Here is an excerpt from an article written by Johnathan R. Cromwell and Jean-François Harvey for MIT Sloan Management Review. To read the complete article, check out others, sign up for email alerts, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Illustration Credit: Matt Chinworth
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Collaborators who begin with an ambiguous problem may get better innovation results than teams that define a problem at the outset.
For most leaders, the ideal high-functioning team operates with smooth collaboration guided by a clear goal that was agreed upon at the outset. Researchers studying the innovation process have also found this model to be particularly important for helping teams communicate better, coordinate tasks, and resolve conflicts as they explore diverse ideas and develop novel solutions to a problem.
Or so we thought. Our research set out to test the assumption that defining a clear problem at the beginning of an innovation project is always beneficial for innovation. We investigated when and how teams develop a clear problem over time, comparing the results of teams that started with lower versus higher levels of problem clarity at the beginning.1 Our conclusion is that there can be advantages to allowing ambiguity over team goals to linger for longer periods during the innovation process.
Defining Versus Discovering the Problem
Consider two hypothetical teams developing an innovation in their business. Team A is efficient and composed, quickly defining a clear problem and aligning around a strong shared vision. This allows team members to generate diverse ideas and converge on a joint solution with speed and efficiency. Throughout the process, their goal remains clear as they resolutely execute a plan and overcome setbacks, demonstrating persistence and resilience as they bring their vision to reality.
Meanwhile, Team B is volatile and messy, starting with only a vague sense of its goals. Team members have intense debates and disagreements as they explore various ideas and frequently pivot in new directions. But about halfway through the process, they manage to pull everything together: They evaluate diverse ideas, refine their options, and eventually converge on a shared solution that also brings greater clarity to the problem. At this point, the team can finally move forward with confidence.
Based on the long-standing assumptions described above, Team A — which defines a clear problem early in the project — should have a much higher chance of implementing its innovation in the organization. But our research revealed that the approach taken by Team B — which discovers a clear problem over time — is actually a more reliable predictor of successful idea implementation.
To study the two pathways, we collected data from 579 teams participating in an internal innovation competition at a Fortune Global 500 company.
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.
References
1. J.R. Cromwell and J.-F. Harvey, “A Problem Half-Solved Is a Problem Well-Stated: Increasing the Rate of Innovation Through Team Problem Discovery,” Research Policy 54, no. 3 (April 2025): 1-16, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2025.105186.
2. W. Lyu, G.C. O’Connor, and N.C. Thompson, “Unleash the Unexpected for Radical Innovation,” MIT Sloan Management Review 65, no. 1 (fall 2023): 22-28.