1.What characteristics describe innovative organizations? If you were attempting to transform an average organization into an innovative organization, what is the most significant obstacle you might encounter?
2. How is corporate venturing used as an aid to search for innovation opportunities? Explain the relationship of the organization's strategic plan and vision statement to the corporate venturing methodology.
3.When using creativity to generate new concepts, should our focus primarily be directed to external markets? Why, or why not? Defend your answer and offer a specific example to support it.
4. We live in an environment characterized by increasing complexity in the legal and regulatory environment as efforts are made to marry concerns about social responsibility with a responsive regulatory environment. We often see concerns in this area when we look at big business operations. Why is it important to demonstrate concern for communities in which we operate as well as comply with appropriate regulations?
5. Innovation activities influence strategic planning and sales forecasting. Is there a single best generalized innovation strategy that will optimize strategic planning and sales forecasting? If yes, explain the strategy. If no, explain why not
6. Some product development activities are risky and some are more conventional. Compare and contrast conventional project management with the management of risky projects, and identify at least five differences. Of the differences between the project types identified, which difference would you rank as most significant and why would you rank the difference as such?
7. When we develop a strategic plan for a new product launch, we may create errors caused by our own biases. We may be overconfident and ignore possible problem areas. We may seek and overemphasize evidence that confirms our beliefs while excluding evidence that suggests we are heading in the wrong direction. We may take actions designed to minimize loss while ignoring acceptable risks that may result in gain. Explain the actions you would take to minimize the problems described in negatively affecting a strategic plan you were responsible for developing. Which source of error do you find most significant? Why?
8.When developing a marketing plan, we should consider market differentiation. What does market differentiation mean? Explain why relative quality in conjunction with market differentiation is important to our marketing effort.
9.Products fail for many reasons, and testing can identify possible failure points before launch. When preparing a budget for product testing, explain why or why not you would invest the time and money to identify delighters, those things that make customers happy even if customers do not explicitly demand these features. If you would, what technique would you use to identify delighters?