The Iterative Involvement of internal Experts into

the Technology Scouting Process

a Siemens case study
Andreas Oertl Michael Heiss Christian Homma
Corporate Technology, Open Corporate Technology, Open Corporate Technology, Open
Innovations & Scouting Innovations & Scouting Innovations & Scouting
Siemens AG Siemens AG Siemens AG
Vienna, Austria Vienna, Austria Munich, Germany
andreas.oertl@siemens.com michael.heiss@siemens.com christian.homma@siemens.com

Abstract—This paper describes technology scouting from the
Scout’s perspective: He or she needs to rapidly develop a working
understanding of the search field, start leading a meaningful
search for cooperation partners and be able to identify hitherto
unknown and relevant research avenues – all while maintaining a
delicate balance between providing value to, and taking time
from the assigned Experts in the field. The time of the Experts is
usually the most limited resource. The methodology and selection
of tools that have evolved to satisfy these needs are modular and
highly situational. At their center lies a solid core procedure
which is used to establish a framework for Expert/Scout
understanding, which we call Solution Space. The paper presents
the methodology and a selection of tools that have evolved as a
best practice approach in several scouting processes.
Keywords—technology scouting; technology sourcing; external
collaboration partners; agile research projects; technological
leadership
I. INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM SETTING
An important success factor for technological leadership is
collaborating with the best in the world. Many companies
maintain technology scouting departments with the goal to
find the best-in-class external partners for dedicated search
fields [8].
As a relatively young discipline, technology scouting
contends with broad problems: In a global benchmark study of
innovation scouting, the biggest knowledge gaps of scouts
were identified as “a missing consistent scouting process”,
“how to evaluate opportunities” and “a lack of technical
expertise” [8].
To address these issues, we assign technology scouting
projects three main stakeholders, all of which are required for
the success of the project:
• The Scout, who is the scouting method expert, project
manager and driver of the scouting project. He applies
scouting methods and tools to gather and analyze relevant
information.
• The Manager, who names the search field according to his
or her needs and with his or her strategic insight, and
decides and finances the collaboration with an external
partner at the end of the scouting project.
• One or more technology Experts, who collaborate with the
Scout and guide the technology scouting project through
feedback on a regular basis.

Various definitions for the term technology scouting exist

in literature [1, 3, 4, 19]. Furthermore, many other terms are
used to describe similar, overlapping concepts [2, 6-8, 10, 18].
In this paper, based on [19], we define technology scouting as:
The collection of information in the field of science
and technology and its conversion into an actionable
decision base for technology sourcing.
In this work, a technology scouting project is limited to six
months and is called a success when collaboration between the
company and an identified external partner is initiated. The
technology scout’s responsibility is to maximize the success
rate of his or her scouting projects under the boundary
conditions of the organizational environment.
A. Technology scouting as an optimization problem
In a typical organizational environment, the Manager and
the Experts are very limited resources for a scouting project.
The Manager needs to optimize his own resources according to
his business goals, and a scouting project is just one of many
responsibilities. Often, not even one hour per week is available
for it. Experts are one of the most valuable resources of a
company. They are highly requested for customer projects and
other operative or strategic tasks. They need to optimize their
own resources to maximize their business impact for the
company. Therefore, we have all three internal stakeholders
optimizing their resources according to different goals. Each of
those resource optimizations is compliant with the company
strategy.

