Map your processes to uncover sources of collaborative innovation
Identify your strategic suppliers and involve them in innovation

To identify the phases most conducive to collaborative innovation, you need to understand and map your development processes. Without seeking to be exhaustive, a development project can be broken down into several phases. Here we use one of the best-known models developed in the field. These phases are :

• Product planning. During this phase, decisions are made about the type of development projects to be pursued. Led by the marketing department or similar internal structure, Ulrich and Eppinger define this phase as "that which precedes any approval and launch of a development project". Typical projects are: (a) a new product family, (b) derivatives of existing products, (c) incremental improvements to existing products, or (d) radically new products.

• Concept development. According to these authors, a concept...