ORIGINAL RESEARCH The Secret of Good Ideas

What is the secret to getting lots of high quality ideas with Idea Management? Is there any magic formula to guess in advance how many good ideas you will get, and what those ideas will look like?


Imaginatik Research has some good news, and some bad news. The bad news first: it is almost impossible to predict how many good ideas you will get, and what those ideas will be like. There is no way to know, for example, whether the brainstorm session you attend next week will yield no useful ideas at all... or the next Post-It Note.


The good news is that the odds are on the side of the angels. Research has shown that the Idea Management process, supported by appropriate software, yields 2.5 excellent ideas per 100 ideas collected to a 95% degree of confidence. This means that from a given sample of 100 ideas, 2.5 will prove themselves to be truly novel, unique, useful and implementable. Moreover, the event-based approach yields 10x more ideas overall compared to simple ongoing programs, and 30x more high impact ideas than ongoing programs.


To translate these figures into real life, Mott's Inc., a consumer goods company with 1,700 employees (and a client of Imaginatik), has used Idea Central since December 2001 to collect ideas and insight on a range of topics, from brand naming to process improvement. During this time they have run 30 time-limited events, typically lasting 4 weeks each, and one always-open event, "What's On Your Mind". The ongoing event has collected over 400 ideas, and the time-based events average 200 ideas each. With over 6,000 ideas in total, they estimate they have collected well over 100 excellent ideas that have been consumer tested or implemented in the business, including some product ideas that will be launched in 2003.


To understand the secret of the approach, we have uncovered the five key reasons for success:


1) Purpose - the yield of high quality ideas is significantly higher with a clear business purpose and a supportive business sponsor. The most successful Idea Management projects have a senior manager who is directly responsible for that particular idea gathering initiative, and for taking the best ideas forward to implementation or further development. Best practice is to state the goals as clearly as you can, without narrowing down the scope too much, and to try not to be too wordy as people skim read.


2) Timeliness - the difference between a great idea and a so-so idea is often time-based. There is often a narrow window of opportunity for an idea to be considered, which explains why many ongoing systems struggle with the random nature of suggestions.


3) Diversity - the pool of contributors needs to be broad, usually broader than you intuitively think. It is impossible to get great ideas by asking the same people the same questions over, and over again.


4) Perspective Change - the very best ideas come through individuals looking at things in a different way, such as visiting a supermarket and watching kids buy chocolate, instead of analyzing focus group reports and sales data.


5) Collaborative Development - the majority of ideas received in a formal Idea Management program tend to be seed ideas, containing a kernel of a good idea but requiring additional development. A collaborative environment, where people can comment and build on ideas, significantly increases the overall yield of high impact ideas. A new study by Imaginatik Research is comparing the difference between collaborative and non-collaborative systems, and the initial results show that the number of seed ideas goes down, but the overall number of excellent ideas goes up.


With these elements in place, companies can look forward to a high yield of top quality ideas that make a real difference in the business.

USATODAY.com - Google founders keep 'top 100' list of new ideas a short article written by a Reuters staff agent talks about the "Google Top 100" - an internal list of the company's top ideas for development kept by the founders to keep innovation at the top of the firm's mindset. Employees are then encouraged to spend 20% of their time working on whatever they think is the best to do

The Innovator's Advantage: Using Innovation and Technology to Improve Business Performance (Accenture)A recent study finds that innovators make better use of information technology (IT) – not necessarily spending more, but understanding what it can do for them, and taking advantage of its capabilities. Among the results: 64% of systems installed by innovators had been successful in meeting their objectives versus 28 percent of systems installed by less innovative companies.
77% of innovators “widely consider IT” when developing new business strategies (versus just over 40 percent of non-innovators).
More than twice as many innovators see IT as a source of competitive advantage than non-innovators (63 percent versus 27 percent).
The full report can be downloaded as a PDF.

Press Release - Deloitte Study Analyzes 'Innovation Paradox' Launching New Products Is No. 1 Driver of Revenue Growth; Innovation Remains Dangerously Low Priority - I'm starting to wonder why so much research is being distributed in the middle of press releases nowadays - but stuck in the middle of this one for Deloitte and Touche are a few nice stats that - although not surprising - are always nice to have up to date numbers for. D&T did a study of 650 manufacturing companies worldwide and found that:

1) Manufacturers cite launching new products and services as the No. 1 driver of revenue growth

2) They also view supporting product innovation as one of the least important priorities. (Nice little contradiction there, eh? Although to be fair - I've seen several of reports citing Innovation process as no1 amongst CEO priorities - could this be just a Manufacturing industry issue - or a reflection of whom in the companies D&T were talking to?...)

3) 50 to 70 percent of all new product introductions fail. (I've had figures as high as 80% quoted to me in the past)

4) New product revenue will jump to 35 percent in 2006, up from just 21 percent in 1998. (Although if none of them are supporting their innovation process, it'll be interesting to find out where they think all the new products required to generate that will show up)

5) By 2010, products representing more than 70 percent of today's sales will be obsolete due to changing customer demands and competitive offerings.

NSF - OLPA - PR 04-10: Beyond Feng Shui: Designing for Innovation Umot Toker of the National Science Foundation posted this article which talks (albeit briefly) on the topic of building design on innovative capacity. In short (er), you should try to layout your offices in such a way as to increase the opportunity for chance encounters with people - the general premise being that it is these encounters that give you the innovative spark.

This idea is not particularly new however - the very same concept was being talked about in the Knowledge Management circles some 7-8 years ago for example. Professor Clive Holtham of the Cass School of Business used to talk on the subject of the environmental impact on knowledge flows within an organisation - and several buildings in the UK were even designed with this in mind - The British Airways headquarters, just outside of London was designed with glass covered atriums, cafes, and several communal spots to encourage people to accidentally meet and thus enhance the flow of knowledge from one individual to another. Nevertheless it's interesting seeing some old ideas from one subject re-emerging in another.

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Practical Tools for New Ideas - The second part of a series by Stewart McKie on Innovation Management, this article gives a great overview of the different types of technologies that are being used to automate parts of the innovation process

Topics covered include:

Environmental scanning - "the acquisition of information about events, trends, and relationships in an organization's environment, the knowledge of which will be of assistance to top executives in identifying and understanding strategic threats and opportunities,"

Road Mapping - a technique that helps create a combined strategic, product, and marketing perspective for the stakeholders involved in delivering innovation. Road-mapping software is important to innovation because it helps to define, update, and visualize the route toward realizing an innovative product, service, or organizational change.

Creative Thinking - technologies that either help you with the process of brainstorming or help to increase the quality of your brainstorming sessions

and finally Idea Management - which unlike the other "upstream" technologies instead looks at the "downstream" end of the innovation cycle by helping companies develop ideas so they can eventually be monetized.