Goal-Driven Innovation

Over time, we've learned how we believe innovation works best for everyone involved.

We've written them down here as a quick cheat sheet to read through and double-check before you run your innovation.

Centralizing your innovation and building an innovation muscle over time is something no one can take away from you. Give your business the power of employees and customers who know their ideas will be heard.

All that starts with having a place, a home for ideas and innovation.

Ideanote is that place.

Make Innovation Easy

We started because we were frustrated with long paper forms and bureaucratic processes.

We are here to remove entry barriers and democratize access to the tools for innovation. Ideanote is designed to be user-friendly, making the idea submission process as simple and intuitive as possible.

Don't take that ease of online idea management platforms as an invitation to complicate the process.

Innovation only works when people want to participate. It is a constant battle between organized chaos and a lack of innovation. Too little structure leads to chaos; too much structure kills engagement.

Impactful innovation can be done with a simple form and few steps. It will likely be engaging, efficient, and ultimately successful for everyone.

If you plan a process with 14 Fields on the Idea Form and 18 different Phases, it is time to return to the drawing board. That's ten too much on each of them.

Reconsider, negotiate with stakeholders, ask your end-users. Cut down the complexity to the necessary.

The system is there for the people and the impact, not vice versa.

Win with Goal-Driven Innovation

We build software to help businesses with purpose-driven ideation.

If you ask us, you should only collect ideas if there's a stakeholder interested in implementing ideas for that area. Collecting ideas should serve a strategic goal or address a real challenge.

   
• If your crowd submits ideas for a topic of interest to your business, there's a chance for a feedback loop. You can prioritize ideas, implement some, and give feedback on others.
   
• If, instead, your crowd is asked to submit general ideas without structure or aim, then the chances of relevant feedback and the percentage of implemented ideas will be infinitely small. Without such a feedback loop, your crowd will grow increasingly frustrated, and managing ideas will slow you down.
   
• While you could passively source ideas from, e.g., customer feedback, employee surveys, or conversations, you should not actively ask them for ideas unless you're interested.

Aimless, unstructured innovation hurts long-term engagement and drives no impact.

One way to ensure that you're not losing focus is to sit down and define your long-term innovation goals that are relevant to your business.

Aligning all innovation endeavors with strategic goals and continuously evaluating initiatives against milestones helps keep you focused.

At Ideanote, we've created a comprehensive list of 10 Innovation Goals that you can use as a starting point.

Delegate and Celebrate Together

Delegation is a vital part of the innovation process. You create a sense of shared ownership over the process by assigning roles and involving various team members in different stages of idea management. This saves time and enhances the effectiveness of the innovation initiatives.

Delegation also involves not holding power. As Molly Graham said, it's about "giving away your legos." Anything else might lead to resentment and hinder innovation in the long run.

When team members feel trusted with responsibilities, they are likelier to take ownership and put in their best efforts. They feel empowered to make decisions, which can lead to faster and more innovative problem-solving.

You might even create a program for innovation champions that gives innovation training to select individuals.

Celebration is equally vital in fostering a culture of innovation. Acknowledging all contributions, big or small, and celebrating every success is crucial. This recognition can boost morale and motivate your team to participate actively in innovation initiatives.

Ultimately, you want to empower every team member to contribute to innovation. Foster a culture where participation is valued and recognized, creating a healthy environment for new ideas.

Celebrating success together reinforces the message that everyone's input is valued and that innovation is a collaborative effort. It encourages a sense of community, where members feel included and celebrated for their contributions.

Grow Level by Level

Start small and expand thoughtfully as you build your innovation ecosystem.

Begin with a single team or department and scale up as the innovation process refines, maintaining quality and authenticity.

Get comfortable with whatever feels natural as you grow your innovation.

For most businesses, that might start with sharing internal ideas for one team on a specific project.

Here are examples of levels that you can master one by one as you scale your innovation over time.

   
• Goal to Goal: Start with supporting one strategic goal, then expand to the next.
   
• Internal to External: Start with ideas from your business, then external partners, then customers, then potential customers.
   
• Incremental to Disruptive: Start with ideas for minor improvements and changes that show instant value, like a cost-saving campaign. Then, work towards long-term disruptive innovation, like new products or technology.
   
• Department to Department: Connect with stakeholders one by one.
   
• From top-down to Bottom-Up: Start with a challenge that the C-Suite demands, and work towards challenges on the agenda of individual teams.
   
• One-Off to Continuous: Start with a single challenge with a deadline and work towards ongoing idea collections without an end date.
   
• Static to Collaborative: Start by collecting ideas via widgets with minimal end-user involvement. Then, work towards collaborative editing or even letting your crowd help you evaluate ideas.
   
• Local to Global: Start by implementing ideas within a local team or office. These innovations will be expanded to other branches and, eventually, globally across the organization. This encourages the sharing of best practices and learning from diverse cultural perspectives.
   
• Individual to Collective Expertise: Begin by tapping into the ideas of individual experts or thought leaders within the company. Progress to harnessing the collective intelligence of various teams, departments, and the entire organization, fostering a shared knowledge and collaboration culture.
   
• Analog to Digital Transformation: Start with manual, analog processes for capturing and implementing ideas. Gradually shift towards fully digital, automated systems that streamline the entire innovation lifecycle, from idea submission to evaluation, implementation, and measurement.
   
• Reactive to Proactive Innovation: Initially, focus on reacting to immediate needs or problems with quick fixes and solutions. As the innovation culture matures, it shifts towards anticipating future trends, customer needs, and technological advancements to develop innovative solutions proactively.
   
• Isolated to Integrated Systems: Start with standalone innovation management tools or platforms. Over time, integrate these systems with other business processes and platforms (such as CRM, ERP, or project management tools) to create a seamless workflow that supports innovation at every level.
   
• General to Targeted Innovation: Begin with broad, open-ended innovation campaigns that solicit many ideas. As you learn more about your organization's needs and opportunities, tailor your innovation efforts to focus on particular themes, challenges, or strategic goals.
   
• Quantitative to Qualitative Impact: Initially, measure innovation success primarily through quantitative metrics such as the number of ideas generated or the cost savings achieved. Over time, incorporate qualitative measures such as employee engagement, customer satisfaction, or brand perception to understand your innovation efforts' impact fully.
   
• Short-Term Wins to Long-Term Vision: Start by focusing on innovations that promise immediate results or benefits, building momentum and support for the innovation program. As the organization becomes more comfortable with innovation, shift focus towards long-term strategic goals that require patience, persistence, and a vision for the future.
   
• Siloed to Ecosystem Innovation: Initially, innovations may be developed in isolation within specific departments or teams. As your innovation capabilities grow, look to build an innovation ecosystem that includes internal stakeholders, suppliers, partners, academic institutions, and competitors to co-create and share innovations that benefit the wider industry or sector.
   
• Accessible to Complex: Start by encouraging forward-thinking contributions that align with the organization's vision and long-term strategy. It's fun to shape the future together instead of dwelling on the past. Later, you can look at solving some of the most technically complex business challenges, such as frying chips without oil.

All of these are ways of expanding your innovation ambitions at your own pace over time. In the end, your organization that has experiences and ways of working across all of them will know how to build on its strengths.

It's important to remember that innovation is a journey, and it's okay to start small and gradually expand your efforts.

By strategically navigating this path, you can ensure that your innovation program drives short-term wins and aligns with your organization's long-term vision.

Let's make ideas matter, together.