Traditionally idea screening has been understood as a selection process, but recent studies have shown that idea evaluators engage in creative activities during screening. This approach has been conceptualized as generative idea screening. In this study, we analyzed how expert evaluators perform generative screening. By analyzing idea screening situations, we found that experts rely primarily on three types of generative activities that focus on adapting, concretizing, or changing an idea. Innovation managers can use this information to organize and direct generative activities during idea screening. We also discovered four idea screening processes: simple evaluation, simple modification, cyclical modification, and cyclical exploration. Adapting and concretizing an idea are prevalent activities in these four processes, which suggests that generative idea screening is best used for identifying and solving issues related to how an idea is presented and implemented. PRACTITIONER TAKEAWAYS: Generative screening is a creative process companies can use to improve upon initial ideas for innovation. Instead of asking experts to merely improve upon ideas, innovation managers can ask them to adapt the ideas to make them easier to implement; to concretize ideas to make them easier to understand; and/or to change the idea to encourage divergent thinking. Innovation managers can use generative idea screening as input for further ideation and harvest the experts’ creative potential more effectively, rather than solely focusing on identifying the most promising ideas during screening.

Idea evaluation is used to identify and select ideas for development as future innovations. However, approaching idea evaluation as a decision gate can limit the role of the person evaluating ideas, create fixation bias, and underutilise the person’s creative potential. Although studies show that during evaluation experts are able to engage in design activities, it is still not clear how they design and develop ideas. The aim of this study was to understand how experts develop ideas during evaluation. Using the think-aloud technique, we identify different ways in which experts develop ideas. Specifically, we show how experts transform initial idea concepts using iterative steps of elaboration and transformation of different idea components. Then, relying on concept-knowledge theory (C-K theory), we identify six types of reasoning that the experts use during idea evaluation. This helps us to distinguish between three different roles that experts can move between during evaluation: gatekeeper, designer managing fixation, and designer managing defixation. These findings suggest that there is value in viewing idea evaluation as a design process because it allows us to identify and leverage the experts’ knowledge and creativity to a fuller extent.

The role of idea screening is to identify promising ideas and select the most qualified ones to proceed into the NPD process. Equally important is understanding which ideas should be avoided to prevent potential failures and avoid unnecessary expenditure of resources. During intuitive decision-making, experts may favor the familiar over the new and may factor personal affection into the decision. Thus, in the context of screening ideas for innovative products, relying entirely on intuition may be risky since the task might require decision-makers to identify radical innovations and look outside of their own comfort zone. Sensemaking is a process that enables people to develop plausible meanings and take actions based on that meaning making. In idea screening, sensemaking can occur when a person struggles to understand an idea or how to proceed with screening. Instead, generative screening can be used by organizations when the intent is to explore new opportunities, use raw ideas as triggers for inspiration. 

Purpose – This study aims to create a better understanding of how practitioners implement and work Agile while balancing the tensions arising between stability and change.

Design/methodology/approach – A grounded theory approach was used to explore what happens in practice when software development teams implement and work Agile. The empirical data consists of twenty semi-structured interviews with practitioners working in fourteen different organizations and in six different Agile roles.

Findings – As a result, a substantive theory was presented of continuously balancing between stability and change in Agile teams. In addition, the study also proposes three guidelines that can help organizations about to change their way of working to Agile.

Research limitations/implications – The inherent limitation of a grounded theory study is that a substantial theory can only explain the specific contexts explored in that study. Thus, this study’s contribution is a substantial theory that needs to be further developed and improved.

Practical implications – The proposed guidelines can help organizations about to change their way of working to Agile. They can also assist organizations in switching from “doing Agile” to “being Agile”, thus becoming more successful.

Originality/value – The new perspective that this study contributes is the fact that our discovered categories show that several inherent processes are ongoing at the same time in order to balance the need to have both stability and change.

Organizations use idea screening to select which ideas will be developed into innovation projects. Extant research has revealed that, during idea screening, expert evaluators use intuition to make rapid holistic decisions about idea quality, analyze ideas in detail to determine their value and employ sensemaking to understand and elaborate on ideas. However, much of this takes place in the minds of the evaluators, which limits our understanding of how experts identify good ideas. This study addresses the issue by mapping the activities that expert evaluators use to screen ideas and by examining how these activities are used to identify high quality ideas. To study this, 204 idea screening cases were collected, using the think aloud method on two samples of experts. The data were analyzed using grounded theory techniques to outline the range of idea screening activities that expert evaluators use and then complemented with fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to understand how these activities are combined together to make judgments of idea quality. The findings break down intuition, analysis, and sensemaking into seven key activities that experts use when screening ideas and detail their dimensions on the micro‐level. The fsQCA further shows that experts combine these activities into distinct patterns in order to find high quality ideas, where sensemaking plays a crucial role. This demonstrates that finding high quality ideas often requires effortful interpretation, while also generating opportunities to develop ideas further. These findings add depth to our understanding of how evaluators think when screening ideas, suggesting that expert evaluators can be used for both the screening and development of ideas during the idea screening stage. Integrating idea development into screening can potentially lead to the more effective use of resources, while saving time at the front‐end of innovation.

