Reducing project related uncertainty in the“fuzzy front end” of innovation – A comparison ofGerman and Japanese product innovation projects

In this paper, we are going to report on the results of an exploratory pieceof research about the typical front-end-related activities in 28 innovation projectscarried out by 14 German and 13 Japanese companies to reduce project uncertainty. Inall cases we observed a range of activities to reduce project specific risks and revealeddifferences in the practice of innovation management in both the German andJapanese companies. We interviewed managers of 13 Japanese and 14 Germanenterprises concerning 14 Japanese and 14 German New Product Developmentprojects. The focus of our research was the so called “fuzzy front end”, activities andtypical deliverables in the innovation process which might be affected by front endmanagement practice.Overall, in the case of the German as well as the Japanese projects, the uncertaintiesaffected by the market or technology could successfully be reduced during the “fuzzyfront end” and the majority of projects achieved their objectives and efficiencytargets. Nevertheless, our study revealed differences in the way such uncertaintieswere reduced by the companies in Japan and...