Innovation management in living lab projects: The innovatrix framework

Abstract

Despite living labs being described as "orchestrators" and innovation intermediaries, there is scant literature providing concrete guidelines and tools for living lab practitioners on the topic of project-related innovation management. To address this need, we propose Innovatrix, an innovation management framework built upon existing business model and innovation management tools and frameworks and iterated based on practical experience in living lab projects. In this article, we illustrate the added value of the proposed framework through three practical case studies that lead to three propositions regarding innovation management in living lab projects. First, Innovatrix helps to scope the user involvement activities, which leads to greater efficiency and faster decision making. Second, Innovatrix forces the project owner to focus on a limited number of customer segments, which increases the speed of learning as the scarce entrepreneurial resources are dedicated to a limited number of segments. Third, Innovatrix allows practitioners to capture the iterations and pivots that were made during an innovation project, which helps to link specific outcomes with certain living lab activities.