The Idea-Driven Organization: Unlocking the Power in Bottom-Up Ideas by Alan G. Robinson & Dean M. Schroeder

Author:Alan G. Robinson & Dean M. Schroeder
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2014-03-30T14:00:00+00:00

TEAM-BASED PROCESSES

Most organizations setting up high-performing idea systems today use the second and third archetypes of idea processes, the idea meeting and idea board processes, which are both team based. They can be ramped up much more quickly than kaizen teian systems, as they are integrated into the way that regular work is done, so they can start producing good results in a relatively short period of time. Team-based processes are designed so that people bring “opportunities for improvement” (OFIs) to their work groups or departments. An OFI is a problem, an opportunity, or an idea. (As an opportunity is the flip side of a problem, from now on we will use the word problem to mean both problems and opportunities.)

It is important that both processes encourage people to offer problems as well as ideas. Most people have learned through experience to view problems as negative, to be avoided or hidden. After all, no one wants to be blamed for them or to be viewed as a complainer for bringing them up. But because every idea begins with a problem, teams must learn to seek out and embrace problems, instead of avoiding them.

Opening the process up to problems will significantly increase both the quantity and quality of a team’s ideas. The quantity of ideas goes up because often the person who identifies a problem has no idea about how to solve it, but a teammate does. The quality of ideas is improved because the team brings multiple perspectives and much more knowledge to bear on the problem, so the solution will be better thought out. Sometimes, an idea is an unworkable solution to a real problem. In rejecting the idea, it is easy for people to miss the underlying problem. But by returning to it, the team can often find an effective solution.

We came across a good example of how this works at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC), a college serving more than nine thousand students in the inner city of Springfield, Massachusetts. STCC is one of the few institutions of higher education we are aware of with a high-performing idea system. A number of years ago, when the system was launched, during the first idea meeting of a team in one of the pilot areas, an employee posted an idea: “Let’s put posters and table tents around campus to remind students to use the online campus system that allows them to check grades, pay bills, preregister for classes, etc.” STCC’s idea board process gave every team member two votes on which ideas the department should work on, and no one voted for her idea. Struck by this, toward the end of the session, the facilitator asked the suggester to explain the underlying problem.

The problem, she explained, was that students were not using the campus online system and instead were stopping into departmental and student support service offices to ask staff for the information they wanted. “Every semester, employees spend countless hours helping students who could easily be helping themselves,” she told the group.

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