Improving Innovation Management: The Difference between
Sopheon’s Accolade® and
Microsoft® Project Server,
and Why It Matters
Bryan Seyfarth, Director of Product Strategy, Sopheon
Page 2 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
The information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this document may be
reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose
without the express written permission of Sopheon.
Copyright
© Copyright 2012 Sopheon plc. All Rights Reserved.
Accolade, Vision Strategist, Idea Lab, and Process Manager are trademarks of Sopheon plc.
Microsoft, Excel, PowerPoint and SharePoint are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries.
All other trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction to Accolade .................................................................................................................................................... 3
Accolade’s Support for Project Management ........................................................................................................... 4
Differentiating Accolade from Project Server ............................................................................................................. 4
Illustrating the Differentiation: Enabling Gated Processes ................................................................................... 6
Comparing Accolade to Project Server for Gated Processes .............................................................................. 8
Comparing Accolade and Project Server on Other Dimensions........................................................................ 12
Idea Development .......................................................................................................................................................... 12
Strategic Roadmapping .................................................................................................................................................. 13
Product Portfolio & Resource Planning .................................................................................................................... 14
More Than Just Software: A Complete Innovation Management Solution ................................................ 15
Reference Notes ............................................................................................................................................................. 16
The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters Page 3
Executive Summary In 2010, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Project Server 2010. This new software
release provides significant value to professional project managers by helping them
control complex project schedules. But we have seen confusion and frustration
among end users looking to use the Microsoft technology to improve their
innovation processes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the root cause of
those issues. It includes a comparison of Project Server to Sopheon’s Accolade
solution.
Microsoft Project Server and Accolade address different markets. Their capabilities
and value propositions also differ:
Microsoft Project Server is a horizontal project management tool, primarily
designed for professional project managers who schedule large projects via
detailed work breakdown structures. It can also be used by functional managers
to plan and schedule portfolios of low-risk, low-uncertainty projects, the
outcomes of which are predictable, even when the resource requirements are
significant (e.g., many routine IT projects).
Sopheon’s Accolade is an end-to-end innovation management solution. It improves
investment decision-making processes across the innovation life cycle, which is
inherently characterized by high degrees of risk and uncertainty. Effective
innovation management enables cross-functional teams and business leaders to
manage such risk and uncertainty, resulting in higher levels of revenue and profit
from new products and services.
Sopheon’s Accolade solution provides a deep integration to Microsoft Project that
allows it to leverage the Microsoft technology’s powerful project scheduling
capabilities. However, companies that attempt to use Project Server for innovation
management are unlikely to succeed. Using it to provide even a minimal level of
management support requires significant custom software code that can only be
created and managed by IT programmers. Additionally, even for those companies
willing to make such programming investments, critical functional gaps will remain.
This paper details the key distinctions between Accolade and Project Server. It is
intended for companies that wish to compare the capacity of the Microsoft and
Sopheon offerings to support their innovation and product development processes.
Introduction to Accolade
For many years, Sopheon has played an integral role in helping companies improve
the business impact of their innovation processes. Through our experience, we have
come to know first-hand that the challenges companies face in enhancing innovation
cannot be solved with traditional project management tools such as Project Server.
Sopheon’s Accolade has become the enterprise standard for innovation management
in many of the world’s leading companies. The primary reason is that it directly
addresses a range of critical innovation-related business challenges that other
solutions are not designed to address. These include:
Microsoft Project Server
offers significant value to
professional project
managers by helping them
control complex project
schedules. However,
companies that attempt to
use Project Server for
end-to-end innovation
management and for
improving their innovation
processes are unlikely to be
successful.
Sopheon‟s Accolade is the
enterprise innovation
management standard of
many leading companies,
primarily because it directly
addresses a range of critical
innovation-related business
challenges that other
solutions are not designed to
address.
Page 4 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
Ineffective go/kill decision-making, which wastes precious resources on
low-value, low-potential products;
Lack of alignment between long-term strategy and short-term innovation
execution;
Too few high-value product ideas feeding the innovation process; and
Poor cross-functional adoption of gated process methodologies.
Accolade enables organizations to surmount these challenges by improving and aligning
ideation, strategy and execution across the entire innovation life cycle, thereby
reducing risk and increasing the likelihood of innovation success. This in turn leads to
dramatic, sustainable improvements in the amount of revenue and profit generated
from product and service development investments.
