Innovation Coaching in Foresight Processes for Distributed Product Development

Between globalized competition and shortened lifecycles on the one hand and the new possibilities of digitalization on the other, companies are increasingly confronted with the challenge of optimizing their innovation processes. While the implementation of approaches, such as open innovation, co-creation or agile development, often leads to the desired success, they require additional competencies and resources on the part of the correspondent product developers. This applies in particular in cases where the persons involved do not work together at a common location and therefore depend on the use of media such as web conferences and innovation platforms. This situation results in the increasing practical need for effective support, as would be possible, for example, through the use of appropriately trained experts as enablers in the sense of innovation coaching. However, there are currently few approaches to innovation coaching. Existing approaches also have the weakness that they are too late in the innovation process and tend to focus on purely economic aspects, while technical aspects take a back seat. Against this background, a research project has recently been implemented at the institutes of the participating authors with the aim of making innovation coaching usable for the early phases of innovation processes and treating economic and technical perspectives in the same way. This paper presents the results of two empirical studies carried out in innovation projects with 42 and 64 participants. It can be shown which core activities and responsibilities are decisive for successful innovation coaching in early innovation phases and which problems and unused potentials exist in this field. In addition, hypotheses can be derived that will guide future research in the area of innovation coaching in the coming years.

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Innovation Coaching in Foresight Processes for Distributed Product Development