Report 103

Your newsletter on applied creativity, imagination, ideas and innovation in business.

Tuesday, 2 April 2007
Issue 103

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.

BUSINESS CASE MANAGEMENT VERSUS IDEA MANAGEMENT

Recently, I have spoken with people at a number of organisations which are developing a system of what I will call business case management. Business case management is a bit like idea management or a suggestion scheme, except that instead of submitting raw ideas, employees submit detailed business cases.

A couple of the people whom I have talked to were potential clients and users of Jenni idea management (http://www.creativejeffrey.com/jenni/). In following up after our on-line demonstration, they told me that top management had decided to focus on a system in which employees, individually or in teams, could submit detailed business cases. This, they felt, was a better system because employees would be forced to think through their ideas in more detail and defend those ideas in detailed business cases. The result would be fully developed business cases rather than just ideas. A sure fire winner, they thought.

Some of the other people whom I have spoken with approach the matter more intelligently. That's not surprising. They are clients and they are using both Jenni idea management solution and a business case submission system as two separate innovation processes.

Such an approach makes sense. Indeed, it is important to separate ideas which are rather small things (although they can be built up and added together to build bigger concepts) from business cases which are much more than just ideas.

Ideas Are Small, Business Cases are Big...

An idea can form the basis of a business case, but that business case should eventually incorporate many ideas. Indeed a business case relying on a single idea is unlikely to be a good proposition (see “One Innovation Wonders in the 7 November 2006 issue of Report 103: http://www.creativejeffrey.com/report103/archive.php?issue_no=20061107 for more about why this is the case).

An idea, however, might be a simple product improvement. It might be a process improvement. It might be a method of improving workplace efficiency. It might be an improvement on someone else's business case.

Who Reaps the Rewards..?

Moreover, an accountant in a firm may have a brilliant marketing idea, but lack the expertise to write a business case about it. Even if she does have the expertise to write the business case, her superior may well not permit the accountant to spend time on researching and writing a business case that benefits another division in the company. So, what does the accountant do? Share the idea with a marketing person who will get all the credit and reap all the rewards for the idea? Not likely. And the more generous the rewards are for good business cases, the less likely the accountant is to share her idea with people better able to develop it into a business case.

Why Some Companies Don't Like (Raw) Idea Management...

One reason some companies opt for business case management is because they have had bad experiences with what they call “idea management” and what we call “suggestion schemes”. In our experience, most suggestion schemes fail because they are little more than electronic suggestion boxes inviting all ideas no matter how relevant or irrelevant they may be to current business needs. Typically, so many widely varied suggestions are submitted to the electronic box (usually an e-mail address or database) that the person or team in charge can no longer manage the ideas. So they stop doing so. Employees, meanwhile, see that their ideas are not being processed and, as a result, stop submitting ideas. And the scheme stagnates.

Some companies deal with this by fast processing ideas. Every idea must be reviewed and the owner responded to within a set time frame. Unfortunately, because the suggestion scheme invites any idea whatsoever, a lot of non-actionable ideas come in. They may be good ideas. They may be great ideas - but are not ideas which the company can implement at present. As a result, the idea owners are informed that their ideas have been rejected. This is highly demotivating and discourages further idea submission. So, the system stagnates.

In our experience, open suggestion schemes fail within 12-18 months of the implementation for the above reasons.

Real Idea Management Is Ideas Campaign Based...

That's why, when we designed Jenni idea management, we devised the ideas campaign approach to capturing employee ideas. Based on proven creative problem solving methodology, Jenni allows managers to set up ideas campaigns based around specific business needs, such as: "How might we improve the usability of our mobile telephones?" and employees respond with their ideas in a collaborative, on-line space.

The result is that instead of a hodgepodge of mostly non-actionable ideas, you get a batch of relevant ideas that aim to solve a specific business problem. Those ideas are evaluated and one or more of them might well become the basis of a business case (Jenni provides tools for this).

Such an approach is much more sustainable, because it focuses on short term events, and generates more usable ideas. Innovation challenges also motivate creative thinking (compare a brainstorm session where there is no challenge or problem posed to the brainstormers with a brainstorm session where there is a challenge written on a whiteboard at the front of the room).

A Wider Range of Idea Submitters = Greater Creativity...