Accolade’s Support for Project Management While focusing on innovation management, Accolade does provide many of the basic
capabilities required to support project management, such as:
Creating repeatable process models;
Assigning deliverables and activities (with start dates and deadlines) to
team members;
Automatically scheduling and assigning based on standard practices;
Tracking the status of projects, deliverables, and activities;
Promoting cross-functional collaboration, coordination and reporting
through a single project portal;
Using automatic email notifications to communicate changes in status,
timing, and ownership; and
Tracking resource plans and identifying bottlenecks.
These capabilities are designed for ease-of-use and to support users with minimal
technical project management training.
Differentiating Accolade from Project Server It is well-established that the core planning capabilities of Project Server provide valuable support to professional project managers, who use it to create detailed schedules and work breakdown structures for a variety of projects. Most recently, new portfolio management capabilities introduced in Project Server 2010 have extended the value of the technology by enabling functional managers to do a better job of prioritizing select kinds of projects—namely low-risk, low-uncertainty projects whose outcomes are predictable. This is true even when the resource requirements associated with the projects are significant. Many routine IT projects fall into this category, which is perhaps one of the reasons Project Server has found its greatest levels of adoption in IT organizations. For such projects, prioritization is typically owned by functional business leaders, who may use Project Server to optimize the planning and sequencing of projects.
While specializing in
innovation management,
Accolade does provide
many of the basic
capabilities required to
support project
management.
Project Server 2010‟s
portfolio management
capabilities enable
prioritization of low-risk,
low-uncertainty projects
whose outcomes are
predictable, e.g. IT projects.
They do not support the
iterative and high-risk,
high-uncertainty business-
related decisions required
during the innovation
process.
The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters Page 5
This type of straightforward planning and decision-making activity is vastly different from the more strategic, business-related decision-making that takes place within most corporate innovation processes. Innovation is by its very nature a high-risk, high-uncertainty process—perhaps more so than any other business process—and its outcomes are not easily predictable. What’s more, innovation success requires support for a broader variety of activities, including iterative, “gated” decision-making processes. Input and other kinds of participation are needed from cross-functional stakeholders and business leaders across the entire innovation life cycle. Sopheon’s Accolade solution is specifically designed to enable these participatory requirements; Project Server is not.
Figure 1 above summarizes key differences between Accolade and Project Server with
respect to what we define as the four principal aspects of end-to-end innovation
management: gated process execution; idea development; strategic roadmapping; and
portfolio and resource planning. As the table indicates, attempting to use Project
Server to meet even a few of these criteria will require a significant amount of custom
software code that can only be created by IT programmers. More importantly, even
Figure 1: Overview of How Each Solution Meets the Requirements of End-to-End Innovation Management.
Page 6 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
for companies willing to make a significant investment in custom code, critical gaps will
still remain.
Figure 1 highlights another important consideration: the degree to which each solution
puts the management of innovation in the hands of the business professionals who use
it. Although Accolade is a software solution, one of its most important advantages is
that you don’t need any kind of technical proficiency to use it. As a result, nontechnical
business people are able to retain control of their own innovation processes. No
specialized IT programmers are required to define, manage or modify the processes
supported with Accolade.
The balance of this paper addresses each of the areas identified in Figure 1 in detail.
We begin with a deep illustration of gated process execution. Sound management of
this execution provides the foundation for the effective management of risk and
uncertainty. We’ll then assess Accolade and Project Server on each of the other
dimensions across the innovation life cycle, providing specific examples of
differentiation.
Illustrating the Differentiation: Enabling Gated
Processes
Gated processes are the lifeblood of innovation for many companies, as they are the
means by which ideas and innovation strategies are brought to life. When adopted,
gated processes enable cross-functional teams to effectively transform new product
concepts into tangible products that generate revenue and profit for the business. The
successful execution of gated processes is an important predictor of business success.
