How can an idea management software service for business help with selecting ideas? A lot of work has been done on creating ideas, fostering creativity, and techniques for innovation management. However, it seems as if those who have done that work have looked no further than the generation element. When you put idea management software in place, you have that opportunity to generate ideas, but what do you do next? In fact, making decisions on ideas and implementing them is as important as generating them in the first place, if not more. It is through this phase that you can see the tangible benefits that come from listening to your employees: increased engagement, increased employee satisfaction, increased productivity, increased sales. If you don’t implement ideas, however, its entire impact will be lost.

Why You Must Create a Process for the Selection of Ideas

A lot of businesses have jumped on the idea management bandwagon without putting proper strategies in place. Hence, they wholeheartedly and enthusiastically get their employees involved and ensure management focuses on creating an open and transparent culture, but they have no idea what to do next. They have no idea on how they can select an idea to implement, in other words. If you find yourself in that situation, it is time to get around the table with your decision makers, and come up with a matrix to select the ideas.

Remember that the goal of innovation management is to make employees more involved in improving overall business processes. Hence, they should equally be involved in selecting ideas. Luckily, idea management software is designed to give people the opportunity to be involved in this element of the process. If you make sure that choosing ideas becomes part of employees’ responsibility, you also ensure that the time that a decision-maker has to spend on it is minimized, thereby further improving productivity.

So how is this done? First of all, you have to understand that every idea has value, but not every idea should be implemented. You also have to consider that “value” is not necessarily something that only your customer experiences. For instance, “value” can also relate to external suppliers, or to internal teams. It is about making life easier, cheaper, and quicker, so that productivity can be increased. This, in turn, brings value to the customer.

You do this through a five stepped approach:

  1. Create ideas, cluster them, and expand on them.
  2. Ask employees to explain how these ideas can help to meet company objectives.
  3. Understand that not every idea needs to be the next big thing.
  4. Test the idea, and particularly any assumptions you have made.
  5. Remember that everybody is somewhat resistant to change.

Are You Ready to Choose the Idea?

The vast majority of ideas will not get past the first, possibly second stage of the process. Hence, you immediately reduce the amount of time spent on ideas by decision-makers. In fact, they should only come into play at the fifth stage, as they are the ones who decide whether or not to implement an idea.