978-1-4799-3312-9/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

The problem setting discussed in this paper is the following:
How can the Scout maximize the probability of a
scouting project being successful under the boundary
conditions that the available resources m of the
Manager and e of the Experts are scarce?
Literature predominantly focuses more on long-term
scouting and monitoring projects [1, 2, 4, 11, 19] and the
involvement of external experts [2, 19]. In this work, we
present a scouting approach for technology scouting projects,
which aims to optimize the success probability under realistic
and practical boundary conditions. The projects have a clear
timeline, and the goal of acquiring outside knowledge in a
technology field not yet fully developed internally.
II. TECHNOLOGY SCOUTING FRAMEWORK
A. Roots and goals of technology scouting
Technology scouting projects are initiated with a desire for
a strategic external partnership set forth by a Manager. The
underlying motivation is usually to improve a sub-area of a
portfolio over the span of three to five years; e.g. to mend a
known deficiency. Technology scouting is employed in the
early stages of such projects in order to identify suitable
external cooperation partners, and at times to help shape the
R&D strategy. It also aims to provide benefits found as by-
products during the scouting process, loosely termed business
relevant knowledge, which is discussed in more detail in
chapter IV.
Depending on confidentiality levels, some search fields are
resolved using technology brokers or public innovation
portals [6-9]. If strict confidentiality requirements are in place,
or the need for a flexible and adaptable search exists,
technology scouting is the preferred option.
B. Limited resources of the stakeholders
As mentioned above, the technical knowledge of Experts
and the strategic knowledge of the Manager are essential for
the success of a technology scouting project. They need to
contribute sufficient time, even though their resources are
scarce due to other tasks and goals.
Let m be the planned number of hours contributed by the
Manager, e by Experts, and s by the Scout. Note that the
planned and agreed upon hours at the start of the scouting
project are not necessarily identical with the real contribution
during the project. The real contribution depends upon the
ability of the Scout to keep the Experts’ and Manager’s
interest. Let us now analyze the planned time contribution of
the Manager and Experts (in percent, related to the total time
spent) and its impact on the success probability of a scouting
project (Fig. 1):
Consider the two extremes: the Scout is not able to involve
the Manager and the Experts, in other words the
time m + e = 0% of the total scouting effort. The probability of
such a scouting project being successful is almost zero (Fig. 1),
as strategic insight and technical expertise is missing. In the
other extreme, m + e = 100% of the total spent effort.
Theoretically, this could work, if it is systematically executed.
In practice, the success probability of such a setting does not
reach the highest possible value (Fig. 1). There are two main
reasons: First, such scouting projects are often delayed due to
other important tasks. Second, if a collaboration is initiated in
such a setting, we sometimes observe a bias towards already
known or regional collaboration partners, who might contribute
less value than a potential best-in-class partner.
Let’s look at the success probability when m + e = 50% of
the total effort: Theoretically, more Expert contribution is
beneficial for the scouting project and would even lead to
shorter project duration. However, it is unlikely that the
Experts will be able to meet the planned workload within the
limited time period. Therefore, the probability of project
success is lower than if less Expert time is budgeted (Fig. 1).
Experience shows, that the optimal involvement to aspire to
is a ratio of (m+e)/(m+e+s) ~ 10% (Fig. 1). Note that Fig. 1 is
a result1 of lessons learned of many scouting projects at
Siemens. It visualizes this experience, and does not claim to be
valid outside of the specific setting described. However, it can
be used as a basis for further discussion and research.
Probability of success
high
0% e+m
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
e+m+ s
Fig. 1: The planned time investment ratio between the
Manager m, Experts e and Scout s influences the success
probability of the scouting project.
To reach the Manager and Expert involvement of 10%, the
Scout needs to add value – not only to the scouting project, but
also for the job goals of the Manager and Experts, at every joint
meeting. If the Scout fails to do so, the risk increases that the
Manager or the Experts stop contributing to the project before
the desired 10% are reached.
1
The method for generating Fig. 1 could be described as
Draw and Discuss and has similarities to the Delphi-
method [11]. Step 1: Let all Scouts of a company draw a line
how they would estimate the success probability. Step 2: Plot
results in one graph and propose a concluding graph.
