Report 103
Your newsletter on applied creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.
Tuesday, 18 April 2006
Issue 80
Hello and welcome to another issue of Report 103, your fortnightly newsletter on creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.
As always, if you have news about creativity, imagination, ideas, or innovation please feel free to forward it to me for potential inclusion in Report103. Your comments and feedback are also always welcome.
Information on unsubscribing, archives, reprinting articles, etc can be found at the end of this newsletter.
SELLING IDEAS UP THE CORPORATE LADDER
Although almost every firm today claims a strong interest in innovation, one of the most common problems I hear about from middle managers and non-managers is the difficulty of selling ideas up the corporate ladder. If CEOS really wanted their firms to be innovative, you would think they would make it easy for employees to propose ideas to managers and easy for managers to propose ideas to senior managers and so on. Sadly, this seems rarely to be the case.
Of course, a structured idea management process can facilitate the communication of ideas as well as the evaluation and pre-implementation of those ideas. Provided senior management is behind the idea management process, this is a very effective way of selling ideas up the corporate ladder. (For more information about idea management and Jenni, our idea management software service, do visit http://www.creativejeffrey.com/ideamanagement/)
However, if your firm has not got an idea management process or top management is not behind the process, then selling ideas up the corporate ladder can be a challenge.
Ideas, of course, are harder to sell than material goods. If you can hand an item to someone, it is much easier to sell the person on the benefits of that item than it is if you simply describe the item. For this reason, the best way to sell an idea is to make a prototype of it – if at all possible.
If your idea is for a new product or improvements of an existing product, making a prototype is relatively easy. Using what tools you have available, you put together the best model of your idea possible. At the very least, computer generated images, drawings or even rough sketches can give your boss a clearer image of your product idea than mere words can. But, if you can build something your boss can touch and feel, it will become so much easier to sell your idea to her.
If your idea is for a new service that your firm could offer, prototyping becomes more difficult – but not impossible. You simply need to apply your creativity to the problem of how to prototype a service. For example, if your idea is a new consulting service your firm might offer, you could provide a short sample consultation to your direct report. If that's not feasible, you could perform a role-play of your service, with you and your colleagues playing the roles of service providers as well as customers. Better still, invite your superiors to play the role of the customers in order to give them a flavour of the advantages your service idea offers.
Admittedly, convincing your superiors to participate in a role-play - or even to watch a role-play may not be easy. Thus you would probably do better to invite them to a new product idea meeting rather than invite them to participate in a role-play. Initially, they may not like the surprise, but if your idea is good enough, they will be impressed both by the idea and your innovative approach in presenting it.
Making a prototype of an operational idea is the most difficult of all, particularly if the idea is about changing a process. I have had success in drawing cartoons to show processes (if you'd like to see an example of my cartooning to demonstrate processes skills, take a look at the Corporate Innovation Machine Model at http://www.creativejeffrey.com/innovation/.
Alternatively, it can sometimes be effective to make a prototype of a bad process in order to demonstrate the importance of replacing the process with a better one.
There is an apocryphal story about an advertising agency making a pitch to British Rail (BR) in the 1970s or thereabouts. According the story, the CEO and a number of other top people from British Rail were invited to an advertising agency to receive a pitch (advertising agency language for a business proposal) for the railway's advertising business.
When the BR team arrived at the agency, they were met by a disinterested receptionist sitting at her desk and smoking a cigarette. She made them wait until she finished the article before rudely waving the BR executives to a waiting room which was small, smelly and lacked enough chairs for everyone. A table held a hot water machine, a lot of dirty cups, overflowing ashtrays and rubbish. The tea provided was terrible.
The BR people waited 20 minutes for the ad agency people to arrive. They didn't and the BR team got fed up and started to walk out. Just then, the CEO of the ad agency jumped out and said: “this is how your customers perceive British Rail's service. We intend to change that for you.” The Adman proceeded to explain how his company would help improve BR's terrible image. Supposedly, the agency was hired on the spot.
Anyone who experienced BR in the 1970s will completely understand the story.
Whether or not the story is true, it is certainly a wonderful example of prototyping – or demonstrating – a very bad process in order to make people understand why the process needs improving, and making your superiors more receptive to your ideas about improving the process.
There are many, many ways to prototype an idea. The more creative your approach,
the more likely you are to sell your creative idea. If you've got an idea you
need to sell to your boss or, for that matter,
to one of your clients, your colleagues or even your family, your best approach
is to apply a little creative thinking. Start by writing on a sheet of paper:
“How might I sell my idea to my boss?”
Then try to come up with as many ideas as you can. If you are working on the
idea with a team, have the whole team brainstorm ideas.
Once you have written down at least 20-30 ideas, choose the approach with the best combination of impact, realistic demonstration of the idea and ease of making.
Then do it!
GETTING THE BALANCE RIGHT IN YOUR INNOVATION PROCESS
Most organisations that have implemented some kind of ideas based innovation process, have the following idea flow...
1. Generate ideas
2. Review ideas
3. Implement ideas
Our ideas campaign approach to innovation has a couple more steps.
1. Challenge
2. Generate ideas
3. Initial evaluation of ideas
4. Pre-implementation of ideas
5. Implementation of ideas
An ideas campaign begins with a specific challenge, such as: “In what ways might we make Report 103 a more valuable publication for our readers?”. Idea generation then focuses on responding to the challenge (as a creative thinker like you doubtless knows, creative thinkers love challenges that focus their creativity on real issues).
