The Ahold Innovation Team (AIT) creates new technological applications for Albert Heijn, Etos, Gall&Gall, Hypernova and Albert. The most potential innovations are developed until ready to test on a small scale. Thereafter, the ideas need to be transferred to the business in order to implement them large scaled on the shopping floor. Over the last few years however not many ideas from the AIT have been successfully transferred. It can be stated that there is a gap between their ideas and the implementation. The main objective of this graduation project, therefore, was to develop a concept that can help bridge this gap. Analysis An analysis of the AIT, their way of working and other stakeholders that are involved, showed that symptoms of the gap appear in different phases of the innovation process. Insights into these topics were used as a starting point to held interviews with stakeholders and execute a competitor and a consumer analysis. Here from, a total of 38 symptoms of the gap between ideas and implementation resulted. These symptoms could be clustered in three main groups called ‘vision’, ‘selection’ and ‘collaboration’. The first cluster includes the AIT needing to first have a clearer vision of where they want to go to and then use technology in order to get there, instead of starting from a technological perspective. Secondly, more solid criteria should be used to select ideas that fit to the needs and wishes of the business. Finally, better collaboration with the other stakeholders of the innovation process can stimulate an easier transfer of the technological ideas into the implementation phase. Idea generation and concept development The three main clusters of symptoms that emerged from the analysis were used to generate concept ideas. A process of diverging and converging of new ideas showed that several elements could be combined to enlarge their solution areas. Finally, based on criteria from the AIT, the final concept was chosen: The scenario concept. The scenario concept was further developed to specifically fit the mission of the AIT by gaining more information about the possibilities of the scenario planning technique. From another in depth analysis it was concluded that the scenario concept is very well suited to execute in the form of a workshop in which several stakeholders can participate to stimulate collaboration. It also showed that the scenario planning technique actually offers a way to more continuously execute future thinking instead of only during the building of the scenarios itself, as it can provide guidelines for the search for environmental trends. The objective of the scenario concept can therefore be formulated as: Collaborative creation of a vision on the future in order to continuously generate and select successful technological innovations. The scenario concept was subsequently tested with the Etos. Insights from this test were then used to optimize the scenario concept into its final proposal as further described below. The final scenario concept The scenario concept provides a new way of innovating and consists of six phases, which are led and primarily executed by a project manager. The core of the concept consists of two one-day workshops (phases 3 and 5), facilitated by the project manager, in which three groups of participants work together. These three different groups are technology experts from the IM department of Ahold, employees from a certain business department, and external participants with a creative profession. The goal is to make use of the different insights of these participants in order to generate and select new ideas to finally create a roadmap (plan) of new technological innovations that fit the participants’ shared vision. Phase 1. Frame the search First, the project manager has to set parameters for the study which will make the end result more specific to the purposes of the business department that is involved. The topic must be selected, along with the time horizon and the geographical boundaries of the study. Phase 2. Analyze driving forces Within the boundaries that are set, the project manager executes a PESTED trend research. Phase 3. Determine main drivers & build scenarios In the first workshop the participants will be asked to score the PESTED trends on their impact on the store and the (un)certainty of happening within the determined time horizon. From the critical trends, two are determined as main drivers of the scenario matrix. The combination of the extremes of these drivers defines four different scenarios of the future. Creative techniques are then used to let the participants further enrich these scenarios. A final discussion at the end of this first workshop aims to find out how the participants imagine the future will evolve; their ‘shared’ vision. Phase 4. Take-home assignment To ensure more familiarity with the scenarios, a take-home assignment was created which the participants have to execute in between the two workshops. Phase 5. Experience scenarios & interpret consequences In the second workshop the scenarios, personas and potential technologies are used as input to come up with new technological innovations. The best ideas will collectively be selected based on their fit to the participants’ expected evolution of the future and, according to their assessed development in time, placed on a roadmap between now and the future time horizon. As this roadmap builds upon environmental trends, guidelines and examples for ‘early warning signals’ of possible trend shifts are provided. These need to be monitored after finishing the scenario concept and discussed every six months with the internal workshop participants in order to decided whether the roadmap of technological ideas need to be adjusted or can remain the same. Phase 6. Create projecta’s Finally, the input for the idea generation and selection can be used to create enriched visualizations of the ideas. These so called projecta’s are to be created by the AIT members in collaboration with external creatives that have joined the workshops. Implementation At the end of the project, an implementation plan was written to administer the scenario concept within the organization. For internal communication purposes a movie and a manual were created.