Inefficient idea management is a top 5 barrier to innovation

Inefficient idea management is among the top five barriers companies and their innovation managers must overcome. Other pains are market uncertainty and changing consumer preferences, cultural barriers, rapid technological change, speed to market and misalignment with company strategy.

These barriers are often somehow intertwined. Market uncertainty and changing consumer preferences are intertwined with rapid technological change.

Inefficient idea management will be related to cultural and organisational barriers.

I have seen a variety of practices in idea management, and many of them lead to no results. In some cases, they can be harmful and damage the company's trust amongst people and teams.

The idea box

It is the low-end practice of idea generation. In most cases, there is no context. Company-wide, people are invited to post ideas to innovate.

The good thing is both:

• People company wide are invited, which tears down silos and include everyone in the company who feel engaged to think about the future.
• Innovation is seen as not limited to technical innovations. An accountant receivable can think of better ways to follow up on sent invoices based on behavioural predictions built on history. At the same time, customers have a better overview of due invoices, for example.

Why an idea box is a bad practice:

• Most of the time, it ends up being what it's named, an idea box. Anything goes, and most of the posted ideas are not really innovations.
• Because of the previous, there is no follow-up on most of the ideas posted, which is breaking trust.

The occasional brainstorm

It makes sense to brainstorm with a team on possible innovative ideas. However, the problem with this approach is the exclusion of many roles in the company. These brainstorming sessions are often closed workshops for management, innovation, or product managers.

What is wrong:

• A lot of insights from client-facing and supporting roles are not taken into account. Let alone the ideas of real customers and suppliers.
• Most of the time, these brainstorms are one-offs. The results depend on the moment.

What to do instead

What you need is a structured approach to idea generation and management, as well as follow-up and open communication.

Ideas generation and management can be organised as an ongoing activity or a contest, depending on the organisation. In both cases, you need to set up a clear process of idea generation, validation and execution.

It is because of the clear process that you need a timeline. Even when the timeline is 'ongoing', it is defined. It is impossible to communicate and manage the process without such a timeline. An idea generation process is needed to make decisions.

When you organise a contest, you will have deadlines for posting ideas, validating them, and prototyping and testing them.

When idea generation is ongoing, you might have quarterly deadlines when ideas are validated, rejected, or accepted. These quarterly deadlines can be themed according to the company's strategy.

But in both cases, you can and have to express the different deadlines and the outcomes. These deadlines and outcomes give you the opportunity to communicate and engage.

1. Make sure to engage company-wide, and you do not forget customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
2. Look for opportunities such as deadlines, evaluations, and awards to communicate about your innovation activities and engage everyone in the organisation.
3. Clearly define and communicate the process:
   1. Idea generation: when people or teams can post initial ideas.
   2. Idea evaluation: when ideas are evaluated and accepted or rejected for further work.
   3. Idea testing and validation: when prototypes of the first iterations are tested and improved until they become an MVP.

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