According to research by Nielsen, companies that have innovation processes with
effective, rigid gates average 130 percent more new product revenue than companies
with loose processes.1,2
Gated processes are unlike any other kind of business process. This is illustrated in
Figure 2, which compares gated processes to two other prototypical business
processes: workflow and project management. The latter are relevant to innovation—
and they, too, require support—but their characteristics are fundamentally different. In
contrast to these other process types, gated processes are:
Focused on high-risk, high-uncertainty investment decisions. Gated processes are typically
used when making investment decisions with high degrees of risk and many
“unknowns” for the business. These decisions are daunting, but they are strategic and
represent the company’s best opportunity for future growth. Achieving success in this
environment requires such decisions to be made iteratively. This approach
accomplishes two objectives: it reduces risk by breaking a very large resource
investment into a series of smaller ones; and it allows for the creation of a rich body of
evidence that grows and is validated over time as the project progresses. Business
leaders can then use this knowledge base at each gate in the innovation processes,
helping to ensure that they make the right investment decisions. Workflow processes
also entail decision-making, but the risk to the business is lower and the types of
knowledge required to make decisions are much more tactical, granular and
situation-specific.3
In project management, good tactical information is required to manage complexity
(e.g., knowledge of task requirements, status, and schedule dependencies). In many
Attempting to use Project
Server to manage the key
aspects of innovation
management requires a
significant amount of
customer software code and
shifts control of innovation
processes away from the
business to IT.
Research by Nielsen
indicates that companies
with effective, rigid gates
built in to the innovation
processes average 130
percent more new product
revenue than companies
with loose processes.
The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters Page 7
ways, however, effective project management minimizes decision-making. Good
project schedules are so clear and specific that people don’t need to decide what to do
next; they simply follow the plan without question, ensuring the project is completed
on time and within budget.
Deliverable-centric. In gated processes, the body of evidence used to support decision-
making is typically organized into a collection of documents known as “deliverables.”
These deliverables are created by a core innovation team and serve as input to the
business leaders who own the strategic investment decisions. This is different from a
classic workflow process, in which a single document or record is approved or denied
in transactional fashion. And although gated processes require the creation of
deliverables against clear deadlines, they do not require a comprehensive breakdown
of every task required to complete the work, as assumed in project management
processes.
Cross-functional. Another unique attribute of gated processes is the requirement for a
significant amount of cross-functional coordination and communication. Innovation
teams must collaborate across each function of the business (sales and marketing,
R&D, operations, finance, and often many others) in order to bring the right
information forward to senior business leaders. Those decision-makers (or
“gatekeepers”) must also be cross-functional in order to ensure alignment and the best
quality decisions. Workflow and project management processes may or may not have
cross-functional participation. Either way, the communication flows in a different
manner. Workflow processes are typically simpler and often require a sequential flow
of communication from one person to another; project management processes are
more hierarchical, with much of the communication flowing up and down the chain
from the project manager to various team members.
Unlike workflow and project
management processes,
gated processes are
characterized by high-risk,
high-uncertainty investment
decisions, a deliverable-
centric nature, and a
requirement for a significant
amount of cross-functional
coordination and
communication.
Figure 2: Types of Business Processes.
Page 8 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
Comparing Accolade to Project Server for Gated Processes Accolade is an enterprise engine for gated processes that is unlike any other offering
on the market. Because it was designed from the ground up to enable gated processes,
it provides types and levels of support that Project Server cannot match. One of
Accolade’s principal advantages is that it is viewed as intuitive, a tool that mirrors the
way that business people across functions and at different levels conduct their
day-to-day work in innovation. This is manifest in a number of areas, as outlined below.
Gated Process Modeling At its core, Accolade provides highly configurable modeling capability that is solely
designed for the creation and management of gated processes. It enables nontechnical
business people to design gated processes that reflect the unique way their business
operates. Stages, gates, deliverables, deliverable templates, metrics, and process
documentation can all be defined via web-based configuration capabilities that are
easily navigated by an innovation process manager. This puts the control of these
processes in the hands of the people who use them.
It also ensures that best practices are implemented in ways that are intuitive and
natural to the range of nontechnical business people that participate in the process.
Participants from every function—including sales, marketing, R&D, engineering,
operations, finance, and program management—are able to quickly understand the
specific role that has been defined for them in the company’s innovation processes.
In contrast, Microsoft’s system is a document-centric, horizontal tool with traditional
document workflow capabilities. Although demos of the tool can be created to give
the impression of support for gated processes, these are only made possible via
custom software code created by an advanced computer programmer. As noted
earlier, document workflow processes have their place within the innovation cycle, but
they are not suited to achieving the unique objectives of gated processes.
Gated Process Agility Your business and your markets are in a constant state of evolution. It is inevitable,
then, that your gated processes will need to evolve as well. A pitfall for some
companies is that they define an innovation process and support it with a custom IT
solution that meets their needs at a given point in time. When conditions and
requirements change, they find that their process is inflexible, shackling the business.