Moreover, ideas can come from anywhere, any department and even from business partners, customers or other participants to the user's idea management programme. Thus you bring more varied thinking and greater creativity to your problem solving. And that results in more creative ideas which when implemented become profitable innovations.

That said, business case management schemes have their place and can be an effective means of encouraging employees to be more entrepreneurial in their work. In particular, they can be highly motivational to the entrepreneurial employee with big ideas.

On the other hand, Jenni idea management can and does help firms get started on powerful business cases. A great idea submitted to an ideas campaign can form the basis of a great business plan. A manager with a new business proposal can launch an ideas campaign to improve upon her base idea as well as to encourage detail related ideas.

So, we idea management should not be an alternative to business case management. No way. They should complement each other.

Indeed, such is the interest in business case proposal systems, we are working on a business case submission component for Jenni. This will be an optional tool that allows managers not only to set up ideas campaigns in Jenni (which they can do now), but also to set up a call for business case proposals – or any kind of proposal, which employees can respond to. This enables managers to use Jenni's powerful evaluation tools with business cases – as well as ideas.

If you'd like to learn more, contact me..

MOTIVATING INNOVATION PARTICIPANTS TO PARTICIPATE

Here's a scenario I am seeing with all too much regularity. An organisation, it might be one like yours, launches a new trial innovation initiative designed to generate ideas. The system is launched, participants are informed and ideas are requested. Then: nothing! Few if any employees even bother to log into the system in order to share their ideas.

No matter how good your innovation system is, if no one even participates, no ideas are going to be generated. The problem at this stage of your innovation process is not about the system. It is about motivating people to participate. (That said, if your system is Jenni idea management software service (http://www.creativejeffrey.com/jenni/ - we would already have offered you the advice in this article!).

Why People Do Not Participate in Innovation Inititives...

In our experience, low participation rates for innovation initiatives are the result of:

* Time and priorities. Your colleagues, like you, are very busy and many of their tasks are urgent. Unfortunately, because innovation is perceived as being a fuzzier business concept than traditional activities such as accounting, marketing analysis and preparing PowerPoint presentations (to name but a few), people have a tendency to give innovation a low priority. They feel more comfortable doing something concrete and familiar – such as filling in a spreadsheet with financial info – than doing something fuzzy like dreaming up ideas.

* Communication. Sometimes people simply do not know enough about what is going on and what their roles are in the innovation initiative. As a result, they decide not to participate.

* Fear. Perhaps fear is too strong of a word. But, creativity, innovation and idea management tools like Jenni are not typical business activities. Some people are uncomfortable about trying out unusual new tools and processes. Others believe they are not creative or have no ideas and so may be afraid to participate and fear appearing foolish to their colleagues.

How to Make People Participate...

Fortunately, we have also found a few effective approaches to overcome the above hurdles and which will motivate people to participate in your innovation initiative.

* Communicate. It's obvious. But make sure people know what is going on. Informal, enthusiastic e-mails and announcements are far more effective than formal, business-like announcements. Try to demonstrate as much enthusiasm as you can in your communications. If participants are in one location, consider putting up some posters and putting announcements on your Intranet site.

* Rewards. The offer of a reward, even a very small reward, can be very motivational. A chocolate, a piece of fruit or similar for each idea submitted; or a larger reward such as a gift certificates for meals at a local restaurant for the people who contribute the most ideas can be very effective. At the beginning of your idea management program, you want to encourage participation, so rewards should focus on quantity of ideas rather than quality of ideas.

* Competition. If two or more business units or locations are participating in your trial initiative, why not instigate a friendly competition between them? Inform everyone that the unit which generates the most ideas will win a reward, for example a party that the losing unit has to organize.

* Survey. Asking all participants to complete a survey about their experience with your initiative not only pushes people to participate, but provides you with data which can help you improve the initiative and the tools before a full-scale roll-out.

In fact, motivation is a critical component of any innovation initiative. When planning yours, you need to think not just about the technical details of your system, but also how you will ensure that your colleagues will want to use your system.

Want some expert advice on motivating people in your firm to participate in your system – contact me. I'd be delighted to help.

If you are looking for a service on which to base your innovation initiative, take a look at Jenni Idea Management Software Service (http://www.creativejeffrey.com/jenni/).

