Here are the six steps to implementing a successful idea management system in your business:
1. Determine the “How” and “Why”
Two of the things that would shape an organization’s success in terms of implementing an idea management system is when the company strongly understands how to do it and exactly why it needs to be done.
Connect your purpose and reasons with your idea management strategies. Let it shape the direction of implementation to ensure success. Also, identify your product’s target groups so that you can correctly identify the things they are using it for and how you can use this to your advantage in your company’s IMS implementation. Accept Mission offers four different packages that can help you with these things.
With our mission to make every customer’s innovation a success, each package includes:
- Single point of contact: One of our innovation and platform experts will be your point of contact, guiding you to get everything off the platform.
- Innovation Toolbox: You’ll have access to our complete Innovation Toolbox with screenshots, templates, ‘how to’ documents, tips and tricks, and best practices.
- After care: After implementation, we offer an extra service during the first few months.
- Then the customer success manager takes over.
- Templates and guides: We provide useful templates to create missions (challenges) and guide administrators through the selection process.
- Video recordings: We will record and share the training sessions we provide so your team can replay them for training purposes.
- Our team: You can find many support articles, ‘how to’ and courses in the ‘Academy’ section of the platform.
2. Start your idea generation process
Innovation is impossible without ideas. That’s why it’s important for all organizations to generate ideas creatively. Idea generation involves making, developing and acquiring new ideas or solutions to real problems and opportunities.
Idea generation should be done to:
- Invent new products and services
- Improve current processes
- Identify opportunities and new markets to enter
- Determine the changes needed to implement within the business
- Refine competitive advantage and strategies
Two of the most used methods for generating ideas are brainstorming and mind mapping. Brainstorming involves discussing the problem or challenge at hand, along with solutions and strategies the company can use to solve or address it. The goal is to gather ideas and collaborate with others to bring those ideas to life.
On the other hand, mind mapping is a great tool to better understand the complexity of a subject. It helps people gain a clear and complete perspective on a given topic.Innovating mind mapping makes information processing faster by putting ideas into diagrams with the main idea at the center of the screen, along with related information, words and images as their ramifications.
Due to the changes in the current work landscape, you can do these things digitally. You can look for platforms that allow sharing and collaboration that will speed up the process and provide more inspiration/direction on what to do next.
3. Evaluation and Selection of the Best Ideas
When many brilliant ideas are presented, choosing the best ones can be a little difficult and confusing… Remember that selecting the best ideas is a smart way to reduce the risks that accompany innovation, as innovation projects require time, money and manpower to implement.
To make the decision-making process much easier, you can agree on some criteria to judge these ideas with. Understand what you really want in a solution (cost-effectiveness, time needed to implement, etc.) and use that to decide which ones to go with.You can also verify that the ideas presented are aligned with your business objectives, project timeline, and desired ROI.
To simplify this step, go to the software that allows users to vote, score, comment, or share their thoughts and insights.
4. Turn the best ideas into new projects
After the selection process, the ideas must now be converted into projects that increase market profitability and economic sustainability. Progress must be coordinated at all stages and excellence must be observed from “roadmap” to “solution delivery”.
Within the creation of project portfolios, values such as business impact and strategic fit must be used to provide and report a complete analysis of innovation. The success of projects must be monitored for a clear perspective of their progress.
5. Managing the Innovation Portfolio
Strong portfolio management innovation helps organizations achieve more profitability, better customer service and a higher innovation success rate. As business conditions constantly change and more innovations come to life, investments and resources are at risk. minimizing risk factors before launching an innovation portfolio is crucial.
To optimize and measure the performance of innovation projects, portfolio management must be applied. The strategies used must be flexible. At the same time, a clear focus and balance must be observed in facilitating the development of product innovation.
As a defined course of action is determined through a managed innovation portfolio, companies can achieve a clear and defined positioning in the market in terms of business needs, skills and competition. Accept Mission’s innovation management tool helps companies engage, collect and transform ideas into valuable innovation projects that scale overall growth by:
- Estimating time and money calculations
- Applying smart decision making (pass/not follow next stages)
- Increase innovation success rate by implementing innovation projects step by step
- Innovation Portfolio Readiness Portal Overview
- Reports on measures of progress and success
