IDEA



Definition
Great innovations are built on great ideas. The foundation of great ideas is the identification of meaningful and clearly defined problems or opportunities. Rooted in this, new great products, services and concepts can grow. 

Companies that have ended up in the idea gap have problems with generating new good ideas and cannot manage the idea creation process. They may have issues to improve or renew the formats in which they are working with idea creation and implementation. Companies in this gap tend have problems with coming up with ideas at all, or keep coming up with the same ideas over and over again. Another risk is that the company in this gap come up with good ideas, but it the ideas do not get enough attention or are not implemented or followed up well.

It is relevant for companies that are in this gap to overcome their issues, because coming up with new ideas and managing new ideas is what leads a company forward. The idea creation is part of the innovation process and innovation is needed for companies to stay competitive and create their own future.

Diagnostic
 To determine whether or not a company is facing an idea gap, a series of questions can be asked:  How distruptive are the ideas that your team has developed? What is the success rate of your endeavors? How likely is it that the ideas get implemented and deliver attractive returns on investment?

Case examples
Citigroup 

Citi Venture is a company that provides financial services and products to consumers, corporations, governments and institutions. The company makes strategic investments and establishes formal partnerships with companies to create technology capabilities and to actively shape emerging business models.

Citi Venture introduced “Citi Ideas” in 2011, which is based on the software called Spigit. This technology enables groups and individuals within the organization to come up with new ideas, build upon each other’s ideas and rate existing ideas to solve problems. This is made as a playful and competitive challenge to engage a wide range of participants. The incentive encourages extended participation from all units of the company. (Anthony S., Duncan D.)

As part of this project, Citi organized a global idea challenge for its 265,000 employees. More than 45,000 people generated ideas. These people belonged to 13 different business units from 97 countries. In the end more than 2,300 ideas were created and discussed. For the project to generate something valuable and useful, Citi emphasised the importance of:

-           <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">The involvement of senior managers <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">, to make sure that different levels of emloyees were engaged.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:-18.0pt; line-height:150%;mso-list:l0level1lfo1">-           <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Clear problem definitions, <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">to generate clear and relevant suggestions to solutions.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:-18.0pt; line-height:150%;mso-list:l0level1lfo1">-           <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">A plan for execution, <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">to encourage commitment for changing the future.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">(Anthony S., Duncan D.).

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%">Genicore 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Our next case illustrates how to stimulate new thinking and how to make idea creation actually happen. To create new ideas and leave old tracks, people need to “look outside the box”, but it is easy to say and harder to do. If a leadership team is inside the box and does not know how to get out it needs something that stimulates its participants to find new patterns of thinking, which can generate ideas.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">The Gothenburg located firm Genicore works with business- and system development and use an interesting method of how to leave the box. When they search for new employees, they look primarily for persons who have musical talents. First of all, the managers see this talent as a sign of the person’s level of creativity. They use the musical talents as a measurement for the employees’ creative skills. The managers dedicate one hour a day for each employee to play their instrument. Sometimes they play together and sometimes alone. This approach has several backgrounds and effects, many connected to idea creation. Putting this activity as a part of the every day schedule is a method of letting the employees go outside the box and find their creativity. This creative session supports and encourages the employees’ idea creation.

Solution: Escaping the gap
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Sports, travels, surprises, parties? These things make people go outside the box. A traditional method: go to a fair and get inspiration.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Companies that are struggling with the idea gap must find ways to have a proper idea supply chain. With a functioning idea supply chain companies have constantly good raw materials for developing their company and create their future.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- Has your leadership team identified and documented meaningful challenges? '''

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">If the leadership team does not open up and actively search for challenges or problems in the environment in which they play, they will probably just choose to work and think in the old and safe tracks. To identify challenges, companies must get to know and spend time with their customers (Anthony S., Duncan D.). There are numerous methods of how to implement this. The company can arrange focus groups to get a more profound knowledge of preferences, needs of customers and problems that they see with existing products. Personal interviews can be used for deeper understanding. To visit customers’ in their home environment (Ulwick, 2013) is relevant to understand the context and every day life of the customers; how they live, what they do and how they use products. Such observational research may be more valuable than for example observing people in focus groups or experiments, since it reflects the reality. In artificial environments customers are not as likely to act truthfully. (UK Government).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">When doing research like this, it is important for the searcher to know what it is seeking for. In general, understanding the customers’ needs is the goal, but “need” is a word with multiple and vague meanings. There for the goal should be to search for and find “jobs to be done” for customers. <span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The definition of such a job is a ”fundamental goal customers are trying to accomplish  <span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">or a problem they are trying to solve in a given situation” <span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"> (Ulwick, 2013). If the job is perfectly executed it will reflect genuine customer value. (Ulwick, 2013)

