How to use existing technology roadmaps to evaluate early-stage breakthrough innovations? Development and testing of a workshop-based toolkit Carl Brinkmann Darwin College University of Cambridge Supervisor: Dr. Rob Phaal This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management September 2017 ii Abstract Purpose – This research aims to understand how to evaluate early-stage breakthrough innovations using existing strategy plans. Technology roadmapping is already widely used to identify and evaluate new opportunities. However, the potential of using existing roadmaps to evaluate and scope new ideas on a continuous basis remains largely unexploited. This mainly relates to the challenges of keeping roadmaps up to date. This research focuses on the first step of a continuous process to overcome the identified challenges. Approach – A case-based action research is performed to design and test a workshop-based toolkit. The design incorporates existing methods & tools, company considerations and consultant feedback. The workshop-based toolkit is then tested in company settings to respond to the research question and further develop the process. Design – The workshop is performed during the pre-selection step and uses a market-pull approach. The toolkit is based on a linking grid to help visualise synergies between ideas, relevant roadmap information and the selection factors. Scorings related to priority and information quality are added to the linking grid in order to give a dimension of importance to each driver/product/technology. Findings – The workshop-based toolkit was effective at evaluating early-stage ideas using existing roadmaps. Participants used “synergies” and “gaps” within each roadmap layer in order to evaluate each selection factor. For some selection factors, “unknown” information was missing from the roadmaps, thereby hindering the evaluation process. Roadmaps therefore need to include this missing information in order to become useful at evaluating new ideas. Research limitations – The workshop-based toolkit should be further validated in different situations and its wider applicability should be investigated. In order to validate the complete continuous process, future research should extend the approach by considering the development of new project plans and their integration into the innovation strategy. Theoretical implications – This research provided theoretical contribution by developing and testing methods & tools for evaluating new ideas using existing roadmaps. Practical implications – Practicing innovation managers are provided with a workshop- based toolkit to ensure that selected innovations are consistent with strategic goals and future company developments. iii Acknowledgements My sincerest gratitude goes to my supervisor Dr. Rob Phaal for guiding me through this exciting dissertation project. I would also like to thank the interview participants that kindly took their time to provide insightful inputs to my research. The workshop would not have been possible without the help from the host company, workshop participants and the facilitator. Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to researchers and staff, directly or indirectly involved in providing support to enable the success of the project. iv Statement of Original Authorship This dissertation is submitted for the award of Master of Philosophy in Industrial Systems, Manufacture and Management. I hereby certify that this dissertation is entirely my own work, written by myself and any work from others used is referenced to the best of my knowledge. The length of this dissertation does not exceed 15,000 words. Total number of words: 14,994 Carl Brinkmann v Table of Contents 1. Introduction & Motivation ....................................................................... 1 2. Literature Review ..................................................................................... 2 2.1. Innovation management ...................................................................................... 3 2.2. Evaluating early-stage innovations ....................................................................... 7 2.3. Innovation strategy planning ............................................................................. 12 2.4. Research gap ...................................................................................................... 22 3. Research Methodology .......................................................................... 23 3.1. Research Focus .................................................................................................. 23 3.2. Research Objectives ........................................................................................... 24 3.3. Philosophical considerations .............................................................................. 25 3.4. Research method ............................................................................................... 25 3.5. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 34 4. Interview Results ................................................................................... 35 4.1. Innovation types and strategy models ................................................................ 35 4.2. Innovation processes ......................................................................................... 35 4.3. Requirements related to people, time and tools ................................................ 37 4.4. Workshop limitations and opportunities ............................................................ 41 4.5. Interview conclusions ........................................................................................ 42 5. Toolkit and Workshop Design ................................................................ 44 5.1. Design considerations ........................................................................................ 44 5.2. Toolkit design .................................................................................................... 45 5.3. Workshop design ............................................................................................... 48 6. Workshop results ................................................................................... 59 6.1. Workshop feedback ........................................................................................... 59 6.2. Potential of the toolkit to evaluate new ideas .................................................... 61 vi 7. Conclusion and Future Research ............................................................ 63 7.1. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 63 7.2. Research Limitations .......................................................................................... 65 7.3. Opportunities for Future Research ..................................................................... 66 7.4. Theoretical implications ..................................................................................... 66 7.5. Practical implications ......................................................................................... 67 8. References ............................................................................................. 69 9. Appendices ............................................................................................ 74 9.1. Feedback questionnaire ..................................................................................... 74 9.2. Tool templates ................................................................................................... 77 9.3. Workshop schedule ............................................................................................ 80 vii 1. Introduction & Motivation The globalisation and increasing pace of technological change have forced multinational organisations to bring innovation management at the heart of corporate decision-making. Companies rely on innovation strategy plans to ensure the development of technologies and products that match high-level strategic goals. Technology roadmaps have been developed for that purpose, by representing relations among technologies and resources as they evolve toward practical product applications and markets (Kostoff et al., 2001). One of the objectives of developing a technology roadmap is to identify and evaluate new opportunities within all layers of the organisation (Phaal et al., 2001). Similarly, the developed roadmaps could help evaluate and scope new ideas on an on-going basis, thereby ensuring consistency with future company goals and developments. This is especially useful for early-stage and breakthrough innovations, in order to reduce the high assumption uncertainties (Dissel et al., 2006). However, this potential remains largely unexploited due to the challenges of keeping roadmaps up-to-date with new developments (Vatananan et al., 2012). In order to respond to the identified challenges, a process framework is proposed to evaluate new ideas and update roadmaps on a continuous basis. This research aims at validating the first step of the proposed process by answering to the following research question: How to use existing technology roadmaps to evaluate early-stage breakthrough innovations? The research question is addressed through the development and testing of a workshop-based toolkit. The approach follows a case-based action