Idea development is a natural process. It’s the result of problem solving activity, its the result of deliberate acts of creation, its the result of many elements that make humans wanting to do new things. For the sake of this discussion let me separate the development of ideas into two opposite camps; on the one side we have scientific ideas that are result of deliberate inquiry and on the other end we have ideas that result in having people enabled to expose their ideas as they develop creatively.
Ideas can be sourced from open environments via clients, partners and solution providers; or ideas can be generated through internal sources like employee campaigns. There are various methods that can be used to develop ideas and these vary depending on the intended outcome. For the sake of this post, the focus is on the corporate that is more engaged in services related activity for example the bank, insurance provider, technology support organizations, etc.
The critical question is; should there be different approaches to developing ideas in services companies compared to industrial organizations? Are the processes that are followed the same, or can we use a one size fits all (squeezing ideas through the funnel approach)?
We are entering an era where acts of co-design, co-production and co-delivery are shaping entirely new ethos around idea development, deployment all the way through to benefits realization. If you have a large services organization where you need to capture the essence of what’s important to your success, having a small central team re-designing the future business will not be sufficient. You need to crowdsource your ideas across the business and develop an eco-system of collaboration and participation.
“Ideation” of old is under re-think and re-design. Shaping a new world of generating ideas across the enterprise and extending this out into partners, customers, competitors are pushing the boundaries of having to decide what to focus on by when…