Becoming innovative requires reflection and learning

The essential part of becoming an innovative company is getting enough ideas, being able to effectively select the good ones, and further develop them.

We advise our clients on a daily basis on ways to successfully implement idea management. And, as an Innovation Consultancy we try to constantly renew our tools and services, meaning that we also need to be effective at idea management. So we have to put our money where our mouth is.

I’m writing this post as a way to share our internal reflections on idea management with you based on two simple examples. Reflecting and learning are important factors that can keep your idea management process from stalling. Reflection and learning are crucial to make sure employees do feel they are taken seriously and do not stop generating ideas. These examples show how small daily matters can frustrate idea management.
The first case was a situation where I was discussing planning of the development of our innovation software with a colleague. Another colleague overheard the conversation, got a brainwave, and stepped over to discuss it. Of course initially we listened. However, as we didn’t see a direct fit with the work we were doing and the progress of our meeting stalled we stopped being receptive. The creative colleague got the feeling we didn’t understand the idea and explained it again. We then got into a spiral where we politely tried to tell him we wanted to continue work and he wanted positive feedback. The end of the story was that the employee walked of somewhat frustrated, we never got back to the idea, we didn’t store it, and I’m ashamed to have to say I cannot recall the idea.

The other example took place in a meeting with technical employees where we were trying to finalize the specifications for a new application in our new Innovation Toolkit. Such work is difficult because focus is required and you do not want discussions for hours. At some point one of the technical people came up with a new very innovative possibility for our software. Initially you allow for some discussion, but then you do not want to start from square one and you need some time to think it through. Again, the employee senses others not being fully receptive and explains again and again, each time with growing frustration. The result is a great energy drain from the meeting and the meeting stalling. In this case we later did come back to the idea.

So what did we learn?

- Creativity and meetings with the purpose of delivering results do not seem to mix well. A way we are trying to deal with this is to postpone discussion on the idea until the meeting results have been achieved. This prevents progress draining from the meeting.

- We started to use idea management software to describe the ideas and store them. This may sound strange for a relatively small company, but it has proven very fruitful. It really helps us in shaping our thoughts on the future.

- I always go back to the person and address (possible) frustration.

- During lunchtime on Fridays an employee presents to the other employees to share knowledge and we let creative juices flow. It is important to have such regular sessions. It’s better to do it regularly and briefly, than to do half day workshops every 6 months.

- Most difficult is to have a shared general understanding of good timing to present an idea. We haven’t cracked this one, but are looking at a ways to improve this. The idea management system helps as you can post at any time you like, however discussing your brainwave with colleagues can be more satisfying.