Nurturing Innovative Ideas in the Workplace 10 questions manufacturing businesses should think about Nurturing Innovative Ideas in the Workplace

Nurturing Innovative Ideas in the Workplace10 questions manufacturing businesses should think about

Nurturing Innovative

Ideas in the Workplace

“The new idea either finds a champion or it dies. No ordinary involvement with a new idea provides the energy required to cope with the indifference and resistance that change provokes...”

Tom Peters



Prof. Simon BoltonAssociate Dean (Research and Enterprise)21st June 2013

Who...

Focus: Bringing together design, management, and technology to generate and deliver ideas that create business growth



15million people a week

What...



£1bn

What...



Who...



To stimulate new thinking that could lead to growth...

Purpose of my talk...



broke the rule: hand dryers that dry your hands

Ideas that changed the game



broke the rule: touch screens can be used

anytime

Ideas that changed the game



No silver bullet solutions...



Changing world...

Savvy Consumers

European Melt-down

Global Competition



Assumption...

You are all good at something!



Nurturing innovative ideas can help accelerate growth...

10 important questions



How committed are top management to developing new ideas?

Nothing happens unless it has top management support and action!!!



How well do you reframe challenges?

The inability to define and redefine the actual problem is a key failure of ideas

(un-differentiated, me-too-solutions)



How well do you manage ideas?

Ideas generation is often an informal ad-hoc process and frequently occurs through

serendipity rather than deliberate management

- Desouza et al., (2009); Barczak et al., (2009); Murphy and Kumar (1997)



How systematically do you develop new ideas?

Effective idea management can increase new product sales by

7.2%- Innovation Excellence Study (2005)



How well do you support people to develop ideas?

A common mistake is a lack of support for ideas and the people developing

them, which results in missed opportunities

- Conway and McGuinness (1986); McGuiness (1990)



How well do you allocatetime for generating ideas? Most organisations greatly under

estimate the actual time needed to generate ideas, resulting in re-work,

missed opportunities and increased costs



How well do you facilitate collaboration?

Successful companies collaborate both internally and externally,

increasing capability, resources and creative input



How effective are the tools and methods you use to generate ideas?

There is often an over reliance on basicbrainstorming workshops. This results in ideafatigue and a lack of differentiated and aligned

ideas



How well do you select good ideas?

A lack of clear process and criteria for determining a good idea is a common

mistake, other than its ability to achieve ROI



How well do you differentiate between incremental and radical ideas?Companies often do not understand the

difference between incremental versus radical ideas (internal breakthrough may not

be radical in the market)- Davila et al., (2006)



Important issues...

3Things to

remember



Quantity versus Quality

Avoid focussing on generating as many new ideas as possible, focus instead on

maximising the number of good quality ideas which feed into your

NPD pipelineGoldenberg et al., (1999); Koen et al., (2001)



Internal versus External

Increase the importance of sourcing and implementing external ideas, particularly through collaboration

with customers, suppliers and partners



Ad-hoc versus Systematic

Ideas that are closely aligned to strategy and formalised, are more likely to

lead to a commercially successful product for the marketplace

Desouza et al., (2009); Barczak et al., (2009); Murphy and Kumar (1997)





Idea Generation Success Factors

• Build idea chains• Ensure strategy alignment• Utilize highly networked

individuals• Involve lead users

All factors published in conference paper; Chinneck & Bolton, (2013), ICoRD’13, Chennai, India.



Idea Management Success Factors

• Use a systematic process• Give available time for idea

generation• Establish a clear business

purpose• Continual idea commitment

All factors published in conference paper; Chinneck & Bolton, (2013), ICoRD’13, Chennai, India.



Nurturing Innovative Ideas in the Workplace

Thank You...Professor Simon [email protected]

Camille [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Nurturing Innovative Ideas in the Workplace 10 questions manufacturing businesses should think about Nurturing Innovative Ideas in the Workplace