With Accolade, the same capabilities used to define gated processes may also be used
to alter and improve them over time. Nontechnical business leaders can use
Accolade’s web-based interface to change the names of process elements, add stages
and deliverables, modify templates, or adjust other settings—and safely implement
those changes in just a few clicks.
This does more than just save time for innovation leaders. It provides them with the
agility required to efficiently adapt and improve their processes across time. This
requirement is critical to the long-term effectiveness of innovation management, but it
is difficult or impossible to achieve with any other solution on the market, including
Project Server. With Project Server, when process changes need to be made, the
custom coding used to create the original process will have to be re-written. This
Accolade enables
nontechnical business people
to design, manage and
update gated processes so
that they reflect the unique
way their business operates.
Giving business people the
ability to alter and improve
gates processes in line with
evolving market and
business conditions enables
the agility required for the
long-term effectiveness of
innovation management.
Although demos of Project
Server can be created to
give the impression of
support for gated processes,
these are only made possible
via custom software code.
The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters Page 9
presents a significant ongoing expense for the user, and implies that every process
change requires an IT project. Quick and agile evolution of gated processes is simply
not possible.
“Smart” Gate Deliverables As noted earlier, gated processes are inherently “deliverable-centric.” At each gate in
the process, team members must organize and synthesize a significant volume of data
into a set of documents that provide insight to decision-makers. It follows that the tool
you use to support your innovation process should be able to streamline the creation
and management of deliverables. For Accolade, this is a fundamental capability.
Accolade enables “smart” best-practice templates—defined and managed by a
nontechnical business person—that prescribe the information team members are to
create within each stage of the gated process. Such templates may be web-based
forms. Others are derived from Accolade’s out-of-the-box integration to the Microsoft
Office suite, including Microsoft Word, Excel®, and PowerPoint®. Examples of such
templates include:
Integrated Product Definition;
Market Assessment;
Technical Assessment;
Operations/Supply Chain Assessment;
Business Case; and
Executive Gate Presentation.
Accolade’s smart deliverables save team members significant amounts of time, reducing
some deliverable-creation efforts that used to take hours (or days) down to a matter
of seconds. They automatically pre-populate whatever relevant data has already been
entered about the project, and identify the remaining questions that must be
answered. For integrated deliverables such as the Executive Gate Presentation,
Accolade automatically pulls in all data entered across the various functions that
participate in your innovation process, creating a completed PowerPoint file with the
press of a button.
Microsoft, of course, can enable Microsoft Office documents to be stored within the
context of Project Server, and they offer a variety of other tools for creating
web-based forms. But the work required to integrate those forms as “smart”
templates directly into the gated process is anything but simple. As with the creation
of gated processes noted earlier, performing a task like this in Project Server would
require custom coding from a programmer in IT. And the best the user can hope for is
a static, difficult-to-change template.
Product Financial Forecasts One of the more sophisticated deliverables in any gated innovation process is a long-
term financial cash-flow model. Typically assigned to a financial analyst, this deliverable
is what the business uses to evaluate long-term volume, cost, revenue and profit
forecasts, most often extending out over at least a five-year period. Unlike project
Accolade enables “smart”
best-practice templates—
defined and managed by a
business person—that
prescribe the information
team members are to create
within each stage of the
gated process.
Microsoft Office documents
could be stored within the
context of Project Server but
integrating those as “smart”
templates directly into the
gated process would
constitute an IT project. And
the best the user could hope
for is a static, difficult-to-
change template.
Accolade‟s smart deliverable
capability makes it easy for
a financial analyst to develop
a long-term financial
cash-flow model. Project
Server has no equivalent
functionality in its base
system.
Page 10 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
management systems that only focus on yearly project budgets, gated innovation
processes must also provide a way to model this long-term cash flow, and calculate
valuation metrics such as net present value (NPV).
Accolade’s smart deliverable capability makes it easy for a financial analyst to develop
this deliverable. It provides a smart, Excel-based template to forecast long-term
revenue and model the cost of goods sold for the product going forward. Based on
these estimates, NPV, internal rate of return (IRR) and other financial rollups are
automatically calculated. Once the calculations are complete, the analyst simply saves
the Excel file to Accolade and all of the financial metrics are automatically pushed into
the database, and made available for analysis.
