There’s a small issue in decision making related to innovation management that managers seem not to consider enough: for an ideas campaign, although having the right tool is essential, it doesn’t guarantee successful results. Not every idea campaign generates great ideas and usually, this is not a failure of the tool, but of the process around it. To solve this, it’s necessary to establish how the decision-making process to choose the most promising ideas, will happen.
Below, we’ll discuss the main factors for your ideas campaign to generate efficient results. Keep reading!
1. Start by Asking “Why”
The first part of an ideas campaign involves sitting together in groups and identifying the fundamental reason for the project. The role of an idea campaign is to face challenges while seeking a specific goal. It’s essential that decision making for innovation management defines which problem your campaign is looking to solve and/or which opportunity it should bring. It is important to narrow your scope after defining what your problem or opportunity is. It’s not enough to say you wish to reduce costs, for instance. Instead of that, split your problem or opportunities into smaller and easier steps that could create an immediate impact.
2. Choose the Right Team
Now let’s focus on your team. You will want to make sure you will invite people who have the abilities needed to bring value to the project. Don’t just invite everyone in. The risk of non-engagement is high when the challenge to be faced is not aligned with the team’s knowledge profile, generating low contribution and a natural exclusion from the process. Your focus should be on those people that have experience and knowledge that could really make a difference. It could be a group of 10 or 100. It’s not about quantity, but diversity and relevance.
3. Establish Measurable Goals
Establishing wide and unclear problems usually lead to ideas that might have nothing to do with what you are trying to achieve, wasting everybody’s time. Instead of saying you want to reduce energy costs, be as focused as possible and explain what exactly you need your public to think of. Make your statements precise and clear, while giving your team enough space to explore and get creative. For instance: “We are seeking to reduce energy costs by 30% in our offices until the end of 2020’s fiscal year”.
4. Search for Solutions
This phase is executed by exploring possible alternative solutions for the problem. It’s time to discuss ideas to create solutions. Encourage everybody to be creative! Some organizations have cultures that suppress creativity, and you don’t want that in your innovation management process. Be creative when presenting your challenge. One way of doing this is by reversing assumptions. For instance, instead of assuming that refrigeration costs are high due to high energy consumption, tell your team to assume the consumption of energy is actually low so that they search for solutions instead of focusing on the problem, resulting in a dead-end.
5. Use Data, Data and More Data
Data is everywhere – that is one of the greatest advantages technology brought us. To better comprehend the problem and its possible solutions, it is essential to collect and analyze data from all kinds of systems the business might use. The use of technologies such as Business Intelligence facilitates this process. It assists in identifying the most important data and creating reports that make it easier to visualize what’s important for the campaign. Idea campaigns are all based on the simple concept of as many people contribute with ideas, the better. Releasing the creative potential of your organization will provide you with new and powerful resources that might take you the future. But only believing in the benefits of idea campaigns is not enough to execute an efficient and well-succeeded project in your organization. Following these steps for decision making in innovation management is fundamental for your campaigns to be successful.
Using an app based on Ideation to structure the process and engage your team also will help to guarantee the success of your idea campaign, while maintaining a valuable database or repository. Get to know Team Ideas IDEATION! A free Ideation Solution that connects people in every chain of value to generate new and promising ideas for your business!
