Innovation teams are increasingly structured as fractional, short-term squads rather than permanent R&D departments. Enterprises like Philips, Sony, and IBM use cross-disciplinary small teams with rotating membership—focused on discrete, MVP-style projects that run for 3–6 months and deliver real prototypes or pilots.
This post describes how businesses form, fund, and manage these squads. It explains how innovation objectives are defined, how team selection spans departments, and how success is measured. With limited headcount and maximum autonomy, fractional teams avoid internal executive politics and bring fresh thinking. It also discusses how to integrate successful pilots back into core systems. Companies that embed this model maintain startup agility without escrowed bureaucracy.