The Virtues of Structure

Most innovative organizations realize that process helps insure they have a constant stream of creativity and innovation that can be channeled into business benefits.

The innovation process doesn’t have to be large and cumbersome but is should address some basic questions.

How do we generate ideas?

How do we capture them?

What do we do with them once captured?

How can we give ideas room to grow while balancing our investments of time and money?

How do we tell if an idea is viable?

When and how do we kill ideas and move on?

When and how do we expand ideas and test them with an audience?

What are our innovation priorities? Why?

What do we do with great ideas that don’t align with our goals?

These questions, like the process defined around, them shouldn’t be so cumbersome that they encumber creative thought.

Process, applied in the right measure, is critical to developing viable business ideas.

The hard part is finding “the right measure.”

Comments

[ann michael]

Hi Wally!

It sure does (although sometimes the ideas are tough too!).

a

[ann michael]

Sean,

I'll have to do a little research on this and see what I find, but that's one of the reasons I tried to emphasize "the right measure". You can't (and don't want to) try and control everything.

Honestly, IMHO most communication and decisions occur in informal channels and the formal channels are only used to bring everyone up to speed (and helping insure everyone is moving in the same or compatible directions), document the outcome for posterity, or sometimes to compensate for an organization that doesn't have healthy informal channels.

Great point, though!
Ann

[Wally Bock]

Getting ideas is the easy part. Humans do that naturally. What happens next, capturing ideas, evaluating them and turning them into innovation takes system, discipline and work.

[Sean Howard]

Hey Ann,

I've been reading a bit lately on a number of blogs about the "shadow" side of an organization. I think I came across it on the amazing Johnnie Moore blog, but can't recall.

Would love to know your thoughts/experiences with this concept. The idea that any system put in place has to allow for the "non-controlled" part of the organization that actually accomplishing innovation and even day to day activities. It's the "secret" conversations. Whispered exchanges. Favors. Etc. Things done without approval or documentation...