Innovation Training

Abstract

OVERVIEW:Investment in innovation training has the potential to help firms create more successful product offerings, but the extent to which companies do innovation training is unknown. Although efforts to optimize formal processes and integrate Agile methods into development have led to more efficient innovation systems, a large skill gap remains that cannot be overcome by tools and processes alone. To explore the extent to which companies are (or are not) engaging in training to address those skill gaps, interviews were conducted with 30 senior R&D managers from Fortune 1000 companies. The results indicate that even though senior managers’ view of innovation success factors is more focused on human capital than in the past, innovation training rarely happens—80 percent of the companies in our sample reported rarely engaging in structured training to build innovation competencies. We offer some recommendations for addressing this gap.