Managing innovations, standards and organizational capabilities

Innovations and new product development provide the fuel for economic growth and the source for competitive advantage. Managing software innovation requires one set of organizational capabilities at the innovative, entrepreneurial phase and another set at later phases. Some early phase capabilities, such as flexibility, inherently conflict with some later phase capabilities, such as repeatability. The capability to manage both discontinuous, disruptive innovations and continuous, incremental innovations provides a sustainable competitive advantage. Technology managers who understand the phases of innovation, the critical role of standards and the various and sometimes conflicting capabilities needed to manage both new and mature product development, can better compete in today's rapidly changing environment. This paper describes a capability framework for managing both innovations and mature technology, grounded in both the literature and in the experience of successful and unsuccessful practices in start-up and mature software companies.