Teaching the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation: Experimenting with Team Learning and Cross‐Organizational Integration

How can the extremely uncertain front end of innovation – managing the fuzzy front end – be taught to graduate students? This paper describes and analyses experiments with experiential, problem‐based learning focused on the front end of innovation. The focus is on the learning and cross‐organizational integration of student teams; factors that have been identified as central to the success of teams involved in the front end of innovation. An experiential course, ‘From an idea to a business plan in product development’, was developed in conjunction with an actual company, and piloted with four student groups in 2007 and 2008. Data on this novel course were collected through participant observation, team self‐assessment and questionnaires. This paper reports favourable results for the effectiveness of the course design; it discusses the impact of team size and cross‐organizational team composition on team performance; and identifies the implications for teaching the front end of innovation.