Successful development of new services is challenging, since services are process- and experience-based, and often include human interaction during delivery (Bitner et al., 2008; Gustafsson et al., 2012). Hence, emphasizing the use of tools and methods that capture the process, delivery, and experience from the customer or user perspective during new service development is important. However, many companies try to rely on tools and methods designed for the development of physical products when developing new services. These companies will sooner or later discover that there are huge differences in developing services as compared to products.

1. There is no unified model for what an idea for innovation is.

2. This chapter provides a model for describing the anatomy of an idea

and also defines the boundary conditions to be fulfilled for realizing it.

3. An idea is defined as a short contextual narrative consisting of a solution

to a certain problem. Ideas have a dual purpose: they provide a

description for a certain plan of action, but also trigger new associations

and give rise to new ideas. A checklist for managing idea development

is provided.

4. This is a conceptual chapter that is relevant for both private and public

innovation management practices.

5. This chapter relates to Chapters 2 and 4.

This thesis investigates decision-making activities leading to the initial selection of which new ideas should be selected for further development or rejected. This process, often referred to as idea screening, is described as being one of the most important, but also challenging, tasks to master during the entire innovation process. There are two main reasons for this: Firstly, not all ideas are good and secondly no firm has the resources to develop every single idea proposed to it. Thus, it is important to be careful when initially deciding which ideas are to be selected and developed into future possible innovations in order to eliminate weak ideas and retain those that have a substantial chance of becoming successful. 

Two alternative decision-making approaches are explored in the thesis (the intuitive and rational approaches). In the thesis, the concept of intuition during the screening of product and service ideas is demystified. The empirical findings show that decision-makers utilize five main underlying criteria when intuitively assessing ideas. Of these, the findings indicate user-value to be the most important one, or at least the criterion that most assessors emphasize when making intuitive decisions. The findings presented in the thesis increase our understanding of the use of rational and holistic intuitive decision-making when screening ideas during the Front End Innovation phase, as well as questioning the traditional view of intuition, as a decision-making tool that is only reliable if applied by those with a vast amount of experience and expertise. The reported findings indicate that, for example, users with an understanding of the idea context are able to intuitively identify the ideas that decision-making experts identify as the top (best) ones. Hence, managers faced with a situation where they are being inundated with new ideas can turn to non-experts for help.

This thesis explores and investigates two alternative decision-making approaches (the intuitive and the rational approaches) used when screening ideas during the initial part of the innovation process. In this thesis, the concept of intuition when screening product and service ideas is demystified. The empirical findings show that decision-makers utilize five main underlying criteria when making intuitive assessments of ideas. Of these, the findings indicate that user-value is the most important one, or at least the single criterion that most assessors emphasize when making an intuitive decision.

The findings presented in the thesis increase our understanding of the use of rational and holistic intuitive decision-making when screening ideas during the Front End Innovation phase, as well as questioning the traditional view of intuition, as a decision-making tool that is only reliable if applied by those with a vast amount of experience and expertise. The reported findings indicate that, for example, users with an understanding of the idea context are able to intuitively identify the ideas that decision-making experts identify as the top (best) ones. Hence, managers faced with a situation where they are being inundated with new ideas can turn to non-experts for help.

Despite the popularity and extensive use of engaging users in crowdvoting, very little research has been conducted into the appropriateness of users as substitutes for experts when judging ideas. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the appropriateness of using users as a proxy for professional experts during the initial idea screening of new product/service ideas. In other words, are users' assessments during idea screening conformant with professional experts' assessments and are they reliable as a proxy for experts during idea screening? In a comparative study, two different approaches to outsourcing the screening of wireless ideas to users are examined, including assessment by two different user panels: (1) technically skilled users and (2) technically naïve users. These two approaches were compared with the assessments made by professional experts. The results showed no conformance between users and experts when comparing their absolute scores. However, during a relative comparison (the ranking of ideas), both user panels were conformant with the professional experts. A test of the user panels' ability to select the same top ideas as the professional experts was successful, indicating good conformance between the user panels and the professional experts. This paper's contribution is knowledge of how conformant external users are compared with professional expert judges during idea screening. The results indicate that companies can employ users during the initial screening process using criteria assessment to select the best ideas for further elaboration, something that would significantly reduce the number of ideas. The paper suggests an alternative design to crowdvoting, whereby the users assess the relevant criteria.