NASA CLOSES DOWN ITS IDEA LAB

For the past two decades, one of the most creative and far thinking of the world's many idea labs has been Nasa's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC: http://www.niac.usra.edu/). Sadly, this body which awarded grants for developing such ideas as genetically modified plants for Mars, a “New Worlds Imager” for seeing planets in other solar systems and a space elevator for lifting goods into orbit, looks set to lose its funding and so will be unable to fund such experiments in the future.

Having been a child in the 1960s and 1970s when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon (I missed Yuri Gagarin's first manned orbit by a few months), Skylab and Muir space stations orbited the earth and the Space Shuttle was developed, space exploration has always been exciting to me. Indeed, I expected there to be regular flights between the Earth and moon, Mars colonies and interplanetary transport systems in place by now.

So, I was particularly saddened to learn of the demise of one of Nasa's most innovative branches.

DIFFERENT PEOPLE – THE SAME IDEAS

One of the bugbears of blind idea submission tools – that is suggestion schemes or idea management tools in which ideas are submitted into a closed system where participants cannot see the ideas – is duplication of ideas.

Everyone who has set up such a system complains about the same thing: they see the same ideas submitted over and over again. Indeed, one of their most time consuming tasks is dealing with duplicate ideas.

This is why tools like Jenni idea management (http://www.creativejeffrey.com/jenni/) use an open idea space where people can see each others' ideas and build upon those ideas. As a result, there is virtually no duplication of ideas, but there is a significant collaborative building of ideas.

If you are shopping for an idea management tool and if for some unimaginable reason you do not opt for Jenni, it is critical to select a tool that enables users to submit ideas in a transparent environment where they can read each others' ideas. Otherwise, you will waste huge amounts of time dealing with duplicate ideas. To make matters, submitters of duplicate ideas will be upset if you reward others for the same ideas that they have submitted.

Duplicate Ideas Affect All Kinds of Idea Submission Activities...

Unfortunately, different people have the same idea all the time. How many times have you had what you thought to be an original, creative business idea, only to discover that someone else has had the same idea and has profited handsomely from it? How many times have you Googled what you thought to be an original idea only to discover that dozens of people have had the same idea?

This becomes a problem when members of the public submit ideas to large companies. If the idea is good, it is likely that an employee of the company may already have had the same idea and may even be developing the idea. This becomes a bigger problem when the member of the public sees the company implementing the idea and assumes the company stole the idea. To prevent such problems, many companies only accept an idea which the owner has patented (and can prove it) as this provides proof of ownership of the idea.

Why Are There So Many Duplicate Ideas Running Around..?

The reason several people will submit the same idea to a suggestion scheme or propose the same idea to an organisation is that people are subject to similar influences all the time.

An article in the business section of a newspaper or a piece on the TV business news that is relevant to your company can inspire many people in your company to think about applying the theme of the story to the company. As a result, they all have similar ideas.

Likewise, a product weakness or flaw motivates creative thinkers to try and find ways of improving the weakness. Many people will, not surprisingly, come up with similar solutions. This is particularly true if one solution most elegantly solves the problem.

What can you do..?

If you are implementing an idea management system, use one like Jenni that provides a transparent idea space. This allows people to see each others' ideas and build upon them rather than submit the same idea over and over again.

If you are actively soliciting ideas from customers or the public, use a disclaimer that limits what rewards you are obligated to provide for ideas. People with big ideas will patent them first anyway.

You can also use a tool like Jenni with a transparent idea space for collecting ideas from the public. This creates a public on-line forum where people can build upon each others' ideas and become more actively involved in providing suggestions to you. The result can be a community of creative thinkers at your service – and not just a stream of ideas.

You can also reward all ideas, whether you implement them or not, with small rewards. Small rewards do not make people rich, but small rewards do reward people for participating in your idea management process and so motivate everyone to continue to participate. And that is good for your long term idea management process.

Give it a try.

LATEST IN BUSINESS INNOVATION

If you want to keep up with the latest news in business innovation, I recommend Chuck Frey's INNOVATIONweek (http://www.innovationtools.com/News/subscribe.asp). It's the only e-newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on all of the latest innovation news, research, trends, case histories of leading companies and more. And it's the perfect complement to Report 103!

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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