1. Background The research topic Product Innovation Strategy belongs to the activity called product planning. It is an ongoing activity that takes place before the "formal and well structured" New Product Development (NPD) Portion. The purpose is to plan the future product portfolio and hence which products the company should build its future upon. One could argue that whereas NPD is focused on doing projects the right way product planning focuses on doing the right projects. What is the problem? Companies’ portfolios of new products are too weak in terms of: value maximization balance of projects (risk/reward) strategic alignment Assumption The way companies assess, prioritize and select ideas are unarticulated and too random. Product Innovation Strategy Mindset and Tools for Idea Management Hypothesis I believe that companies can build a much stronger portfolio of new products if they implement the following as a foundation for their product planning with the responsible persons: a ”mindset” for assessing, prioritizing and selection of ideas, and a ”yardstick” to measure the goodness of ideas Goals Industrial goal:  To strengthen the companies portfolio of new products. Scientific goals:  To clarify whether there is compliance between phenomena described by the industry and those described by literature.  To clarify whether the weaknessess experienced by the industry are related to the solutions offered by theory.  To establish a theoretical foundation for holistic idea management by means of a mindset and descriptive models.  To formulate a framework for idea management, which contains the essential means to support idea management.  To assess whether and how keypersons can be imparted such knowledge and competencies. Tasks at hand Hence, the following needs to be done: Make considerations on this idea management explicit and distinct by creating a mindset. Identify the characteristics of a product idea, which carries the business value. At this point I believe that it is formed by the following phenomena:  Business content  Strategic alignment  Feasibility (can it be done?) If the two attempts above are successful, then it will convey knowledge into core processess of idea management. This knowledge is essential to the efforts of analyzing and improving existing approaches and tools and to develop new approaches and tools. Improving idea selection Options Management Product Development Process Theory Competitive Strategy Portfolio Management Knowledge Management Idea Management Ressource & Competence Assessment Risk Management High Performance Teams Creativity Organizational Behaviour Technology Planning Coaching Decisions Theory Change Management Consumer Behaviour Corporate Strategy Product Planning My contribution will be here: Market Research Entrepreneurship Venture Capitalisme Angle of Perspective: Enhancing Business Value Essential Usefull Nice Legend Theoretical foundation Research Approach The research method applied in this work is based on critical rationalism and inductivism, i.e. existing theories, models and methods are further developed so they better reflect the empirical reality. This is done based on some of these methods: explorative interviews observatory research participatory research study of relevant literature questionaires logical structuring suppositions imperical observations The research results will be validated through logical verification and verification by acceptance. Section of Engineering Design and Product Development Dept. Of Mechanical Engineering Technical University of Denmark Flemming Larsson Tel: +45 4525 5641 Fax: +45 4588 1451 Email: fla@mek.dtu.dk The research project is being carried out for and sponsored in co-operation by the Technical University of Denmark and the Confederation of Danish Industries, (DI). DI is the danish industrial companies' organization, and is financed and managed by its members. DI aims at creating the best possible and most unrestricted conditions for business. One of our focus areas is management of technology. Currently DI is looking to strengthen it’s capabilities within the field product development and innovation. 5 th SUMMER SCHOOL ON ENGINEERING DESIGN RESEARCH June 15 th -21 st and August 24 th – 30 st 2003 InputOutput The Investment Decision Ressources & competencies Process assessment prioritizing and selection of ideas IdeasNew Product Portfolio We can´t make them all!