Step 3: Discuss the result with Scouts and review critically.
Repeat Step 2-3 until all agree with the result.
C. Representation of information
Let's define all existing work relevant to the search field as
the Solution Space, and give it the structure of a tree diagram.
The problem statement (or name of the search field) is on top
of the diagram, and the lower tiers map possible solutions from
general concepts to more and more specific details in
increasing depth (Fig. 2). The end nodes of branches are
specific technology offerings, or novel methods and concepts
described in only one paper. It is allowed to link the same
sources to different nodes on different branches. Reference [5]
is a good example for a comparable structure in the field of
medicine.
Most individual nodes are hyperlinked to specific sources
(scientific papers, technology offerings, web-sites, etc.). At
higher level, these tend to be surveys or overview papers. At
lower levels, the sources provide original content. Based on the
source, nodes will have affiliated institutions, contact persons
and countries assigned.
Problem Statement Concepts Details level 1,2,…,n
Product or
latest research
Fig. 2: Different concepts are represented by different branches in
the Solution Space. It creates a flexible working environment with a
clear overview even for complex topics.
D. A technology Scout’s perspective of a new search field
A Scout’s working hypothesis is that with information
available from online research, more than one excellent
potential cooperation partner can be identified. This
assumption is based on experience, although it can be plausibly
described:
First, in all search fields so far, the size of the solution
space required and allowed for some relevant information to be
overlooked: In order not to prematurely exclude relevant
concepts, new search fields are explored with very broad
queries. This returns an immense amount of information,
typically ranging between one thousand and ten million hits for
each of the main search tools used. Even with the support of
analysis tools, the depth of the search has to be limited at some
point, and much information remains unsighted to keep the
scouting effort manageable. Even so, excellent results have
been achieved by partial analysis of all information available.
In our understanding, the goal of the scouting is not to give a
100% coverage of the field, i.e. finding every little
company/institute working in that topic, but to ensure that the
partners identified for collaboration are among the best-in-
class.
Second, given the complexity of problem statements for
search fields, the probability of finding cooperation partners
that offer solutions ready to be implemented as is, is considered
to be approaching zero. Instead, technology scouting focuses
on finding technology offerings, nascent technologies or
concepts which have the potential to satisfy the problem
statement and offer unknown unknown benefits. These finds
typically require substantial effort for adaptation and
integration into existing portfolios. Therefore, even after
initiating a partnership, creativity and academic excellence of
both cooperation partners and Experts remain crucial to the
ultimate success of the project.
III. TECHNOLOGY SCOUTING PROCESS
The iterative involvement of internal Experts, who are also
stakeholders of the results, has evolved as a central pillar of a
consistent technology scouting process. We aim to show how
prioritizing weekly or bi-weekly interactions between Scouts
and Experts contributes to
• efficient data collection,
• the quality of results, even with a lack of Scout
expertise in pertinent technologies, and
• Experts’ and Manager’s acceptance of the results.
A. Pre-review mapping of the search field
Similar to lessons learned in systematic literature reviews
(SLR) [12], a 20 hour pre-review mapping of the search field is
carried out in order to gain an overview and to allow
sharpening of the search field.
This paper references established terms and processes of
SLR [12-15], for which parts of the technology scouting
methodology coincides. However, it is worth keeping in mind
that SLR has been developed for academically rigorous
evidence based research, and that technology scouting focuses
on creating actionable information from diverse information
sources, including gray literature defined as any document not
commercially published or indexed by bibliographic databases.
Therefore, the statistical standards associated with SLR are
relaxed for technology scouting.
During the initial briefing, Experts give the Scout an
overview of existing knowledge in the research group.
Together, they develop a search query usable in a variety of
search engines. An example for a new search field centered on
intelligent robot manufacturing could be:
"robot*" AND ("artificial intelligence" OR "AI") AND
("automation" OR "industr*" OR "manufactur*")
This preliminary search is designed to collect superficially
from diverse sources. Results are usually limited to the last five
years. Over 100 open and licensed databases containing
scientific publications, patents and technology offerings are
