Chris Galluzzo
Russ Martinelli
using the “Wisdom of crowds”
concept to improve innovation
transfer through the Valley of
Death…
Russ Martinelli, Senior program Manager, intel corporation (russell.
martinelli@intel.com) and c. R. “chris” Galluzzo, Key initiatives Manager,
intel corporation ( chris.galluzzo@intel.com)
Weeding out ideas—and selecting the winning ones—also known as making it through the “Valley of Death” in NPD circles—is a big
challenge. Although many systems have been proposed, none has achieved predominance or been proven foolproof. In this article, Intel
executives Russ Martinelli and Chris Galluzzo share information on Intel’s innovation transfer and technology selection process that they
call a “Wisdom of Crowds” approach.
According to Herman D’hooge, Director of Intel’s Future’s Lab, the definition of innovation should never include the word “innovation.” He defines innovation as people creating
value by the implementation of new ideas. D’hooge’s view of the
innovation process is the lifeblood of any company involved in
new product development and includes two critical aspects: New
ideas must create value for an organization, and they must be able
to be implemented. To explain more clearly:
#1— New ideas must create value for the organization.
If an innovative idea does not deliver value, it will most likely
consume resources that could be used for the development of other
higher-value innovations. Therefore, organizations must know
when to let go of an innovation if it does not add value.
The Charge of the Light Brigade —
“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.”
— alfred lord Tennyson
The phrase Valley of Death comes from the poem by alfred lord
Tennyson and is used by product developers to refer to the point
at which ideas are killed—or survive— at an early critical point
in the NpD process.
#2—They must be able to be implemented.
A new idea will remain just that unless it can be implemented
in a product or service and brought to market. The feasibility of
an innovation to reach a state of maturity that will prevent it from
disrupting the development of a product must be tested.
Corporate survival and continued growth are dependent upon
our ability to effectively develop new ideas that add value and then
implement those ideas into products that the market wants.
“Wisdom of Crowds”
The title of James Surowieki’s influential book, The Wisdom of
Crowds, published in 2004 by Doubleday, has long been in use
to refer to the value of knowledge gained through a group versus
the individual.
of new ideas. The real problem is in choosing the right ideas and
then implementing them in the right products at the right time.
Moving from innovation to invention is filled with traps. Over-coming these traps is a key differentiator between market leaders
and market followers.
In this article, we describe the use of a collaborative portfolio
planning technique—which we call Wisdom of Crowds (from
the book of the same name)—that has been successful in im-proving the innovation transfer process at Intel. We describe the
problems that this technique addresses, how it relates to recent
best-practice study findings, and current successes resulting from
its implementation.
The innovation transfer Valley of Death
For technology companies such as Intel, innovation comes in
the form of new creative technologies. As such, we use the terms
innovation and technology interchangeably in this article. We have
heard that moving a new technological idea from innovation to
invention is like crossing the Valley of Death, where most new
innovations die before they can attach to a product that is going
to market. We have also heard counter opinions, where the Valley
of Death may not be wide enough to prevent some immature in-
novations from crashing into products already under development
and causing major disruption. Intel’s Valley of Death generally
exists between the exploration and planning phases of its product
lifecycle (PLC) as illustrated in Exhibit 1 on the next page.
As we evaluated the innovation transfer process at Intel, we
