In the old days it was common to have “Ideas”-boxes around the office. Staff contributed with new ideas on how to do stuff more efficiently or even suggested new products or services. Today, given the rapid pace of digital innovation, it is even more important to making sure that the company leverages ideas from staff, partners and customers. Here are two reflections on this:

  • Make sure you have a team in your organization that is responsible for the innovation management-process. The team in itself is not responsible for coming up with the ideas, but it’s responsible for facilitating the gathering, consolidation and prioritization of the ideas. Put online tools in their hands, such as idea-sites with support for voting and collaboration, make sure the team meets at least bi-monthly in workshops, invite external “movers and shakers” and equip the team with access to key analysts. Connect with both internal and external users.
  • Empower the team to decide what goes into proof-of-concept-paths and what goes directly into a broadening of the scope of existing products and services.

Recently I wrote a post about establishing an innovation lab… and my latest video is on this topic:

[tubepress video=”71W24Uksm6Q”]