Idea Management

The ‘Best’ Ideas are Rarely the Most Creative

Frequently, brainstorms, idea campaigns and similar idea extravaganzas end with a vague notion of choosing the best idea. The problem here is that a truly creative idea, the kind of idea that has the potential to become a breakthrough innovation is seldom the best solution to the problem or the best path to achieving a goal - for the very simple reason that highly creative ideas are original. They cannot directly be compared to existing notions, warns Jeffrey Baumgartner.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:41:29-08:00October 28th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management|Tags: brainstorm, brainstorming, breakthrough ideation, breakthrough innovation, creative ideas, Creativity, disruptive innovation, efficiency, Ideation, incremental innovation, invention, new technologies, original ideas|

Innovation Foundations at PSA Peugeot Citroën

In my previous article ‘Establishing the Foundations for a Balanced Innovation Portfolio’ I discussed the important role played by key innovation foundations in the success of a systemized collaborative innovation program. Even though you’re in a less than perfect position, the important step is to recognize the relative strength (or weakness) of each foundation, then put actions in place to improve each one. In this article I'm sharing the experiences of PSA Peugeot Citroën on their first ever collaborative innovation campaign.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:33:45-08:00October 22nd, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Idea Management, Organization & Culture|Tags: automotive industry, business focus, Business Model Innovation, case study, collaborative innovation, company culture, foundations, innovation challenge, Innovation Management, innovation team|

How R+D Can Build Marketing Support for its Ideas

Last week, we introduced the topic of R&D's frequent lack of marketing support for its ideas and some culturally ingrained attitudes that can contribute to this. This communication gap is frustrating, especially for those in R&D whose role it is to develop and sell-in new initiatives. This week, we continue this discussion and describe strategies to help overcome resistance.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:33:41-08:00October 21st, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Organization & Culture|Tags: Collaboration, Communication, Competition, competitive advantage, consumer benefits, credibility, Ideation, marketing, opportunities, R&D, research and development, target customer, target segment, technical features, trust|

Why Marketing Doesn’t Want R+D’s Ideas – and what to do about it

One of the most common frustrations expressed by R+D professionals is that marketing lacks interest in their ideas. Why is this often the case, and what can be done about it?

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:27:32-08:00October 14th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Organization & Culture|Tags: budget cycle, Collaboration, Communication, Competition, competitive advantage, consumer benefits, credibility, enterprise innovation, idea support, Ideation, marketing, opportunities, organization funnel, Product Development, R&D, research and development, target customer, target segment, technical features, trust|

Are you Called to be an Innovation Leader?

If you want to be innovative, you need to be a leader. No individual or organization has become an innovative one by copying the actions of their competitors or peers. That may seem obvious, but evidence shows that most people fail to realize this critical fact.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:27:24-08:00October 14th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Leadership, Organization & Culture|Tags: apple, career path, Competition, context, contextual ideation, creative leaders, Creativity, enterprise innovation, Failure, Ideation, incremental improvement, innate leadership, Innovation Leadership, inspiration, leadership, risk management, SaaS, small ideas, software as a service|

Anatomy of an Effective Front-End of Innovation Cycle

The Front End of Innovation is that fuzzy bit where someone, or a group, conceives a new business concept. We say “fuzzy” because it’s the part of the innovation process that is the most purely creative. It’s a step into the unknown to create something new and calls for different tools and techniques. Because it’s fuzzy, we think it’s useful to break it down and look at it step-by-step.

Ideascale2019-11-28T09:30:53-08:00October 1st, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Strategies|Tags: brainstorm, brainstorming, Collaboration, Creativity, customer research, front end of innovation, fuzzy front end of innovation, idea convergence, Ideation, in-depth article, innovation lifecycle, Innovation Strategy, market research, R&D, risk-taking, virtual ideation|

Creativity: Start from Scratch Conceptually

Business, governments and individuals can easily become bogged down by procedures and processes that harm efficiency and kill innovation. The obvious solution is to start from scratch. Here's how to do it, according to Jeffrey Baumgartner.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:21:36-08:00September 17th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: approval processes, bureaucracy, change, Change Management, Creativity, efficiency, front end of innovation, Ideation, innovation life cycle processes, process management, red tape, reinvention|

A Simple Exercise in Anticonventional Thinking

Anticonventional thinking forces out of our normal pathways of creative problem solving to consider a wider range of potential solutions. Jeffrey Baumgartner explains how it works via a simple example.

