Innovation and Ontologies

Concept Gate 67
Otherwise, when preparing for idea assessment, the inventive team analyses and clusters ideas
according to a set of criteria, e.g. similar technological properties (Boeddrich, 2004; Gerhards,
2002). Thereby, systematization can take three basic approaches (Brandenburg, 2002):
• By arranging, ideas are structured according to a given framework,
• by clustering, similar ideas are grouped, thus establishing a framework, and
• by networked thinking, arrangement starts from a given framework which can continuously be
enlarged and interlinked by clustering new criteria (Probst & Gomez, 1993 & 2004)
Use of convergent, analytic creativity techniques as well as the morphological box (cf. table 27),
can well support this step (Gerhards, 2002). It is suggested that senior management participates
in the compression process in order to win executive sponsors for the ideas (cf. the note on
senior management in subsections 2.2.2 and 2.5.1).
2.3 Concept Gate
Initial screening was one of the most poorly handled activitities.
(Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1986)
Screening of innovative ideas is the initial decision to commit resources in terms of time and
money to the innovation project (Herstatt, Verworn & Nagahira, 2004). This relatively gentle gate
is headed by the question:
Does the idea merit undertaking limited development effort?
Obviously, the Concept Gate largely relies on qualitative criteria which are assessed by the Jury of
Ideas. It is important to note that this gate does not require financial analysis. Because the
resulting product, process or impact thereof is still largely unknown, only rough estimations of
potential reward are requested (and feasible) (Cooper, 2006a; Herstatt & Verworn, 2003a; Ulrich
& Eppinger, 2003).
Nonetheless, the importance of this gate should not be underestimated. Following the somewhat
bold equation of “kill early = kill cheap”, it is important to select only those ideas which seem
promising and stop the risky candidates early on (Jaworski & Zurlino, 2007; Ulrich & Eppinger,
2003; Witt, 1996).
This section begins in 2.3.1 with a note on implicit idea assessment and filtering in the Invisible
Funnel which precedes any official assessment. Subsequently, the organizational structure of the
Jury of Ideas is introduced (cf. 2.3.2), the crossfunctional team is presented and then two kinds of
methods suitable for idea assessment are introduced (cf. 2.3.3). The section closes with an outline
of the outputs of the Concept Gate in subsection 2.3.4.