Bottom Line: the closer a product development effort gets to production, the less innovation should be allowed. This is an inevitability of the cost and time constraints of product development and of the reality of completeness required for efficient production and product support.

Note that minimal innovation is desired in the validation, pre-production and production phases, since these phases are extremely critical to total production cost and market timing.

Innovation may occur in any business endeavor, and such endeavors are constructed of intended (designed) or unintended (discovered) processes. One fundamental aspect of a process to keep in mind is that if you don't understand the process or have control of the process then the outcome of the process can be indeterminate. Innovation does make a process vulnerable to uncertainty.

Much of innovation comes through the change to any of ten 'Project anchors', which are fundamental within every product development effort² . They are listed here for reference. Innovation within any of these anchors can effect the time and cost constraints of the project. Change in an anchor will cause a disruption, and disruptions, especially those that are detrimental, need to be assessed and managed.