’ and idealise inventors and innovators as creative mavericks, driven by vision and creativity. They become infatuated with an idea or concept and push this toward reality.
Sometimes.
More often they are human, reasonably rational creatures who like the feeling of success. They want to work on things that have impact. They want to be seen as innovative.
We are forecasting animals. Stage-gating decisions are observed. We learn from what gets through and what gets rewarded.
Gate-keeping is a signal generating function as well as a filtering function. Decision-makers not only decide what ideas get to market, they create the environment from which ideas are drawn.
So there are two major considerations in the management of early stages of in-company innovation.
Are we creating the right environment for the collection of ideas and concepts that extend our existing business lines and find new adjacent business opportunities.
Are we nurturing the 'right' ideas at this early, vulnerable stage to show them in the best possible light.
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