queried. Google Search and MergeFlow (a web crawler using
RSS feeds, including search feeds [20]), are used for gray
literature. Examples include web-sites, news articles, press
releases and blog entries. Research shows that part of what
pertains to gray literature demonstrates activity early in the
technology life-cycle, and that these sources should not be
neglected when searching for emerging technology [16].
The Scout categorizes the commonalities of the early
results and uses them to construct the first few layers of the
solution space. This addresses fundamental challenges of
technology scouting: A Scout unfamiliar with the subject
matter develops an early understanding of the structure and
content of the search field, and creates a basis for
communication with the Experts.
B. The iterative involvement of internal experts
Scouts are required to limit the flow of information to the
Experts without becoming superficial. By representing
information in the solution space, discussions become very
time-effective: The relevance or irrelevance of a whole branch
can generally be determined by a high-level node. If a node has
been identified as irrelevant, all information below can be
ignored. This way, the quality, focus and expedience of the
scouting process are guaranteed without sacrificing the
necessary detail and broad perspective.
In the first meeting after the briefing, the first model of the
Solution Space is presented. Experts select the most promising
branches, some of which might have been unknown to them,
and dismiss irrelevant avenues of research.
During the meeting, the Scout presents overview
information with regards to each node, but detailed information
is omitted until Experts express more interest. Experts are
asked to dismiss around 50% of the findings to keep the search
focused on the most promising avenues. Not reaching this
percentage can be problematic for the Scout, as the focus of the
search needs to be narrow for a sufficiently detailed search.
After the meeting, the Scout collects and classifies material
until the next meeting, where a modified solution space is
presented. Each cycle lasts for 1-2 weeks and creates the
necessary focus for the next iteration. After several weeks, the
scouting process becomes more modular and flexible: Experts
determine if there is to be a focus on certain sources, such as
scientific publications, technology offerings or gray literature.
Not asking experts to rate raw data (publications, patents,
products etc.), and always starting a meeting with categorized,
clustered and summarized findings is one of the most important
lessons learned. If the Scout wants Experts to review raw data,
the most relevant parts of the documents are highlighted and
annotated beforehand.
Throughout the scouting process, Experts are asked to
dismiss large portions of the findings to keep the search
focused. This is acceptable both because of the Scout’s lack of
deep understanding of the subject matter, and the necessity of
keeping the search open enough to allow the inclusion of
unknown unknown information. As time progresses, more and
more of the results are relevant. If the Experts accept close to
100% of the information, it usually means that the technology
scouting is nearing an end.
C. Planning for unknown unknown information
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we
know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things
that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown
unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.
-- Donald Rumsfeld (2002)
A constant issue during scouting is the identification of
unknown unknowns: information whose nature Scouts, Experts
and Managers don’t even suspect. This area of knowledge has
to be developed from known unknowns, which is information
discoverable by using known concepts and keywords.
A broad pre-review mapping search and construction of the
topmost layers of the solution space is an effort to detect many
unknown unknown concepts from the start. Nevertheless,
throughout the project new branches belonging to the unknown
unknown category can be discovered by various means:
• Recent survey articles pertinent to the search fields
• The related articles search of Google scholar,
Microsoft academic research, Mendeley and other
bibliographic search engines
• Exploring the citations of relevant publications
(looking back), or checking who they were cited by
(looking forward).
• Keeping track of evolving keywords: As a topic
matures and diverges, new terms are introduced for
new approaches. A single article can use both already
known and unknown keywords.
• Analysis of the publication history of authors, co-
authors and university departments.
• Analysis of communities and projects (publicly
funded projects, business consortia, university
projects and departments, university cooperations and
online communities)
Each of those methods can lead to information
representing a node of an unknown unknown branch at any
depth in the solution space (Fig. 3). From there, the entire
newly discovered branch moves from unknown unknown
to known unknown, and can be completed using regular
search methods.

