ABSTRACT
Generating original ideas is often much easier than extracting useful and exploitable ideas. As the research psychologist Adam Grant has shown, creative people are not so good at evaluating their own creations. This is true even with some of the great inventors and creators of great art. The problem is that their managers and investors usually are not better at evaluating ideas. The creative group of peers is often the best place to evaluate new ideas.
Difficulties in predicting the success of new products is illustrated by examples with the switchboard development at telephone company Ericsson where educated prognosis for the new product failed time after time. An attempt to build a new type of batteries for cars that failed and the financing of a new successful idea for a newspaper are also described. New products not only need to be designed by taking the users and the environment into account, but they also need to be produced in a reliable manner. This is illustrated by how a problematic situation occurred in a local transportation system. The chapter goes on to describe how the ability of quickly built prototypes can be used as evaluation and development tools.
