5 Tips: Zen and the Art of Idea Management System Maintenance

Motorbike in a low angle shotAre you getting the most out of your idea management system?

Just like a high-performance vehicle requires tune-ups, it is important to revisit your innovation process for regular maintenance. Follow these five steps to ensure your system continues to run like new. Click on each post for even more info!

1. Educate Your Employees 

Do your employees understand how to submit ideas? Clarify any confusing details; you don’t want lack of education to impede the system’s progress.

2. Encourage a Culture of Innovation

Make innovation a natural part of the work environment.

3. Don’t Rely on Rewards

Part of maintaining a culture of innovation means you don’t need to rely on extrinsic motivators to keep the ideas coming.

4. Implement Co-creation

Open up the idea management system to your customers. Use them as a front-line resource for your market’s current needs.

5. Prioritize Ideas

What are you looking to improve? Choose which ideas to implement based on necessity, not the most votes or rank.

If you find employee engagement lagging or idea submission declining, use this guide to refresh your system. Implementing these steps ensures your idea management framework will remain in peak condition for years to come.

How Kraft Foods Continuously Innovates with an Idea Management System

Hot Homemade Chocolate PuddingWhat is co-creation, and how can it improve innovation in your organization?

Kraft Foods innovates using “co-creation” with their customers, which involves an ongoing dialogue between the two about what improvements Kraft can make. This practice has led to new ideas, packaging guidance, and insights into cooking habits. So, how does it work?

[Read more…]

Top Reasons Why Innovation Fails – Part 1

Young businessman having no ideaWhy do innovation initiatives fail? This Fast Company article introduces six reasons your organization may be experiencing setbacks.

In this blog post, I’ll dive in to reason #1: Not having a formal innovation management framework and systems. [Read more…]

How to Prioritize Your Organization’s Ideas

Ideas drive innovation. But how do you decide which ideas to implement first?

Learn how to prioritize your employees’ ideas so your organization can begin innovating.

How to Prioritize Ideas

In a previous blog post, we explained how you can gather ideas from your employees. Once you’ve gathered ideas from your employees, it’s time to  prioritize those ideas to decide which ones to implement. [Read more…]

8 Idea Management Software Tools

In my previous post, I provided a definition of idea management systems – and outlined a list of features that idea management systems have. We also looked at a couple of popular idea management systems in action.

In this post, I will provide a list of commercial idea management software tools you can buy – to build an idea management system at your organization. There are a large number of idea management tools available for purchase, but my post will focus only on tools from proven companies… [Read more…]