Innovation labs have many challenges as they attempt to marshal ideas and resources to create authentically new solutions to recognized problems. Beyond the obvious need to develop new approaches there is the less often recognized requirement to kill some projects in order to pursue others.
Since most innovation labs run on the drive of creative individuals and since such individuals are hard pressed to give up on an idea they have been developing, suspending work on a project is typically met with some resistance. A recent article on X, formerly Google X, provides an example of one approach for handling this problem.
The article describes the operation of X’s Rapid Evaluation Team, a rotating group of X members with diverse backgrounds and expertise, who review projects to determine if they should continue or be ended. Along with a set review process the article reveals the evaluative criteria used to pass judgment on a wide range of Moonshot style projects that characterize work at X.
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