Once the idea generation phase is complete, ideas are reviewed via a 5x5 criteria based evaluation which is a quick yet accurate means for building an initial appraisal of an idea. If that appraisal is positive, the next step is the pre-implementation process which involves more in-depth reviewing of an idea, such as via business case writing, market research and prototype development. Ideas which pass the pre-implementation process can then be implemented with minimal risk.
Most businesses we have talked to, however, focus overly much on the evaluation and pre-implementation phases. Worse, many overly evaluate and pre-implement with the aim of reducing risk to an absolute minimum. Unfortunately, when you focus more on risk reduction than on innovation, the result is low-risk, low-innovation ideas. (this is a topic I have covered several times in this eJournal – see the archives at http://www.creativejeffrey.com/report103/archives.php).
The “Stage-Gate” model (registered trademark) by Robert G. Cooper is a good example of this. Although a fine model, the Stage-Gate focuses almost exclusively on the post idea generation process of innovation. (see http://www.12manage.com/methods_cooper_stage-gate.html for a quick explanation of the Stage-Gate model). Companies which work exclusively with the Stage-Gate model will become much better at testing ideas than on generating ideas. And if your ideas are weak, no amount of testing and reviewing will make them more innovative.
Creative thinkers, on the other hand, tend to focus on the idea generation side of innovation. Creative thinkers are typically people who have ideas all of the time – they cannot help themselves. So, if they have a chance to put those ideas to good use, they are usually happy.
All too many people, however, neglect the challenges. The marketing manager says: “we need new marketing ideas” and invites colleagues to suggest ideas. Ideas are generated, evaluated, pre-implemented and implemented. Unfortunately for the marketing manager, such a vague challenge is unlikely to result in the great ideas she really wants. Almost certainly, those ideas will not focus on her real needs.
To understand why, consider a different challenge. One day, I say to my wife and children: “Hey, let's take a slow holiday journey to Budapest. We can stop off in picturesque Szeged so I can visit our programmers. How might we make such a trip from Walton-on-Thames (a suburb of London) to Budapest via Szeged?” The family could propose ideas, we could review them all and organise a trip based on the best ideas.
The problem would be that we live in Erps-Kwerps (a village some 15 km from Brussels, Belgium; in the unlikely event you are unfamiliar with Erps-Kwerps) and the programmers I work with are in Picturesque Brno (in the Czech Republic). Hence, as good as our travel ideas might be, they would be deeply flawed in application. Sure we could modify those plans so they fit our actual departure and stop off point. But such a trip would not be as creative as if we had started with a more correct challenge, such as: “How might we make a trip from Erps-Kwerps to Budapest via Brno?”
I expect you are probably smirking right now and thinking to yourself: “That's silly. We would never make such a daft mistake in our innovation process.” Sadly, many companies do. Indeed, starting with an inappropriate challenge is probably one of the most common mistakes organisations make in campaign based idea management. That's not because people are stupid. Rather, it is because managers devote very little time to devising their challenges, rather more time on idea development and far too much time on evaluation and pre-implementation.
Instead, managers should devote considerable time and thought to crafting their creative challenges (for more information on formulating creative challenges, read Dr. Arthur Gundy's The care and framing of strategic innovation challenges (PDF document: 537kb: http://www.creativejeffrey.com/creative/VanGundyFrameInnov.pdf), more effort in promoting their creative challenge, slightly more time in the idea generation process and less time in the review process. The result: more innovation.
For more information on our innovation process, please visit the Corporate Innovation Machine at http://www.creativejeffrey.com/innovation/. If you are interested in learning more about “Jenni” our idea management tool which facilitates campaign based idea management in organisations like yours, please visit http://www.creativejeffrey.com/jenni/.
Lastly, do note that I have nothing against the Stage-Gate process which many companies have adopted. Only that Stage-Gate is a process for reviewing and implementing ideas and needs to be combined with processes – such as ideas campaigns – for generating the ideas which will go through the Stage-Gate process and help your firm innovate more successfully.
SPRING TIME IS IDEAS TIME
Spring time is a great time to be inspired by the outdoors – in the Northern hemisphere, anyway. The weather is warming up, trees are getting their leaves back, flowers are blooming and birds are singing. In short, the environment is positively bursting with new life and change. As a result, the outdoors is very inspirational just now.
If you are looking for ideas, now is the perfect time to go for a walk in the woods, lounge in the park or, at the very least, sit in your back garden and let nature send your creativity in new directions.
If you drive to work, from your house to an office building, it is absolutely imperative that you get out and admire nature. If nothing else, get out during the weekend. But, you would be surprised how many business parks actually have woods with trails wending through them. As a compulsive walker, I've discovered over the years many of these hidden trails and have found them wonderful breaks from the visual monotony of most offices today.
If you are running brainstorming sessions or other idea generation sessions, move them out of your conference rooms and into the parks where nature can inspire participants to ideate far better than they could around a meeting table.
And, while you are enjoying springtime inspiration, do not forget my number one rule of creativity: bring a notebook with you. There's nothing worse then being inspired to have a great idea, only to forget it before you could begin work on it.
That's the end of this issue of Report 103. So go on, step outside and enjoy the spring!
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Happy thinking!
Jeffrey Baumgartner
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Report 103 is edited by Jeffrey Baumgartner and is published on the first and third Tuesday of every month.
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