In a previous blog entries regarding Ideation, we presented an ideation framework that covers the end‐to‐end process of generating, qualifying, and securing approval for new product and service ideas. In this article, we delve deeper into the front‐end of this framework: idea generation. This article presents a practical approach to generating high potential new product and service ideas for companies driven by innovation and new technologies.
Many companies, both new ventures and established corporations, do not place sufficient importance on front‐end idea generation. They get caught up in an initial concept, and do not take time to explore the wealth of knowledge, insight, and ideas both inside and outside their organizations. As a result, their thinking is limited, they begin making investments in sub‐optimal ideas, and soon they are trapped into trying to make an average idea generate above average returns.
The impact of this is profound – the vast majority of a company’s total lifetime investment in developing, launching and growing a product or service is built on the initial foundation laid in the idea generation phase. If the company moves forward with sub‐optimal ideas, it will consume vastly more time, money and other resources, take much longer to secure market traction and have to manage much higher risks than it otherwise would have.
By contrast, successful repeat innovators focus on maximizing the idea pipeline. They work diligently to identify as many new product and service ideas as possible from a full range of internal and external sources. They then manage these ideas like any pipeline, applying quick but effective screening criteria to identify the very best ideas. In this way, these companies are developing a hidden, but very real and powerful, competitive advantage over their less insightful competitors.
As detailed below, a best practice approach to idea generation comprises three elements:
• Developing an innovation strategy
• Generating ideas internally
• Generating ideas externally
We will explore each of these elements in the blogs to come...
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