Project Server has no equivalent functionality in its base system. Again, it is possible to
create custom code to model these templates, but this is just one more IT project to
complete, with another IT project to follow when modifications are needed.
Priority-Based Gate Decisions According to much of the research in the innovation arena the evaluation of a gated
process should be based primarily on the quality of its gates.4 Effective gated processes
must support the work during the stages (i.e. creation of deliverables), and the work
that occurs during the gates. A key lesson Sopheon has learned during its years of
implementing gated processes is that in many ways, executives are no different from
other members of an innovation team. They, too, require special support to play their
role. But their needs are different; what they require are decision support tools to
ensure they make effective gate decisions consistently. They must also be able to gain a
clear understanding of the resources they are committing, and how those resource
investments align with other priorities.
Among the many capabilities Accolade provides to support gatekeepers, its support
for priority-based gate decisions is particularly noteworthy. During gate meetings, while
there may be value in being able to view projects in isolation, it is a great advantage to
also have the ability to examine them within the context of other projects. This, in
effect, allows business leaders to make better decisions about resource investments,
because they are able to consider the impact such investments will have on other
projects and priorities.
Accolade uniquely supports this kind of priority-based gate decision-making. For
example, in a meeting in which six projects are brought forward for a decision, the six
can be viewed either separately or in a view that shows how they rank in comparison
to other active projects in the portfolio. During the course of a meeting discussion,
projects can be moved up or down in priority. The resource gaps or availability of new
resources resulting from such shifts are presented instantly. Furthermore, gate
decisions can be made about more than one project at once. Multiple projects may be
assigned “Go” or “Kill” decisions, and as resource capacity opens up, projects that are
“On Hold” may be easily shifted into an active status.
Again, because of Accolade’s unique focus on gated process, it is the only solution on
the market to enable this kind of priority-based gate decision-making. Project Server
has some tools that can provide decision support at the portfolio level, but it has
Accolade is the only solution
on the market to enable
priority-based gate decision-
making. Project Server has
some tools that can provide
decision support at the
portfolio level, but it has
nothing that can be used to
dynamically support
decision-making in the
context of gate meetings
themselves.
Accolade uniquely supports
priority-based gate
decision-making, enabling
decisions about resource
investments within the
context of their impact on
other projects and priorities
rather that in isolation.
The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters Page 11
nothing that can be used to dynamically support decision-making in the context of gate
meetings themselves.
Best-Practice Innovation Process Models Because Sopheon’s sole area of focus is innovation management, Accolade benefits
from the deep domain expertise we have gained through years of ongoing work with a
wide range of customers, enabling them to improve their innovation processes and
results. Examples of such companies include world leaders such as BASF, Corning,
Electrolux, H.J. Heinz, Northrop Grumman, Parker Hannifin, Pepsi, and Total
Petrochemicals.
This domain expertise has been crystallized over the past 10 years into a set of best-
practice innovation process models called “accelerators.” For Sopheon customers that
have experience with gated processes, these serve as an important reference model
for charting their own improvement; for customers with little or no experience, they
provide an invaluable starting point for building effective gated processes in a minimal
amount of time. Regardless of the customer’s experience level, Sopheon’s best
practices enable them to quickly advance the maturity of their innovation processes,
leading to rapid increases in profits and revenues from new products.
Project Server is not designed to support best-practice innovation processes. In fact, in
some fundamental ways, it even runs counter to them. For example, Microsoft’s
approach of building gated processes via a combination of custom coding and
traditional workflow tools results in a “hardened” process that prohibits the flexibility
required in a gated process.5 Perhaps more importantly, Project Server does not
provide any best-practice processes, deliverables, templates, or metrics needed for
effective gated-process support. Microsoft is essentially a maker of horizontal software
tools, and is not directly focused on creating solutions to solve the innovation
problems we identified at the beginning of this paper.
Best Practices for Process Improvement As with any business process, gated processes cannot be improved unless they are
measured. They must be assessed with the same rigor one would expect to apply to
the evaluation of any other process. However, because of the complexity of this type
of process measurement, most companies require special support.
