The Obscure Process of Innovation Assessment: A Report of an Industrial Survey

Abstract

Context - Software companies should track innovation as rigorously as core business operations. For that, the assessment of innovation projects is a critical process, in particular to make their innovation initiatives funded. Objective - In this article, we aim to evaluate the need for more practical measurement tools, by checking the agreement of very experienced analysts, from the industry, about the innovation degree of four actual software projects. Method - We conducted a survey with eight business analysts, using a combination of the Three Horizons Model and the Gartner's Hyper Cycle for emerging technologies as a frame of reference. Results - In general, the level of agreement about the innovation degree in the projects was very low. Looking at the cases in isolation, it is possible to suggest reasons for the low level of agreement between the evaluators. Conclusions - Our data support the fact that innovation is an activity difficult to characterize and even more difficult to measure, and the need for practices to achieve better intersubjective agreement for innovation assessment became evident in this work.