Strategy 2020

Innovation Metrics Framework

A three-level scorecard — hypothesis, business model, portfolio — for judging innovation work at the right altitude.

What it is

Three escalating levels: Hypothesis Validation tracks which key assumptions behind an initiative are validated or invalidated and with what evidence; Business Model Performance tracks each live or piloted model's own operating metrics; Portfolio Health rolls those up into a view of whether exploration and exploitation are balanced across the whole portfolio. It's reviewed alongside the Portfolio Map to decide what to fund, pivot, or kill.

Reach for it when

• A portfolio review is about to judge an early-stage initiative by mature business-model financial metrics.
• Leadership needs to decide whether to keep funding, pivot, or kill several initiatives at once.
• A team can report portfolio-level numbers but can't say which underlying hypotheses are actually validated.

Running it

1. For each initiative, list its key hypotheses and their current validation status.
2. Roll validated hypotheses up into a performance read for each individual business model.
3. Aggregate business-model performance into an overall portfolio-health assessment.
4. Use the three-level view to decide which initiatives to fund, pivot, or kill.