Sopheon’s Accolade solution provides many ways to assess the state of an innovation
process, to track progress, and to identify bottlenecks. It is specifically designed to
support the kinds of process metrics that companies typically need to consider as they
evaluate gated processes, such as:
“Kill rate” of early-stage projects;
Quarterly trends in the value of the new product portfolio;
Actual average duration per stage (including “Hold” decisions);
Percentage of projects late to market or over budget;
Number of “Recycle” decisions made in gate meetings; and
Trends in rationale for gate decisions (measured via “reason codes”).
Project Server does not
provide any best-practice
processes, deliverables,
templates, or metrics
needed for effective
gated-process support.
Sopheon‟s Accolade solution
provides many ways to
assess the state of an
innovation process, to track
progress, and to identify
bottlenecks. Microsoft does
not provide any tools that
could be used to conduct
such measurement and
analysis.
Sopheon‟s set of
best-practice innovation
process models enables
companies to quickly
advance the maturity of
their innovation processes,
leading to rapid increases in
profits and revenues from
new products.
Page 12 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
These enable the business to assess the real value of their gated processes. Are they
investing enough in the front end of innovation? Are they reducing time to market?
Are they increasing the value of their portfolio?
Sopheon not only provides the software capabilities required to measure innovation
processes. Its Accolade solution also supplies the best-practice views and capabilities
required to analyze and troubleshoot them effectively. Microsoft provides none of
these best practices, nor do they provide any tools that could be used to conduct such
measurement and analysis.
Collaborative Workflow One last area of differentiation between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft deals with
workflow. As noted earlier workflow processes are fundamentally different from gated
processes; however, this doesn’t make workflow unimportant. Oftentimes, workflow
is an important sub-process in the broader gated process. Even in this area, Sopheon’s
solution is uniquely more relevant to innovation teams than Microsoft’s approach.
Microsoft offers a traditional, transactional approach to workflow as a part of its
broader SharePoint offering. Their capabilities, while powerful, require significant
technical knowledge to create and maintain. In contrast, Sopheon offers an optional,
easily-configurable Collaborative Workflow module as an aspect of our solution. This
module enables a simple and efficient process that allows cross-functional team
members to contribute to the creation of shared deliverables—product definitions,
business cases, or scorecards—in the context of the gated process. This workflow
goes beyond traditional workflow approaches by enabling the collaborative editing of
information that is required by knowledge workers who must share input in a
coordinated fashion and build on the work of their peers. The completion or approval
of these deliverables may be done serially or in parallel. All deliverable versions are
permanently stored for future reference and auditing, in compliance with 21 CFR Part
11, ISO, or SOX, etc. This results in improved communication and greater
accountability among global innovation teams.
Comparing Accolade and Project Server on Other
Dimensions
In the section above, we provided a detailed illustration of how Accolade differentiates
itself from Project Server with regard to gated process execution, which is a core
requirement for innovation management. In this section we’ll describe Accolade’s
differentiation with regard to the other aspects of the innovation life cycle, as
illustrated in Figure 1.
Idea Development Another important challenge in innovation management is idea development. To start
with, some companies—as many as 79 percent—simply suffer from a lack of high-value
ideas to feed into their gated processes.6 Sopheon provides unique capabilities to
address this aspect of the front end of innovation.
Accolade enables a strong link between strategy and ideation by providing out-of-the-
box support for idea “campaigns” or idea-submission challenges that help people inside
Accolade enables a strong
link between strategy and
ideation by providing
out-of-the-box support for
idea “campaigns” or
idea-submission challenges
that help people inside
(and/or outside) the
organization focus on
generating ideas that are
relevant to business needs.
Accolade supports
collaborative workflow as a
sub-process of the broader
gated process, allowing
cross-functional team
members to contribute to
shared deliverables—serially
or in parallel. All document
versions are stored for future
reference and auditing as
required for regulatory
compliance.
The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters Page 13
(and/or outside) the organization focus on generating ideas that are relevant to
business needs. It provides tools to enable idea discovery, which helps people connect
their ideas to other relevant sources of knowledge or interest in the company,
including similar ideas, relevant community discussions, or knowledgeable experts. As
ideas mature and are ready to move into formal concept and product development
processes, Accolade enables them to seamlessly transition into gated processes.
What’s more, all of this is based on a highly configurable ideation platform, which
ensures idea development is conducted in ways that reflect the culture and unique
requirements of each business. As with gated-process support, because of our deep
domain expertise in this area, Sopheon’s idea development best practices undergird
the solution, reducing the time and effort required to define and implement this aspect
of innovation management from several months down to a few weeks.
