The Innovation Transition Roadmap: A Practical Tool for Navigating the Exploration–Exploitation Divide

OVERVIEW: Organizations often excel at exploring new ideas within dedicated innovation units but struggle to integrate these solutions into their core business. This “last mile” challenge limits the return on innovation investments. To address this issue, we introduce the Innovation Transition Roadmap, a visual and practical tool designed to help innovation leaders and managers in planning and executing the transition from exploration to exploitation. We developed the tool using a design science approach, combining insights from ambidexterity literature with iterative evaluation and validation across workshops, expert consultations, and real-world application. Targeting internal transition planning, the Innovation Transition Roadmap offers four key benefits: (1) understanding internal transition needs, (2) strategically planning integration and transfer actions, (3) communicating with and aligning stakeholders, and (4) identifying and mitigating transition risks. By making capability gaps and transition trade-offs visible and helping to align internal stakeholders around required actions, the Innovation Transition Roadmap tool enables managers to make informed strategic choices and mitigate common pitfalls in scaling innovation. As a validated visual planning tool, it fills a critical gap in innovation management practice and contributes to ongoing efforts to translate research into actionable solutions.