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Corporate Innovation Evaluation Framework

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1. Overview

The Corporate Innovation Evaluation Framework helps portfolio managers and innovation leaders make fast, data-driven decisions about which initiatives to accelerate, pivot, or stop. The framework routes initiatives through five evaluation stages - from initial context questions to economic value estimates - and produces machine recommendations backed by composite scores. You see exactly where your innovation portfolio sits across Core/Adjacent/Transformational horizons and identify stalled initiatives before they waste resources.

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2. Step-by-Step Guide

Evaluating a New Initiative
  1. Create the initiative - Navigate to the Innovation Evaluation Wizard (/innovationevaluationwizard). Enter a title (minimum 5 characters) and description (minimum 20 characters). Select which portfolio this initiative belongs to - you can’t create initiatives without portfolio association.
  2. Complete Stage 1: Context Configuration - Answer 5 routing questions about your initiative. This takes under 5 minutes. The system automatically routes your initiative to Core (existing business improvement), Adjacent (near-term expansion), or Transformational (new business model) based on your responses. You’ll see the routing decision with an explanation.
  3. Progress through Stage 2: Strategic Intent - Answer 6 questions about strategic relevance and potential overlap with existing initiatives. The system auto-saves after each question. If your initiative scores below 40% on strategic relevance, you’ll see a STOP recommendation with rationale and an option to harvest learnings before closing.
  4. Define value creation in Stage 3 - Answer 5 questions about how value gets created. Map your Trigger - Action - Outcome - Value chain. The system validates all four components before you can progress.
  5. Address uncertainty in Stage 4 - Identify at least 3 critical unknowns. For each, specify criticality level, current evidence, and validation timeline. The system calculates your Learning Risk Index (0-100 score) and recommends specific experiments.
  6. Estimate economic value in Stage 5 - Enter value ranges (minimum/expected/maximum) and investment ranges. Select your confidence level (Low/Medium/High). Low confidence initiatives with high variance get confidence-weighted downward automatically. Capture both financial and non-financial value dimensions.
  7. Review your composite score - The system weighs six dimensions: Strategic Relevance (20%), Value Clarity (15%), Learning Velocity (20%), Assumption Risk (15%), Expected Value (20%), and Portfolio Fit (10%). Scores of 80+ trigger ACCELERATE recommendations, 60-79 suggest CONTINUE, 40-59 indicate PIVOT, and below 40 recommend STOP.
Tracking Portfolio Balance
  1. Access the Portfolio Dashboard - View your Core/Adjacent/Transformational balance against target bands (default: 70/20/10). If you’re over-weighted in any horizon - particularly Transformational above 40% - you’ll see rebalancing recommendations with specific initiatives to pause or accelerate.
  2. Monitor stalled learning - The “Needs Attention” section flags initiatives with no evidence updates in 4 weeks (configurable threshold). Click into any flagged initiative to see what critical unknowns need validation.
  3. Make decisions with overrides - When you disagree with machine recommendations, record your decision (ACCELERATE/PAUSE/STOP) with at least 50 characters of rationale. Both the machine recommendation and your decision get stored in the audit trail.

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3. Common Questions

Q: Can I skip evaluation stages if I already know the answers?
No. The system enforces sequential completion to maintain scoring integrity. Each stage builds on previous responses, and skipping creates gaps in the composite score calculation. The next stage button stays disabled until current stage validation passes. Q: How does the system detect duplicate initiatives?
At Stage 2 (Strategic Intent), the system analyzes your problem description and keywords against existing initiatives in your portfolio. Any potential duplicates surface with a similarity percentage (60% threshold). You can dismiss false positives or merge true duplicates. Q: What happens when my confidence level is “Low” on value estimates?
Low confidence (variance greater than 100% between min and max estimates) applies a 0.5x weight to your expected value. Medium confidence (50-100% variance) applies 0.75x weight. High confidence (under 50% variance) applies 1.0x weight. The system displays the wide range prominently so portfolio comparisons remain fair. Q: Can archived initiatives affect my portfolio balance calculations?
No. Archived initiatives get excluded from active portfolio calculations but remain available in historical analysis. Only initiatives in DRAFT, EVALUATING, ACTIVE, or PAUSED status count toward portfolio balance metrics. Q: How do I know if my portfolio has enough initiatives for meaningful analysis?
Portfolio balance views hide until you have at least 5 initiatives. With 5-9 initiatives, you’ll see basic balance metrics. Full analytics (theme concentration, capital allocation ratios) activate with 10+ initiatives.