In contrast, Microsoft does offer some ways to support ideation, but these are
custom-coded tools built on top of the Microsoft SharePoint® platform. With
extensive programming and technical consulting, it is possible to create websites of a
kind that enable idea campaigns and capture ideas. However, such tools require a
significant investment of time, money, and IT resources to achieve even the base levels
of capability that Sopheon offers out-of the-box. For example, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to add programming on top of Project Server to enable automated idea
discovery, or to ensure the seamless transition of ideas from the ideation process to
gated process execution.
Furthermore, because of the overarching need for custom programming, these
solutions are not as configurable or flexible as businesses require. The ownership of
the innovation front end is taken out of the hands of business people; when changes
need to be made, they require the funding of an additional IT project. And lastly, the
horizontal nature of Microsoft’s solutions precludes the availability of idea
development best practices.
Strategic Roadmapping A third aspect of the innovation life cycle that creates difficulty for many companies is
the strategic roadmapping process. Often there is a serious lack of alignment between
long-term strategy and short-term execution. For example, research studies have
found that although most companies identify long-term “areas of strategic focus” for
innovation in their business, only 27 percent actually connect those areas to resource
allocation.7
Accolade is the only solution available that is designed from the ground up to support
strategic roadmapping. Its capabilities are unmatched by any other application in the
market. Accolade enables the creation of the market, product, and technology
roadmaps required for businesses to plan across short-term, medium-term, and long-
term “horizons.”
Additionally, such roadmaps can be integrated into “composite” roadmaps that are at
the center of both long-range and operational planning processes. Sopheon also
provides a number of roadmap data management tools that make it easy for
nontechnical cross-functional representatives to keep their roadmaps up-to-date. Each
of these capabilities is undergirded by best-practice roadmapping process models and
Microsoft does offer some
ways to support ideation,
but these are custom-coded
tools built on top of the
Microsoft SharePoint
platform.
Accolade enables the
creation of the market,
product, and technology
roadmaps required for
businesses to plan across
short-term, medium-term,
and long-term “horizons.”
Microsoft provides for none
of these in any of its market
offerings.
Page 14 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
templates that provide a jump-start to businesses that are new to this aspect of
innovation management.
Microsoft provides none of these solutions in any of its market offerings. While it is
conceivable that such tools could be created on top of Project Server via custom
programming, this would be at such great cost and risk that it is not a practical
consideration.
Product Portfolio & Resource Planning Because of the portfolio management capabilities available in Project Server, this last
area of innovation management is one in which there appears to be some basic degree
of overlap between Accolade and Project Server. However, this is only superficially
true.
For portfolio and resource planning to work within product innovation cycles,
portfolio data must be deeply embedded in the gated processes at the core of
innovation processes. Again, because innovation initiatives are inherently “high-risk,
high-uncertainty,” success requires that tough investment decisions be made at two
levels—both at the portfolio level and iteratively (within gate decisions). And the data
collected must serve both of those purposes.
Accolade provides a deep integration between gated processes and portfolio data. As
discussed earlier, Project Server can only provide superficial support for gated
processes via significant custom programming; it then requires even more significant
investment if that data is to be reused in its portfolio tool.
Another differentiating feature of Accolade in this area is its support for advanced
portfolio “what-if” scenarios. Project Server provides a tool to create scenarios with
portfolio and resource data, but it is not easily configurable by nontechnical business
people, nor does it offer the depth of analysis offered by Accolade. For example,
Project Server’s scenario tool does not allow for the explicit force-ranking of projects,
nor does it provide visibility to resource bottlenecks at the individual level. Accolade
does supply this capability.
A similar limitation of Project Server is found in the modeling of pre-defined resource
plans. One important need of team leaders is to be able to quickly create resource
plans that meet the needs of various projects, which often differ in terms of risk and
complexity. Accolade provides a special means of addressing this via something called
“shirt-size” resource modeling. Standardized resource plans can be configured by
functional managers, similar to shirt sizes: small, medium, large, and extra-large. These
models may then be automatically applied to a project based on its relative degree of
difficulty. This provides an invaluable starting point for project managers who are
creating plans for new projects. Shirt-size resource modeling is not possible with
Project Server.
It may come as no surprise that the last point of differentiation between Accolade and
Project Server in this area deals with embedded best practices. Accolade’s solution for
product portfolios and resource planning includes best-practice dashboards, analyses,
and metrics that are uniquely required for effective innovation management. Project
Server provides none.
