Microsoft Enables Innovation Management in the Enterprise

By DE Editors

Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, WA) announced its Innovation Process Management (IPM) initiative designed to help enterprises build a flexible IT platform to speed the process of innovation for competitive advantage and a higher return on investment.

The IPM initiative is intended to foster innovation by capturing, evaluating, and developing ideas from people anywhere inside or outside the organization. The rapid spread and high availability of technologies that facilitates collaboration, business intelligence, project management, workflow and much more are making it possible for companies to design a flexible process to support innovation.

With this initiative, Microsoft has developed architectural guidance and a configurable solution based on technology many customers are already using, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 helping them to derive greater value from existing technology. The architectural guidance includes ideation and knowledge capture, which includes the ability to promote a culture of innovation; process and knowledge management, which incorporates a process for facilitating ideas while not stifling innovation; and project and portfolio management, which is the process of formally evaluating ideas against a set of pre-defined criteria.

The Microsoft IPM Solution is built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and is a key component of the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution, enabling organizations to facilitate the innovation process.

For more information from Microsoft, go to Microsoft Office EPM Solution.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.