Innovation and Ontologies

80 Roadmap for the Fuzzy Front End
Feasibility
Mandatory Criteria Comments yes no
Does the idea result in a proprietary position?
Does the company dispose of the necessary competencies?
Is the complexity estimated to be manageable?
Does the company have access to necessary external technology?
Are the manufacturing capabilities available?
Market
Has the sales department identified a sufficiently large market need?
Is brand recognition strong enough?
Are necessary and desired distribution channels open?
How defined is strength of customers?
Is supply of raw materials ensured?
Does the production comply with environment regulations?
Does manufacturing respect health and safety rules?
table 18 Sample checklist for Concept Gate (based on Cooper, 2001; Pleschak & Sabisch, 1996)
Despite these drawbacks, checklists are useful and widely used 105 tools to early on eliminate
projects which do not fulfill mandatory criteria (Schachtner, 2001; Wahren, 2004). By
establishment of a catalogue of questions with pass criteria which do not allow for a single ‘no’,
selection of unsuitable projects is quickly done.
Finer analysis and selection of the projects is subsequently done by scoring methods (Cooper,
2001) which are introduced in the next paragraph.
2.3.3.1.2 Scoring Method
Scoring methods can be characterized as extensions to checklists (Lenk, 1994) which are similarly
developed, but allow for a more finely tuned assessment by multi level rating scales.
For a scoring table, different factors influencing the decision-making (e.g. degree of novelty of
technology, compliance with core capabilities) are selected, grouped according to topics and listed
(Erichson, 2002; Meffert & Bruhn, 2006; Schachtner, 2001; Schmitt-Grohé, 1972). Columns
provide space for individual evaluation of each factor which get one by one multiplied by the weight
attributed to each factor, resulting in a score which might be tallied up further (sum) (Bamberg &
Coenenberg, 2006; Lenk, 1994; Mueller-Stewens & Lechner, 2005).
105 In Schachtner’s study on idea management (Schachtner, 2001), checklists were the methods most widely applied (14 companies out of the
sample of 40), followed by economic assessment (cf. 2.5.2.3), used by 12 companies and scoring methods used by 8 companies. Additionally,
portfolio analysis (3 companies; cf. 2.3.3.2.2) and risk analysis (2 companies; cf. 2.5.2.1.2) as well as quality analysis (1 company; cf. 2.5.2.3.3)
were mentioned as evaluation methods.