The reason for the demise of most startups is thought to be a lack of market need. However, the fact is in the failure of finding the right opportunity at the right time.
In fact, the lack of ability to find the right problem needs the application of ideation techniques. Without it, any step towards innovation can be riskier than you may presume.
What is Ideation Management? How Is It Applied Within A Business?
Ideation management, also known as idea management, is primarily the innovation process including gathering information, idea creation, idea evaluation, and implementation for future developments.
Ideation can be used both internally and externally.
When ideation is applied internally, enterprises gather ideas from employees, who are involved in product or service development. Ideation happens during group activities like prototyping, brainstorming, storyboards, etc.
When applied externally, enterprises involve their existing loyal customers who already use their products. With customer feedback, businesses can figure out what improvements are required in their products or services.
Innovation courses for employees and managers are now a new trend to prepare your business team for flawless ideation management.
The Process of Idea Management
The process of idea management begins with finding the right improvement opportunities in your products and services. The earlier stage is internal, which requires employee involvement to search out, brainstorm and analyze the potential risks and problems. External help is also sought by looking at what other companies and industries are implementing in their products and services.
The first stage is generating ideas, where the most prioritized ideas are evaluated and weighed against one another. The best one is chosen for further implementation.
The second stage is implementation, where responsibilities are given and success is continually monitored during the implementation process.
5 Best Ideation Techniques You Can Use
Innovation management consulting helps your employees to make ideation techniques as part of their regular routine. Several ideation techniques are there to generate the best ideas, including these five techniques:
1. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is the most effective yet the most difficult technique to implement. You simply need to choose a team of focused individuals having diverse ideas. The aim is to build upon each other ideas instead of contending the entire ideas. Therefore, a focused and responsible team is required.
Additionally, limit the brainstorming session to about 20 minutes, where everyone gets an opportunity to write an idea and then they can build from it.
However, make sure your team is used to innovative thinking. If not, innovation training is the best way to get your team together and prepare them for ideation management.
2. Method 6-3-5
This method is another form of brainstorming where 6 people write 3 ideas in only 5 minutes. Then the sheet is passed on to the next member to build upon the ideas. This prevents any employee from dominating the process.
3. Prototyping
Creating a prototype helps employees see how their product is going to turn out. Feedback can be taken from both internal and external sources (customers and stakeholders).
4. Five Whys Analysis
Developed by Toyota, the techniques demand the employees to ask 5 Whys to identify the main cause of the problem. Whenever you are faced with a problem, you have to answer 5 Whys to evaluate your decision.
Firstly, you state the problem; then, you ask Why 5 times to each answer to know what actually happened.
5. Storyboards
A storyboard help companies to create a story around their idea of improvement in a product or service. How the customer would interact, react, and evaluate it.
How Can Ideation Help Your Business?
Ideation management is crucial for your business because without it, you would fail to deliver to customers what they really want. Therefore, it’s important to generate ideas both internally and externally (from the customers).
In businesses, customers are the demi-gods who can make or break your business. Ideation management is one way to get ideas from existing customers to improve your products and services.
Moreover, when you involve your loyal customers in the ideation process, there are 77% greater chances for them to stick to your products as you aim to provide with the highest product value.
Therefore, through the customer feedback process, your company benefits in a two-pronged way:
a) Collection of ideas to improve your product.
b) Enhance customer experience as well as brand loyalty.
This, in fact, is a win-win situation for both the customer and your business.
Ideation management is a part of innovation. Therefore, innovation training can help your employees/managers implement ideation techniques both externally and internally in the best possible way. so, why not invest to innovate and take your company to another level?
4 Benefits of Ideation Management
Ideation management is beneficial for your company in a different way:
- Ideation leads to greater customer engagement.
- Ideation betters customer loyalty.
- Ideas are generated both internally and externally.
- Ideation process involves in-time evaluation and assessing the potential flaws or failures.
According to statistics, most new ideas fail. In fact, about 90% of them fail. Therefore, this makes it important for the businesses to do the hard work early on by developing and assessing the ideas from the beginning. You can save both time and money by choosing to invest in the most promising ideas.
Innovation management consulting brings in a great opportunity for your business to properly train your employees for ideation management. When the staff is well-trained, there is a thinner chance of failure. For more information, feel free to get in touch with us.
