A key for economic success of an enterprise is proper decision making regarding product and process planning. The aim of this study was to develop a method of innovation assessment of products and processes that will be applicable at early stage of design and throughout life cycle of a product. The effectiveness of proposed method was examined on real-life case studies. The method is based on systematic, quantitative analysis of parameters, unlike current approaches that concentrate rather on subjective opinions or assessment of the design process, not the design itself. Proposed method comprises some already known tools regarding functional modelling including TRIZ and adopts them to innovation assessment environment. Innovation assessment using proposed method allows to facilitate decision making process regarding choice of concept to be further developed at an early stage of a design process, reducing cost and time of development of new products and processes.