Innovation in Design & Engineering:
Innovation during this effort can add value even well into the development phase, especially if the user or market input requires a mutation in product requirements, costing or volume. But innovation must be minimized prior to the product validation stage until the product is well into the market and is evaluated by users. Here is where we have tendencies for technical anarchy; this too must be tightly managed.

Part of the control of innovation in this stage is to manage prima donna and change-to-death workers by establishing realistic periods for innovative work and setting realistic deadlines for freezing change.

Innovation in the following anchors can cause disruptions in this process: Project Costs, Contracts & Agreements, Schedule, Resources, Team tenure, Team Capabilities, Product Costs, Product Characteristics, Acts of Encumbrance.

Innovation in Production Process:
The production process must be a validated and tightly controllable process during the production phases. Otherwise product and support costs can rise dramatically and product availability can be hampered. Therefore innovation must be minimized sometime during the product validation phase; this still allows any last minute innovation to the production process based on anomalies found and corrected or mitigated during product validation. Innovation should only restart after the production process is capable of more than filling and maintaining the distribution channels. An alternate approach is to innovate and validate off-line and then crossover to the new methodology when in a well-controlled manner.

Innovation in the following anchors can cause disruptions in this process: Project Costs, Contracts & Agreements, Schedule, Resources, Team tenure, Team Capabilities, Product Costs, Product Characteristics, Acts of Encumbrance.