Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • March 2006
  • Module Note

Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World

By: Alan D. MacCormack
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:49
ShareBar

Abstract

Describes the second module of the 30-session Harvard Business School elective course Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World. The course helps students understand the challenges that uncertainty implies for innovation and how to overcome these challenges. The course emphasizes multiple levels of analysis--from creating and executing development projects to building and balancing portfolios of projects to assessing and selecting future opportunities for development--showing how these activities can be aligned to face uncertainties and take advantage of the opportunities they present. Students respond to the situations from multiple perspectives and assume different roles--from project manager to CEO--to appreciate how various organizational roles themselves reflect these perspectives. The second module forms the heart of the course. Focuses on how firms define and explore the design spaces they choose to exploit, emphasizing themes that highlight how firms respond to the uncertainty they face in new product development projects and new business ventures. These themes address various organizational aspects, including development process flexibility, systems for experimentation and learning, product and organizational design, and program and portfolio design. They emphasize that a coherent approach to managing innovation requires that a firm understand how to deal with uncertainty within projects, across projects (i.e., in designing a portfolio), and over time (i.e., in designing a program). A central insight is the need to coordinate actions across these levels.

Keywords

Innovation and Management; Problems and Challenges; Business Processes; Perspective; Opportunities; Risk and Uncertainty; Managerial Roles; Product Design; Business Startups; Organizational Design

Citation

MacCormack, Alan D. "Managing Innovation in an Uncertain World." Harvard Business School Module Note 606-103, March 2006.

About The Author

Alan D. MacCormack

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Computer-Implemented Methods and Systems for Measuring, Estimating, and Managing Economic Outcomes and Technical Debt in Software Systems and Projects: US Patent 11,126,427 B2

    By: Daniel J. Sturtevant, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Sunny Ahn and Sean Gilliland
    • August 2021
    • Faculty Research

    A Note on Design Thinking

    By: Alan MacCormack, Caroline M. Elkins, Allison H. Mnookin, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Joyce J. Kim
    • November 2020
    • Journal of Product Innovation Management

    Disrupting the Disruptors or Enhancing Them? How Blockchain Re‐Shapes Two‐Sided Platforms

    By: Daniel Trabucchi, Antonella Moretto, Tommaso Buganza and Alan MacCormack
More from the Author
  • Computer-Implemented Methods and Systems for Measuring, Estimating, and Managing Economic Outcomes and Technical Debt in Software Systems and Projects: US Patent 11,126,427 B2 By: Daniel J. Sturtevant, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Sunny Ahn and Sean Gilliland
  • A Note on Design Thinking By: Alan MacCormack, Caroline M. Elkins, Allison H. Mnookin, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Joyce J. Kim
  • Disrupting the Disruptors or Enhancing Them? How Blockchain Re‐Shapes Two‐Sided Platforms By: Daniel Trabucchi, Antonella Moretto, Tommaso Buganza and Alan MacCormack
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College