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Most organizations don't have an innovation problem. They have a prioritization problem. The pipeline is full — and that's exactly what's breaking it.
In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler sit down with Noel Sobelman, 25-year innovation portfolio management expert and author of Innovation Portfolio Management: Linking Strategy to Execution, whose client work spans Medtronic, Honeywell, and Siemens. We cover why the most common failure mode in large-company innovation is saying yes too often, how metered funding and evidence strength replace hockey-stick spreadsheets as the real currency of innovation governance, and what a Chief Innovation Officer should actually do in their first 90 days.
⏱ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:27 Where innovation breaks down in large organizations — the real diagnostics
3:14 The two ends of the spectrum: everything gets killed vs. everything is underfunded
4:04 Why the companies that get it right say no more often
6:08 The stage gate question: what organizations consistently get wrong
9:36 Core vs. breakthrough innovation: why different uncertainty levels need different governance
11:08 Evidence strength: how to quantify uncertainty and compare projects with limited resources
13:18 Long-cycle industries (pharma, auto): how to de-risk before the execution engine turns on
16:56 Leadership behaviors that stall pipelines — and how to change them
18:52 Zombie projects, capacity buffers, and how to clean out a clogged pipeline
19:59 What to do first if you're a Chief Innovation Officer with 90 days to show results
💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS
✅ The most common failure in large-company innovation isn't a shortage of ideas — it's loading teams past capacity with underfunded projects. Throughput, not volume of yeses, is the right metric for a healthy pipeline
✅ Evidence strength is the operating currency of breakthrough innovation governance. The question isn't "what does the spreadsheet say?" — it's "what have customers actually shown us?" Metered funding tied to validated learning replaces ROI guesswork
✅ Core and breakthrough innovation need different governance models. Stage gates work for predictable extensions; high-uncertainty bets require an agile, learning-metric-driven approach with shorter cycles and a bias toward de-risking early
🎁 FREE RESOURCE
Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup
🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/
👥 CONNECT
Centered.work: https://centered.work
JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/
Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/
Noel Sobelman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noelsobelman/
📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books#innovation #portfoliomanagement #leadership #productdevelopment #breakthroughinnovation