Accolade provides a deep
integration between gated
processes and portfolio data,
advanced „what-if‟ portfolio
scenarios, and standardized
resource plans that serve as
an invaluable starting point
for new project plans.
There appears to be some
basic degree of overlap
between Accolade and
Project Server as regards
portfolio management.
However, on closer
inspection, this is only
superficially true.
Accolade‟s solution for
product portfolios and
resource planning includes
best-practice dashboards,
analyses, and metrics that
are uniquely required for
effective innovation
management.
The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters Page 15
More Than Just Software: A Complete Innovation
Management Solution Each of the areas of differentiation presented in this paper can be summarized in a
statement that perhaps is obvious by now: Sopheon is more than just a software
company. It is simply not in our DNA to sell software to customers, install it, and walk
away. Our approach is to partner with users of our software to help ensure that they
achieve the levels of innovation management excellence to which they aspire, and the
improved business results that they are ultimately after. Software is an important
element of this, but we have learned that success also requires:
Trusted advisors with deep domain expertise; and
Embedded best practices that give you a huge head start as you kick off
your journey toward innovation excellence.
Only Sopheon brings best-in-class software, domain experts, and best practices
together in an integrated offering. And because Sopheon’s entire focus is on the
innovation management market, this advantage continues to deepen over time. It is the
combination of this uniqueness and the philosophy of service and shared commitment
underpinning it that enables Sopheon’s customers to quickly increase their levels of
maturity in innovation management, thereby achieving sustainable, profitable revenue
growth from new products.
Only Sopheon brings
best-in-class software,
domain experts, and best
practices together in an
integrated offering.
Page 16 The Difference Between Sopheon’s Accolade and Microsoft Project Server, and Why It Matters
Reference Notes
1 NIELSEN (2010) “Secret to Successful New Product Innovation: Keep the Boss Out of It” 2 COOPER, R.G. and EDGETT, S.J. (2005) Lean, Rapid and Profitable New Product Development, Product
Development Institute. 3 Sopheon’s Accolade solution supports an advanced version of workflow, something we call “collaborative
workflow” as a sub-process within the larger gated process. See the section on collaborative workflow for a
more detailed discussion of this sub-process 4 COOPER, R.G. et al (2005) above. 5 See recommendations about “flexible and adaptive processes” in COOPER, R.G. et al (2005) above. 6 COOPER, R.G. and EDGETT, S.J. (2009) Product Innovation and Technology Strategy, Product Development
Institute. 7 COOPER, R.G. et al (2009) above.
Sopheon UK LTD (UK)
The Surrey Technology Centre 40 Occam Road, Surrey Research Park
Guildford Surrey GU2 7YG
The United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1483 685 735 Fax: +44 (0) 1483 685 740
Sopheon Corporation
3001 Metro Drive Minneapolis, Minnesota
55425-1566
USA
Tel: +1 952-851-7500
Fax: +1 952-851-7599 www.sopheon.com
Sopheon NV (NL)
Kantoorgebouw OFFICIA 1 De Boelelaan 7
1083 HJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0) 20 301 3900 Fax: +31 (0) 20 301 3999
About the Author
Bryan Seyfarth, Ph.D., is director of product strategy for Sopheon, and the consumer goods segment leader for
the Accolade solution suite. Bryan holds a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in organizational communication from the
University of Minnesota. Bryan can be reached at [email protected].
About Sopheon
Sopheon (LSE:SPE) is an international provider of software and services that help organizations improve the
business impact of product innovation. Sopheon’s Accolade® solution enables end-to-end innovation
management, including innovation planning, ideation, innovation process execution, in-market product
management, and product portfolio management. The software suite’s Vision Strategist™ component automates
the roadmapping process, helping users to visualize and plan the future of products and technologies. Accolade’s
Idea Lab™ component assists organizations in generating, selecting and developing winning product ideas.
Accolade Process Manager™ automates the product innovation process and provides strategic decision support
for the management of product portfolios.
Sopheon’s software is used by top innovators throughout the world, including industry leaders such as BASF,
Corning, Electrolux, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, PepsiCo, SABMiller and Total Petrochemicals.
Sopheon has operating bases in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, with distribution,
implementation and support channels worldwide. For more information on Sopheon and its software and service
offerings, please visit www.sopheon.com.