by Ron Shulkin

There’s more than the front end of innovation for organizations to concern themselves about.  Once an IDEA management system is rolled out, a plethora of ideas ensue.  Most software tools have attributes to help promote good ideas for further review, but then what?  The software out there typically then falls short. And this is exactly where true INNOVATION management systems make the difference.

Collaboration Tools in Idea Management

The wonderful Web 2.0 tools, embraced by the enterprise, can facilitate the collaboration required to capture, share and assess ideas, and help promising ideas bubble up to the top.  But these same attributes may not be the best weaponry for organizations to shape ideas in a fashion that readies them for the market.  Certainly we want the crowd to participate in the process.  And for sure we want good ideas to develop in order to keep users participating.  So collaboration is good.  But more is required!

SWOT Analysis Works

More pragmatic and effective business tools are required to shape incremental ideas (that show promise) into radical concepts.  Generalists from amongst the team can assess innovative concepts to discover what strengths exist.  They can envision what opportunities present themselves if the concept is deemed worthy.  And subject matter experts can eyeball potential threats, whilst the naysayers within the group can help identify the weaknesses of the proposal. 

SWOT analysis is a logical, fundamental approach to make sure innovation concepts are truly ready to have budgeted investment dollars assigned for further exploration.  SWOT takes a long hard look at a concept’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.  This tried and true method also wraps facts around an innovation concept so management understands why the team believes in the original ideas and insights from which the concept emerged.  Management can see the solutions proposed to address the black hat’s contributions  (like the threats and weaknesses) so then are free to appreciate the strengths these concepts bring.  This helps facilitate the new opportunities involved.

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Is It Feasible For YOU?

SWOT analysis is just the first step of the shaping process. It is a qualitative approach that still offers enough freedom to choose the discussion topics.  But in order to reach the next level of the new product (or service) development cycle a final quantitative assessment is required:  the feasibility study review.  During this review phase an organization looks at the viability of new concepts using different scales, such as the cost benefits, the commercial potential or the strategic fit within existing product lines. 

The real issues are two: 

1.  The criteria for this last phase of analysis are unique to your organization’s culture.  You have a certain way of looking at things and your innovation management software should be flexible enough to support your approach.  If shelf space, or safety or government compliance are  more important issues, they need to be on the list of aspects you assess. 
2. Each contributor needs to understand what the consensus is on each of these scales and be able to both measure and justify their own perspective.

IDEA management systems are built around ideas. They can serve as the backbone of your company’s ideation process.  It can supply the collaborative tool to facilitate organizational engagement as well as strategic alignment.  These Web 2.0 attributes, along with strong science from software experts, can ease the ideas along toward further processing.  And good idea management software programs all have this.

Real INNOVATION management systems also have a pragmatic and effective process to drive innovation towards execution, to merge ideas into concepts and to ease the shaping of concepts on their way toward the finish line of new product development.

Ron Shulkin is the Vice President for North America at Cognistreamer.  He writes extensively on idea management software and tools to facilitate the innovation process.  He can be reached at 847.949.4290 or ron.shulkin@cognistreamer.com.