Fig. 3: Construction of a new branch of the Solution Space after
discovering a node belonging to the unnknown unknown
category.
D. The benefits of a short list of potential coooperation
partners
Using the solution space as a visualizatioon aid, the iterative
rounds of Scout and Expert interaction can be b imagined as the
tree diagram experiencing periods of wild grrowth followed by
harsh pruning. Each time, only some branchhes are allowed to
grow, while most are terminated early. The elaboration
e of only
a few branches, and limiting the num mber of potential
cooperation partners for each branch to one oro two, has definite
advantages to an exhaustive list:
First, limiting the number of branchhes is a project
management trade-off between quality andd time investment.
The dismissal of an entire branch on the basiss of relatively high
level concepts is an acceptable risk. Scouuts develop those
branches up to the point where Experts aree able to make an
informed decision about its value for theeir specific needs.
Leaving those branches at this relatively earlly stage allows the
Scout to focus in-depth on more promisingg branches, which
have higher chances of containing significantt finds.
Second, limiting the number of poteential cooperation
partners per branch forces Experts and Scouts to focus
narrowly on optimal choices. The reesulting few are
representative of their respective branch, which helps to
maintain an overview in complex search fields. Experience
shows that suitable partners mostly share one of two
characteristics: They either have a good reputation and a
certain level of visibility, or they are the onnly ones offering a
specific approach.
Third, an abundance of good choicess can even have
negative consequences, a phenomenon knoown in behavioral
psychology as status-quo bias. In research dealing
d with high-
stakes decision making, this effect has been described as:
"What happens when individuals are presennted with difficult
choices with multiple options and no obviouus right answer? A
common reaction is to make no decision at all—either by
opting for a status quo course of action orr, if there is none,
walking away from the decision entirely" [177] .
IV. DELIVERABLES OF THE SCOUTING PROJECT
The tangible results of a scouting project consist of the
solution space with its underllying documents, their authors,
and business relevant knowledgge.
At the end of the scouting project, the Solution Space has
its most relevant branches fullyy developed. Many nodes in the
lower tiers of the Solutionn Space have a publication,
technology offering, press rellease or other source assigned.
Additionally, sources have at leeast one affiliated institution and
contact person. The people annd institutions behind the most
interesting nodes are the iddentified potential cooperation
partners. This representation off knowledge remains helpful for
both Manager and Experts throuughout the overarching project.
The business relevant know
wledge includes
• a landscape of majorr players, such as universities,
companies and busiiness consortia for continued
monitoring of businesss opportunities and threats,
• technical resources inncorporating publications rated
for relevance, publicly funded projects, online
communities and patennts, and
• trends and ongoing devvelopments in the search field.
V. CONCLUSION
O
In viewing technology scouuting as a resource optimization
problem between three neccessary stakeholders, realistic
boundary conditions are inttroduced into the technology
scouting process. The iterattive involvement of technical
Experts and Managers during weekly or bi-weekly meetings
meets many of the difficulties Scouts face in their work as
identified in a global study made
m in 2009 [8]. Chief among
those are how to establish a coonsistent scouting process, how
to identify relevant unknown unknown
u information, and how
to deal with a lack of experrtise on pertinent technologies.
Technical Experts and the Manager provide high-quality
guidance throughout the sccouting process by selecting
promising topics and dismissinng others. The Solution Space is
introduced as an effective toool to visualize and structure
complex search fields, which reeduces Manager and Expert time
investment to a minimum and allows
a Scouts to quickly gain an
overview of a new search field.
Scouts identify promisinng cooperation partners for
technology sourcing by gathhering data from a variety of
sources, including scientific literature, patents, public and
licensed databases, technologyy offerings and gray data. Early
findings suggest that the optim
mal planned time investment for
Scouts s constitutes 90% of tootal project time, while Experts
and Managers m + e plan to invvest 10%.
The iterative involvement of Experts into the scouting
process has shown promise in managing quality and
complexity issues, and it improoves the acceptance of the results
from all stakeholders.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors like to thank Dr. Thomas Lackner, Head of the
Siemens Open Innovation and Scouting Department, for his
visionary support and leadership, and the authors’ wives, who
improved this paper through many reviews.

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