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3. Common Questions

Q: Can I skip evaluation stages if I already know the answers?
No. The system enforces sequential completion to maintain scoring integrity. Each stage builds on previous responses, and skipping creates gaps in the composite score calculation. The next stage button stays disabled until current stage validation passes. Q: How does the system detect duplicate initiatives?
At Stage 2 (Strategic Intent), the system analyzes your problem description and keywords against existing initiatives in your portfolio. Any potential duplicates surface with a similarity percentage (60% threshold). You can dismiss false positives or merge true duplicates. Q: What happens when my confidence level is “Low” on value estimates?
Low confidence (variance greater than 100% between min and max estimates) applies a 0.5x weight to your expected value. Medium confidence (50-100% variance) applies 0.75x weight. High confidence (under 50% variance) applies 1.0x weight. The system displays the wide range prominently so portfolio comparisons remain fair. Q: Can archived initiatives affect my portfolio balance calculations?
No. Archived initiatives get excluded from active portfolio calculations but remain available in historical analysis. Only initiatives in DRAFT, EVALUATING, ACTIVE, or PAUSED status count toward portfolio balance metrics. Q: How do I know if my portfolio has enough initiatives for meaningful analysis?
Portfolio balance views hide until you have at least 5 initiatives. With 5-9 initiatives, you’ll see basic balance metrics. Full analytics (theme concentration, capital allocation ratios) activate with 10+ initiatives.

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4. Troubleshooting

Issue: Stage completion button won’t activate
Check your progress indicator - the system requires all questions in the current stage to be answered. For Stage 3 (Value Mechanism), you must complete all four components of the value chain: Trigger, Action, Outcome, and Value. For Stage 4 (Uncertainty), you need a minimum of 3 critical unknowns with all required fields filled. Issue: My portfolio balance shows no data
Portfolio balance views require at least 5 initiatives in your portfolio. If you have fewer, create additional initiatives or wait until your team adds more. If you have 5+ initiatives but still see no data, verify they’re not all in ARCHIVED status - archived initiatives don’t count toward active balance calculations. Issue: Duplicate detection flagged my initiative incorrectly
The 60% similarity threshold occasionally produces false positives. Click “Dismiss” on the duplicate warning to proceed. The system learns from dismissals but won’t block you from continuing. If you see repeated false positives on genuinely different initiatives, the keywords in your problem description may be too generic - add more specific details. Issue: Score recalculation takes too long
With portfolios over 500 initiatives, batch recalculation can take up to 30 seconds. The system queues these operations - check back in a minute. If scores don’t update after 2 minutes, your portfolio may exceed 2,000 initiatives (performance limit). Contact your portfolio administrator to archive completed initiatives. Feature Evaluation - Use this complementary framework (/featureevaluation) when you need to assess individual features within an initiative rather than whole initiatives. Feature Evaluation uses similar gate-based progression but focuses on tactical product decisions while Innovation Evaluation handles strategic portfolio choices. Data Room - After an initiative receives an ACCELERATE or CONTINUE recommendation, build its Data Room (/dataroomlist) to organize supporting documentation, gap analysis, and GTM assets. The Data Room links directly to your initiative and provides stakeholders with structured access to all validation evidence. Analytics Dashboard - Track cross-portfolio innovation metrics at the executive level (/analyticsdashboard). See trends in learning velocity, capital efficiency, and strategic alignment across all your portfolios. Analytics Dashboard aggregates data from the Innovation Evaluation Framework to show organization-wide innovation health.