Five Keys to Effective Idea and Creativity Management

Start-up companies are stereotyped as being these highly creative environments. But, many of them struggle when it comes to working with new ideas. They either lose their best ideas because they do not have a way to evaluate them or they have so many ideas that they are simply overwhelmed. I have personally seen companies stifle creative input so they can get their employees to focus on a direction and move forward. But a company’s ability to harness the creative energy and inject it into their products, services and culture have found distinct advantages which separates average companies from greats.

In order to manage creative ideas, you have to understand that there are different types of ideas. Some ideas are strategic. They offer a big picture idea for solving a problem. Other ideas are organizational. This type of idea takes different pieces of a puzzle and pieces them together in a way that solves a problem or addresses specific issues. The last type of idea is details. These ideas only pertain to a specific aspect of a problem, but cannot solve the entire problem by itself.

The first step in managing ideas is to properly set expectations with your employees. Remember, no one is obligated to use an idea. The company will try to use ideas; but, not every idea is going to fit in line with the company direction. Second, there should be no political reprisals for coming up with alternative ideas or points of view. Finally, assure people they will get credit for their contributions.

Usually, it is easy to come up with ideas. But the next step is being able to collect them in a consistent fashion. I believe that if an employee believes enough in his idea, then he should be willing to dedicate a little energy towards pursuing it. So, each individual should be able to describe their idea, the problem that it solves and the approach.

Another aspect of managing creativity is being able to compare alternative ideas and make a decision about them. This is common when you have ideas that solve different business problems. You need to have a process for making a decision on which approach to take. If both ideas are valid, then the authors of the ideas should work to write the business arguments for each idea and identify pros and cons. Then, put it in front of a decision committee for evaluation and make a decision as fast as possible. If you cannot be decisive about these choices, it will cast fear and doubt across not only this decision, but every decision that may remotely relate to the topic.

Once decisions have been made, you need to incorporate ideas into your product or services. It is often easier to incorporate ideas into service offerings or your organizational structure, because they often do not require formal documentation. But, if an idea is going to end up in a product, it is best to incorporate the idea into either the requirements documents or functional specification documents. To ensure consistently, the process for writing these types of documents should start with collecting all the ideas regarding a topic. Again, the authors of these documents are not obligated to use the ideas, but they should be encouraged to do so. Additionally, a section of the paper should be dedicated to giving credit to those whose ideas contributed to the paper.

One last piece of managing ideas is being able to evaluate an idea without the constraints of requirements. This is particularly hard for upper management to understand and is often viewed as a waste of time. But many ideas solve different business problems and explain a number of opportunity costs that need to be evaluated. In going this extra mile, your decision makers will feel like they are making a more educated decision. This results in a greater sense of conviction regarding their decisions and more stability in management decisions.

By embracing the creative environment, your employees become empowered and generally happier. Management will have the tools it needs to listen to its employees and use these ideas. Most importantly, these tools will provide management with the ability to move with conviction instead of being driven by fear, doubt and insecurity. Most importantly, the ideas that make it into your product will separate you from your competition and from the rest of the market. It is no wonder that many great companies have found this philosophy to be one of the most important keys to their success.


Five Keys to Effective Idea and Creativity Management - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Piper's Website.

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