Ideascale2021-12-05T08:18:19-08:00September 10th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management|Tags: anticonventional thinking, brainstorming, core issue, creative problem solving, creative solutions, creative thinking, Creativity, divergent thinking, Ideation, open-ended questions, Problem Solving, questions, strategic thinking|

Happiness, Meaning & Innovation

Can an organization be too customer oriented? What are the consequences of letting short term requirements of existing customers cannibalize the exploration of your own an agenda? How can a sense of meaning be reinstalled in disillusioned development organizations? Read Susanna's latest blog post to find out.

Ideascale2021-12-03T14:44:36-08:00August 28th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Innovation Psychology|Tags: accountability, company culture, Creativity, customer satisfaction, development, Employee Engagement, employee satisfaction, happiness, Product Development, sales|

The Missing Ingredient of Crowd-based Idea Generation

With the growing popularity of open innovation, crowdsourcing and web-based suggestion schemes where the best ideas are decided by popular votes, many of us tend to forget a very simply truism: creative people do not follow the crowd. At minimum, they do their own thing. At best, they lead the crowd.

Ideascale2021-12-03T14:41:48-08:00July 31st, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Idea Management, Open Innovation|Tags: creative ideation, creative innovation, Creativity, Crowdsourcing, Ideation, ideation platform, ideation software, innovation platform, innovation software, Open Innovation|

Designing the Perfect Ideas Competition

What's the most effective way to design an idea competition that doesn't just result in a huge pile of ideas, but enables teams to implement ideas that will help to make your organization more creative? Jeffrey Baumgartner shares one practical framework for making this happen.

Ideascale2021-12-03T11:31:08-08:00July 17th, 2012|Categories: Collaborative Innovation, Idea Management, Open Innovation, Organization & Culture, Strategies|Tags: brainstorm, Collaboration, Competition, creative problem solving, Crowdsourcing, how to, HR, idea competition, idea evaluation, Ideation, innovation tool, motivation, Problem Solving, project management, project proposal, proposal evaluation, reward system, team building, team management|

Generating Creative Ideas with Hieroglyphics

Using hieroglyphics for ideation is an unusual but potentially viable lateral thinking technique from Tom Wujec's excellent book, Five Star Mind.

Ideascale2021-12-03T07:46:40-08:00May 23rd, 2012|Categories: Book Review, Idea Management|Tags: assets, brainstorming, hieroglyphics, Ideation, lateral thinking, liabilities, pictographs, puzzles, Tom Wujec|

How to Pick the Right Idea?

Imagine you have just finished a successful brainstorming session and you're sitting in front of a long list of great ideas. Now what? Gijs van Wulfen shares five important learnings on how to pick the right idea.

Ideascale2021-12-03T07:35:08-08:00May 17th, 2012|Categories: Front End of Innovation, Idea Management|Tags: brainstorming, choosing ideas, Creativity, Ideation, vision|

10 Tips for Successful Innovation Teams

Innovation projects are said to fail 90% of the time. Why is this? Part of the answer lies in the special “innovation teams” who are mandated with finding breakthrough growth in large corporations. Setting these teams up for success is vital, yet corporations often fail when doing this. This article provides a collection of ten tips that serve as a talent management roadmap for growth companies in search of high-performance teams that deliver.

Ideascale2021-12-20T16:03:42-08:00April 12th, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Organization & Culture, Strategies|Tags: conflict, cooperation, empowerment, entrepreneurship, Failure, goal setting, HR, in-depth article, innovation team, inspiration, knowledge transfer, leadership, market research, progress, skills management, startup, storytelling, team building, team management, Teamwork|

How to Design a Provocative Creative Challenge

If you want creative ideas, you need to invest your creative energy not in ideas, but in understanding the problem and formulating provocative challenges, instructs Jeffrey Baumgartner.

Ideascale2021-12-02T18:11:43-08:00February 22nd, 2012|Categories: Idea Management, Life Cycle Processes|Tags: adjective, call to action, challenge driven innovation, change perspective, competitors, creative challenge, creative energy, creative ideas, creative thinking, Creativity, customer service, customers, deconstruct, emotions, evaluation phase, extreme, framing, goals, humor, idea generation group, Ideation, ideation contests, innovation process, manager, market share, metaphor, negative consequences, provocative challenge, risk adverse, root cause, solutions, superlatives, team, user interface|