This article describes the main reason idea management projects tend to underperfom.  It then provides an insight into a proven 4 step methodology for successfully implementing idea management.

Why Idea Management systems underperform
Although idea management systems are seen as a crucial driver for large organisations to become more innovative, they have to be seen as a tool supporting ‘a more widespread organisational change. These systems need to support a process and an organisation, not the other way around. There are scores of cases of companies that buy and deploy a system without the required consideration given to what needs to be in place for such a system to deliver its full value.

In our practice we most often see idea management systems being deployed with a lack of focus. The organisation has not scoped the problem(s) they want to be solved and identified the people that should  participate in solving them. If you open up the system to a large group of people without a clear question many employees will enter the ideas they have been walking around with and couldn’t sell. This creates a tsunami of poor ideas overwhelming management that cannot evaluate properly because they do not have the capacity to do so. Because the quality of the ideas is low management will not increase resources to evaluate the ideas. This results in neither being able to evaluate ideas properly, give feedback to employees, nor find the good ideas. The lack of feedback leads to disgruntled employees who feel the organisation is not taking them and their ideas seriously. The lack of good ideas lead to disgruntled senior management that feels they are wasting budget. On average such implementations do not last very long.

This wouldn’t be such an issue if you could stop, rethink and try again. However, you have just lost your employees trust. The organisation will need years to forget that, in their eyes, their ideas have gone to waste.

Gary Hamel wrote the following analogy to playing Golf in an article called Innovation Hacker:

“Imagine that you coaxed a keen, but woefully inexperienced golfer onto the first tee at Pebble Beach. After arming the tyro with the latest titanium driver, you challenge him to split the fairway with a monster drive. You promise the neophyte a $100 bonus every time he hits a long bomb that stays out of the rough, and another $100 for every hole where he manages to break par. But what you don’t do is this: You don’t give him any instruction—no books, no tips from Golf Digest, no Dave Pelz and Butch Harmon, no video feedback, and no time off to perfect his swing on the practice range. Given this scenario, how many 200-yard drives is our beginner likely to land in the fairway? How long is he likely to stay avidly devoted to the task at hand? And what kind of return are you likely to get on the $2,000 you spent on a bag full of high tech clubs and the 450 bucks you shelled out for a tee time? The answers are: Not many, not long, and not much. And no one who knows anything about golf would ever set up such a half-assed contest.”

So how do you set up idea management?

1- Focus

What are you trying to achieve?

There are many valid reasons to drive ideas from a crowd. You may be particularly interested in the positive PR it generates, you can have an actual problem that needs solving, or you may want to transform your organisation to become truly innovative. You may also believe, like me, that nobody is as smart as everybody.  Each very valid perspectives, but each requiring fundamentally different approaches. Choose!

What problem needs to be solved?

Well scoped and phrased projects deliver significantly better results. Ask the right question, and you’ll get significantly better answers. Spend a significant amount of time getting this right.

Who are you going to ask for ideas?

Different target groups require a different approach and will generate different ideas. For example, if you are targeting experts you can set a slightly wider scope, can ask a more difficult question, can supply greater amounts of background information, and can rely on peer acknowledgment far more then when you are addressing your entire employee base. Furthermore, you can expect well thought out and described ideas. Such a project will be set-up significantly different than a project aimed at all your staff.

Who is asking?

When a project is genuinely solving someone’s problem people are more inclined to help. Both the problem and the person having the problem should be genuine. Needless to say (genuine) support from executives will help. The word ‘genuine’ is overused on purpose. Your asking an investment from people in your problem, take it seriously!

Who do you need on your team?

Given the answers to the above questions, you will need a team to manage the project. You will need a mix of the following skills: communication skills, skills to make the project (seem) lively and vibrant, skills to coach and motivate participants, and skills to select ideas.

What are the criteria you will use for selection?

There are a number of parameters influencing the use of selection criteria. The idea you are looking for will be somewhere on the scale between close to current business and “radical innovation”. Selection criteria for radical innovations will neither be numerous nor precise, while criteria closer to existing business will be. Another parameter influencing criteria is the target group. The more “expert” your audience, the more criteria you can lay on them. We always advise to communicate your criteria and ask people to explicitly deal with the criteria to improve the quality of the selection process.

How will you reward people?

This is a difficult and much debated issue. Rewards differ from plain peer group appreciation to winning large prizes. Rewards need to be addressed in an ideation project and they need to be appropriate to you organisations culture and ethos.

2- Preparation

Finalise the phrasing of the question. Revisit the question of what problem you are trying to solve, having in mind the above subjects. Is it still sufficiently scoped and precise?

Draft a communication plan. Depending on the above choices you will need to communicate with your target group before, during, and after the project. Draft 3 scenarios. Plan for a low response, an expected response, and for a high response.

In the focus phase you have described your team. You will probably need commitment from people to help you. You may need experts that can help you evaluate or enrich ideas, you may need executives to sponsor your initiative, or the communication department for PR. Get their commitment and train them for the project.

Set up your idea management system. If you are involving a large group of people, you will need a system to automate the workflow and store the ideas.

3- Running the project

When all is set, send out the invitations to the participants or communicate the start of the project in another manner. Methods vary from an email,  press releases, to large kick-off events.

Monitor the quality of the ideas. More important than the number of ideas is the quality. There are two types of quality. The first type is the level in which the ideas solve your problem. The second is whether ideas are phrased well enough to be evaluated. If the first type of quality is not sufficient, your scoping needs attention. If the second type of quality is lacking, you will need to start returning ideas and coach people on expressing themselves.

In your plan you have set goals for the number of ideas coming in and planned action when these goals are not met. During the project you need to monitor the number of ideas coming in and take appropriate action when needed.

Monitor the user discussion about ideas. These discussions can lead to interesting insights you can use in your communication. You also need to monitor for negative sentiment and react to them when they occur.

Depending on the nature and size of the project, organising off line events can help keep the project vibrant and keep the buzz alive.

4- Evaluation and Selection phase

Communicate the closing of the project and communicate the number of ideas received. Select the ideas based on the defined criteria. You can chose to use a system for the selection process or plan a selection workshop. When the ideas are not too numerous a selection workshop is most suitable. A system works well to handle large workloads and helps to log the decision process.

We recommend to plan the follow up on the selected ideas and include that in the communication about the selected ideas. The feeling of having contributed is an important driver for participants to contribute in future projects.

Conclusion
Implementing effective Idea Management is about asking the right people the right questions. Then training and coaching them to become effective at answering them. There are also great software tools to support Idea Management. However, focussing on the tools alone is detrimental to the overall success of idea management.