Carnegie Mellon University

Corporate Innovation: The Portfolio Approach

Master the portfolio approach to innovation — the key to unlocking enterprise potential.

In today’s highly competitive business environment, your organization must stay on the leading edge, nurturing innovative progress – or risk falling behind. It’s not enough, however, to explore only one or two creative ventures. To stay relevant, an organization must take a portfolio approach to innovation. It’s a fact that a number of these projects fail, and to successfully harness novel ideas, the transformative company must take a wider view.

In this quick and concentrated 1.5 day program led by renowned faculty members from Carnegie Mellon University, a known leader in both business and technology, you’ll learn up-to-the-minute tools and techniques for successfully driving your own innovation portfolio. As a senior executive, you’ll gain the necessary skills regarding how to develop the right strategy for your unique situation and evaluate various tactics to execute against that strategy. Most importantly, you’ll return to your organization prepared to operationalize that knowledge.

Key Takeaways

  • Develop the thesis to drive your innovation portfolio.
  • Work with varying techniques to fill the top-of-funnel.
  • Set up processes to evaluate individual ideas within the portfolio.
  • Efficiently allocate innovation resources, setting a more effective budget.
  • Evaluate the augmenting of internal ideas through corporate venture capital and strategic business development.

Who should attend?

This program is designed for leaders responsible for setting up or managing a portfolio of innovation projects within their company. Recommended participants include:

  • Leaders tasked with building out their company’s innovation lab or internal startup platform.
  • Leaders seeking help prioritizing and organizing the number of innovation projects they are managing.
  • Managers responsible for driving partnerships with innovative third parties.
  • Managers trying to migrate or enhance their stage gate (or other similar) programs to better work with transformational projects.
  • Financial leaders responsible for their company’s overall innovation budget.

* Discounts are available for individual and group registrations. More information is available here.

Carnegie Mellon welcomes all individuals to participate in and attend Executive Education programs and events, on campus and/or online, as outlined in the university’s Statement of Assurance.

Additionally, we welcome the opportunity to accommodate requests for support for guests, visitors, and alumni with disabilities. To discuss your individual or group accommodation requests, please contact Carnegie Mellon's Office of Disability Resources at least two weeks in advance of your program start date.

Contact Executive Education at Carnegie Mellon

Contact a program director at 412-268-2304 or exec-director@andrew.cmu.edu to learn more.

Get answers to common inquiries by visiting our frequently asked questions page.