Creating New Products and Services by David Goldsmith

Author:David Goldsmith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BenBella Books

Activity I: Ideation

The activity of Ideation includes a single phase, also called Ideation, that encompasses both the Idea Bank and the wide-mouthed funnel hopper illustrated in Figure 4.6.

Simply put, ideation is the gathering of ideas. It is based on the notion that your odds of selecting your best idea correlates to the number of good ideas you load into the funnel. Think 100 > 7 > 3 > 1. Although loading ideas into the hopper seems like a simple enough task, most leaders do not ideate well—they either fail to capture ideas as ideas present themselves over time, or when pressed to come up with ideas on the fly, these leaders stop searching too soon—which diminishes the potential of their development process from the start.

Over a span of about five years, I worked as a facilitator for a group of noncompeting CEOs who met quarterly to review best business practices and share ideas. During one meeting, the group set out to replace one of its members who often missed meetings. They quickly generated a list of seventeen potential CEOs and wanted to get down to the task of selecting their best option. I encouraged them to hold off on proceeding with the screening process until they had given themselves another couple of days to add to the list of replacements. Twelve more names were added after a day of thought.

On the third day, they felt ready to proceed with their selection process, but again, we held off and continued ideating. The group conducted some research and added three contenders, bringing their list to a total of thirty-two names.

After screening their prospective members against broad and specific criteria, the CEOs were surprised to find that their final two contenders were actually the thirty-first and thirty-second names they had placed onto their original list. Had the group of CEOs rushed through Ideation, they never would have considered their best “idea.”

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