How to Create a Flood of Innovative Ideas

For the past 25 years, I have been fortunate to work with more than 1000 innovators and business leaders at a variety of technology companies.

A common question I ask innovators is “How did you come up with this idea?” The answers to those questions have provided a deep insight into the way in which innovative ideas are developed.

I have recently assembled the many pieces of “innovation knowledge” I have collected over the past 25 years into a system that allows companies to identify, develop and protect innovative ideas. I call the system “Innovation Success Blueprint” and provide a brief summary of the system below. Organizations that use this system can increase revenue, create a competitive edge in their market and develop an innovation culture that produces a steady flow of new ideas.

I’ve worked with many companies that execute a few of the eight parts of the system. But, to get valuable results from your unique innovation plan, you must execute all eight activities to generate an “end-to-end” innovation system. Companies that focus on all eight activities see powerful results and develop an innovation culture that produces a flood of innovative ideas.

Here’s a brief summary of the Innovation Success Blueprint:

1. Create a Unique Innovation Plan for Your Company — Ignite a creative fire within your organization to produce innovative ideas that are vital to your success. This activity includes determining goals for your innovation plan, getting company leaders “on board” with the innovation plan, and developing innovation teams.

2. Discover Innovation Opportunities — Learn to identify “innovation seeds” that grow into valuable business assets. These innovation seeds are the starting point for brainstorming and ideation sessions. You can find these seeds in customer feedback, market commentator articles, and industry trends. As you develop an innovation culture within your company, employees will begin to automatically identify innovation seeds on a regular basis.

3. Consistently Generate a Flood of Innovative Solutions — When you begin discovering innovation seeds, your team begins developing innovative solutions that may include new products or enhancements to existing products. These innovative solutions distinguish your company’s products in the marketplace giving you a competitive edge.

4. Capture and Track Every Innovative Idea — Capture every idea so nothing slips through the cracks. You need a simple system for employees to submit ideas — something they can do quickly when they have a “flash of brilliance.” If people cannot easily submit ideas, they may wait until a later time and possibly lose the idea.

5. Evaluate and Implement Key Innovations — Prioritize and implement the best innovative ideas to increase revenue. Some ideas are not commercially feasible, or should be deferred to a later time. It is important to consider multiple factors when evaluating innovative ideas. And, your innovation review group needs to have a diverse membership from different parts of the company to fully evaluate the innovative ideas.

6. Protect Innovative Ideas — Secure intellectual property protection for key innovations to prevent others from copying your unique product features. You should evaluate key innovations to determine which forms of intellectual property are appropriate for the ideas. And, be sure your company agreements have the proper intellectual property clauses so the company owns those assets.

7. Systematize the Innovation Process — Make innovative thinking a daily habit throughout your organization. Consider adding innovation-related tasks to checklists and process lists so the topic of innovation becomes an integral part of all business activities. Make innovation part of the company goals and individual goals to emphasize the importance of innovative thinking.

8. Create an Innovation Culture — Build team engagement while developing profitable ideas. An effective innovation plan creates an innovation culture throughout the organization. Innovative ideas come from all parts of the company, not just the research and development group. When you celebrate and reward innovative thinking, all team members are motivated to make innovation a daily habit.

By following the Innovation Success Blueprint system, your company can develop a steady stream of market-leading innovations that provide a strong competitive advantage.