Digital Ideation Implemented

Implementing or improving an idea management system requires a mix of analog and digital media.

The ideation dilemma

People have limited attention and oversight:

  • Ideas and requirements are processed in huge amounts in a complex product or service.
  • It must be understood by individuals as well as the product team working on it.

Software for idea management is essential because it allows for

  • efficent collection (anywhere, anytime)
  • quick evaluation and clustering of ideas
  • building a know-how base over many events and across product lines.

Mixed Media

Analog media are ideal for quick capture of focused ideas, observations and discussions. Results out of this must be digitized quickly to keep oversight and generate insights.

Results from collections, clusterings and summaries are the base of new hypothesis tests and new experiments (e.g. Interviews, Shadowings, Usability- and UX-Reports, …).

For an innovation board governing the initiatives these on-the-fly documentations are key for further informed decisions.

Anywhere, anytime access: systems we have experience in are mobile and come with APIs for IT-integrations.

Mobile front-ends are simple “idea collectors” with a focus on usability, rich media capture and structured access to strategic initiatives and ideation campaigns. APIs and web-parts like i-frames allows to embed more collection and interaction points in any system.

Segmentation of ideation systems by purpose

A system is always just a solution. Asking why you need it provides a shortcut to implement the best fit quickly. In this article some important usage scenario and motivations: Why you need an idea management system?

Implementing an idea management system involves 3 steps:

Motivation: check most important needs to find out in which camp your ideal system can be located.

Selection: 130 relevant systems are easily assessed by using a criteria catalogue (see also  What makes a good idea management system?) 

Integration: whether it is ERP/CRM, roadmaps or requirements, IP-management, or a customer knowledge base, idea management is connected bidirectionally to surrounding systems.

Depending on your needs a suitable idea management system can be setup within 2 weeks. Starting with a specific campaign or a smaller team allows the use of free-of-charge software licenses.

Interested? Book a first consultation here

130 idea management systems

Strategy

For more details on corporate strategy and scaling up idea software, read this blog post.