End-to-End Innovation Process

A key element of Business Design is the so-called end-to-end innovation process. It covers the entire journey from vision to tangible new products, services, software systems, and business models ready to ship to market. The process consists of five key phases:

• Phase I: Picture of the Future & Strategy

• Phase II: Playgrounds & Exploration

• Phase III: Portfolio & Evaluation

• Phase IV: Validation & Refinement

• Phase V: Execution & Go-to-Market

• Phase I: Picture of the Future & Strategy:
  Defining your entrepreneurial vision of a desirable future — for your customers and your organisation — including offerings and a clear definition of success.

• Phase II: Playgrounds & Exploration:
  Exploring new innovation playgrounds around customer feedback, market trends, organisational strengths, data and resources as well as technology ("turning money into knowledge").

• Phase III: Portfolio & Evaluation:
  Creating and documenting new ideas based on surprising insights from the exploration phase, and evaluating them in a simple yet powerful risk portfolio.

• Phase IV: Validation & Refinement:
  Turning prioritised ideas into marketable and validated products, services, and business models — earning the first € through iterative refinement ("turning knowledge into money").

• Phase V: Execution & Go-to-Market:
  Scaling validated products, services, software systems, and business models inside or outside the organisation according to given objectives ("turning money into a lot of money").

We learned over the years that excelling within each phase is not enough — the interfaces between phases matter just as much. This requires professional innovation management to ensure that knowledge, insights, and results flow from phase to phase as smoothly as possible.

We distinguish between these five phases because the mindset and way of working to create meaningful results are quite different in each:

1. You often need specialised people for each phase with different skills. An expert who excels at customer interaction, explorative research, and gathering detailed market information is often not the right person to think in entrepreneurial opportunities and business models. And a creative thinker in Phase IV ("Validation & Refinement") is sometimes not the best choice for launching a business and getting all operational processes in place (Phase V). Exceptions exist, but they are rare. In Phase I ("Picture of the Future & Strategy"), you need visionary people with a clear idea of the future and the passion to build it. In Phase II ("Playgrounds & Exploration"), you need the curious person who digs deep into data, numbers, and any information they can find on a specific topic. The entrepreneurial mindset is required when entering Phase III ("Portfolio & Evaluation") and, more importantly, Phase IV ("Validation & Refinement"), where pragmatic solutions at high speed matter most. In Phase V ("Execution & Go-to-Market"), the efficiency-driven and quality-obsessed person is exactly where they belong.

2. Working processes, tools, methods, energy levels, and interdisciplinary teamwork also look very different in explorative projects (Phase II), in sprints (Phase IV), and after the official market launch (Phase V). For instance, the questions we ask in explorative customer and user research are different from the ones we ask in a sprint (Phase IV). See the phase-specific pages for more details.

3. Finally, governance — how decisions are made, how management is involved, and how projects are funded — also differs across all five phases. Drafting business cases for further investment works well in a 2nd or 3rd sprint iteration (Phase IV). In the Playgrounds & Exploration phase, however, they are the license to kill every new idea — and the motivation of the people involved. Funding new projects in Phase II requires a different decision-making approach than later stages like Phase IV.

Take a look at the description of each phase for more details.