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- Has your leadership team systematically analysed problems and documented findings? '''

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Good ideas have their roots in problems that need to be solved. If an existing problem is solved, it will have potential to be profitable if enough people see it as a problem. To be able to solve a problem, the problem must first be clearly defined. From a clearly defined problem a distinct solution can grow. On the contrary, if the problem definition is vague and intangible, it will be very hard to find a concrete solution to it. (Anthony S., Duncan D.)

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">The revolution of social media has led to new tools that help companies to generate more and better ideas. Social media makes it possible for companies to get knowledge about the problems and needs of their customers from the customers themselves. It does not require a lot of resources from the company to establish a forum for their customers to communicate. This sort of communication, interacting with people through social media, is more proactive and a very helpful tool in the process of generating new ideas. (Anthony S., Duncan D.). The ideas generated through social media are probably more in numbers due to the extent of the mass-communication, and they also run a chance of actually being better ones because the ideas clearly have roots in the customer base’s opinions.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Though, it is not enough to just settle up a Facebook page or Twitter account. There must be people in place to work with the response and feedback the company reaches through these sources. The issues that are unveiled must be analysed, to see if enough people see it as a problem and if the right resources are in place for this specific company to deal with the problem. An evaluation must be done and the results must be documented for it to make sense to interact with customers through social media.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- Has your leadership team composed, trained and led teams in the process of creative problem solving?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">The right mechanisms must be in place to allow more employees to participate in the innovation process. With involvement of all possible brains, a successful idea creation process can be real. This could work as a form of internal crowdsourcing to unveil all the potential creativity throughout the organization. Using senior managers together with younger talents and to have mixed teams with diversified skills is one method. For ideas to be created and shared, the relevant company must have a culture that allows for this. It is essential that not only some individuals are listened to while others are ignored. Additionally, there must be platforms and time for ideas to be shared. (Anthony S., Duncan D.)

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">It is important to put emphasis on that ideas must be anchored in a “job to be done”. Companies should foster employees to this way of thinking, so not lose time and energy at ideas that have no potential. (Anthony S., Duncan D.)

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- Has your leadership team identified key constrains that limit the adoption of the innovation? '''

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Companies need to have a way to get outside their industry domain to take the step into external ecosystems of innovators and entrepreneurs. This means that meaning looking somewhat blindly ahead in the same way that you’ve always done will cause you to miss out on not-so-obvious opportunities. This could be treated as a paraphrase of the old “think outside the box”.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">How to get outside the box? Click on the links and find some suggestions:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">http://creatingminds.org/tools/tools_ideation.htm

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- Read the case about Genicore, they use a specific method of “getting out of the box”.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">A pathway for small ideas <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"> that might not otherwise find a path to implementation: This is to promote the flow of ideas and avoid some of them to be hindered due to lack of time or resources. It is also about capturing ideas that become lost when other projects are prioritized or when another product is stealing all attention and money.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">- Has <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">your leadership team systematically explored several alternative solutions? '''

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Companies must have a useful tool for organizing and analysing the needs of the different parties involved in the same problem. This tool can assure that the company understands and considers all expectations, before narrowing down a solution.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Having defined the stakeholder and "jobs to be done", this tool is used to analyse the big picture of the problem, in order to find areas of opportunity in unmatched needs of the market.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">This is probably one of the easiest tools to use with just filling in the pattern according to the following steps, companies can have a complete picture of the problem identified.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">One. '''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> Definition of a real problem and place goes in the centre of the diagram.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Two <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">. In each of the spaces around the centre circle identify who are your main stakeholders.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Three. '''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> The "outcomes" of each "stakeholder" are identified.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Four. '''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Once the outcomes are detected this are divided in desired and undesired. Identifying that the desired benefits are those that want to maximize and therefore the sacrifices aim to minimize.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;line-height:150%">'''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Five. '''<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Benefits and sacrifices are assigned in the corresponding section.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;line-height:150%"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Six <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">. Finally, the big picture is discussed. Areas of opportunity (benefit or sacrifices) emerge.