If You Need Innovation Success, Make Sure You've Got the Right Project

The exponential growth in technology and markets is forcing companies to intensify their innovation efforts and accelerate product introductions. As a result, more managers today are required to cope with a great deal of innovation in their projects. However, at this time, most innovation attempts still end up in disappointments. In fact, successful innovation is a risky endeavor, frequently plagued by high levels of uncertainty and risk, and further compounded by today's disruption trends. This article presents the case that, since no innovation can succeed without good execution, companies must pay better attention to their projects and consider them together with innovation as two parts of the same process-the process of getting ideas to market. This article offers a single comprehensive framework, combining the main principles of innovation and project management. The framework may be used by business executives, innovation champions, and project teams. It demonstrates how previous ideas, often used separately, could now be merged, to better focus on the critical issues in an innovative, often disruptive environment. We provide empirical evidence from qualitative and quantitative studies, which demonstrate how a combined approach could lead project and innovation teams to more effective execution and better business outcomes.