Let Ideas flow

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." - Jesus Christ (Gospel of St. Luke, 18:16).

In the same vein, leaders of all organizations need to say to their employees: Let your ideas come to us, and do not hinder them, for our future hinges on you and your ideas.

But alas! In many organizations, all too often, ideas don't flow freely, due to a variety of reasons. And the organization pays a huge cost for this.

An Idea Management System

One pathway for a smoother flow of ideas is an idea management system. 

An idea management system (IMS) is a systematic, formal mechanism for soliciting, generating, developing, evaluating, selecting, implementing, spreading and learning from large numbers of ideas from anyone and everyone in the organization. 

Idea Management System: A schematic representation

The below table identifies how an IMS can assist at each stage of the innovation process.

Innovation Phase	How an IMS assists
Idea generation – finding, adapting or creating the ideas	An IMS can encourage employees to put forward ideas. An IMS can help in the process of refining and iterating those ideas by allowing others to share their perspectives and inputs.
Idea selection – picking which ideas to use	By letting others be aware of suggested approaches, ideas can be tested early through sharing of experiences, limitations and impacting factors, and possible improvements to the idea.
Idea implementation – putting the ideas into practice	An IMS can assist implementation if it records lessons learnt, identifies options that have and have not worked, and codifies what made the implementation successful.
Sustaining ideas – keeping the ideas going	An IMS can assist the embedding of ideas by outlining the need for an idea and providing a reminder of the problems faced before it came about.
Idea diffusion – spreading the ideas and the insights about them	By recording the ideas and the resulting action other areas facing a similar or parallel issue may be better able to see potential solutions.

(Table Excerpted from the Public Sector Innovation Toolkit, of the Government of Australia)

Many organizations from diverse industries, across the globe, belonging to the for-profit, non-profit as well as government sectors have been using idea management systems very effectively, in order to manage their innovation activities and improve themselves continuously.

In a later post, we shall explore different processes and tools which can be employed in order to implement and operationalize an idea management system.

Inspiration: 

1. Ideas are Free – Alan Robinson, Dean M. Schroeder http://idea-driven.com
2. The Idea Driven Organization - Alan Robinson, Dean M. Schroeder http://idea-driven.com