Online Community: Agile idea management from QuestionPro.

What does idea management mean?

Idea management is the process of generating, capturing and evaluating ideas to find out which ones you should develop further. Idea management takes place in a structured environment that allows you to prioritise, discuss and approve the ideas that add value to your organisation. Idea management requires alternative thinking. This leads to insights that might not have come about through ordinary processes.

Smart idea management, for example, encourages employees to actively participate in the development of their own organisation. It gives them the feeling of being part of the action, which in turn leads to more satisfaction and also increases the success of the company. However, there are many challenges that need to be overcome along the way. For example, the many ideas that are submitted, evaluated and commented on must also be managed. Idea management software is available for this purpose.

Why is professional idea management essential?

Innovation is necessary to achieve organizational growth. Maintaining a competitive advantage requires adapting to constant change. In order to develop innovations, you first need ideas. And ideally a lot of ideas from which the best ideas can ultimately be selected and promoted. A dedicated innovation team, which essentially consists of the sum of all employees, can help you bring new ideas to life and drive innovation processes forward. If you're curious about how to generate ideas from employees, use the following tips to inspire your idea management.

Create a culture of innovation “from above”

Show your managers why innovation management is so important for your company. When leaders understand how to generate ideas from employees and why this is important, it is more likely to actually happen. Your leadership team needs to understand the value of giving employees the time and infrastructure to participate in the company's innovation process. A living culture of innovation is one of the most important aspects of idea management.

Enable your employees to participate in the innovation process by actively generating ideas

Actively establish cross-departmental teams tasked with brainstorming and developing new ideas. These teams ensure that the entire workforce really knows where ideas can be collected and developed. If all employees actually have the opportunity to generate ideas and these ideas are then seen, evaluated and commented on within idea management software in the form of a community, the entire workforce gets the feeling that their voice is heard and that their opinion is important to the company.

Make your innovation management transparent

Research shows that you can get more ideas out of the workforce if you have a concrete plan for generating and implementing ideas. One study found that 72% of all business leaders admitted that they do not have a formal process for reviewing and evaluating ideas, let alone a sophisticated idea management system. This shows that only 28% of respondents actually have an actionable plan for idea management and innovation management. Therefore, it is important that you can clearly explain to your employees how your idea management processes actually work. Because if your employees believe that there is actually no real implementable plan, hardly anyone will start contributing ideas. But if you convince your staff that it makes sense to think about new ideas, improved workflows and business processes, they will.

Remove obstacles that make it difficult for you to generate ideas

Management may be well-informed about the importance of idea generation, but as mentioned above, you need a culture of innovation to be successful. Identify barriers and obstacles that prevent your company from sharing new ideas. As part of your idea management, find ways to implement these ideas and discuss them openly and specifically with your employees. Ask everyone in the organization what obstacles they face when making suggestions. Understand the challenges they face when tackling new innovation initiatives. You should also carry out regular employee surveys.

Create a technical infrastructure for company-wide idea management

The best ideas are of no use to your company if they get stuck in the heads of your employees. That is why it is important that you create a place where ideas are collected and developed. All employees need to know where to find this place. QuestionPro's community platform for idea management. The community platform provides an excellent technological infrastructure for professional idea management. QuestionPro creates a space for your employees to enter ideas quickly and easily and, above all, in a structured way in the form of predefined templates. These ideas can then be commented on, discussed and evaluated and ultimately become new innovations quickly and easily!

Commitment and motivation are important key factors for an effective and company-wide idea management

Innovation can only happen when people feel motivated to share their ideas. A workforce that is recognized for its excellent work is more likely to take initiative and generate ideas. Make sure the company's mission and business strategies are clear. Your employees should understand how their roles fit into the company as a whole. Communicate the value of good ideas. The generation and exchange of ideas will only be successful if everyone in the company knows the direction and goals they are committed to. Emphasize the potential of your employees to shape the future of your company. This leads to conversations that lead to meaningful contributions. Listen to your employees and recognize their ideas.

Positive employee feedback will increase their willingness to generate ideas. Make it clear that you are interested in their ideas. Ask for input on existing initiatives or ideas for new processes. Communicate this throughout the organization so that everyone is aware of it, from part-timers to senior management.

Ideation: Finding and collecting ideas

Ideation is the creative process of generating and developing ideas. Ideation is thus at the beginning of every innovation process and is part of idea management, which begins with idea generation and idea creation. Ideation is a key component of any successful and innovative company. Meanwhile, companies encourage their employees to generate ideas by giving them enough time and space to brainstorm and eventually collect and develop these ideas. This focus on ideation enables companies to develop new, innovative products or services and thus remain competitive or even emerge as industry leaders.

5 important phases in the idea management process

“We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence is therefore not an action but a habit.”

Aristotle was a wise man for many reasons, not least because of this quote. To become really good at something, forming habits and processes is essential. In our case QuestionPro We have found that regardless of the type of company or organisation, there are certain commonalities between all those involved in idea management: We have found that in any idea management process there are a few key processes that help make the idea a reality.

There are seven main phases in idea management on the path from an idea to a fully formed, implemented innovation.

Phase 1

The first, of course, is actually getting the idea, i.e. brainstorming and collecting ideas. We have found that two things are particularly important during this phase: First, that the voices of all employees are heard. The best way to narrow down the ideas you will implement is to cast the widest net at the beginning. And secondly, that incentivizing your idea contributors when acquiring innovative ideas works. It has been shown that the quality of ideas increases by 40% when incentives are introduced.

Phase 2

The second phase following the collection of ideas is the team building phase. After all ideas have been collected and the community has had a chance to weigh in on the ideas that seem most viable, teams should be formed around the most likely ideas. This phase helps to identify whether a particular idea can be realistically implemented in the long term. For example, if an idea sounds good but then doesn't find at least one champion to support it, it may not be the idea that makes the most sense to implement.

Likewise, an idea may seem good on paper, but upon further investigation or after extensive market research, it turns out that it may not be financially feasible or that there is already someone on the market who does the same thing better than your organization does could. QuestionPro's idea management software offers you tools and features for team building, idea ownership and conducting market research.

Phase 3 and 4

This question of feasibility is directly related to the third and fourth phases of refining ideas. Once a team is formed, the refinement phase will involve further research into the competitive landscape, feasibility, and necessary resources to adequately evaluate whether the idea could or should actually be implemented. In this phase of idea management, experts are consulted to validate the knowledge that the teams have already acquired.

Incidentally, studies have shown that the knowledge of a crowdsourcing community is actually more effective than that of experts, using the example of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” During the game it was shown that the experts were correct 65% of the time, while the “crowd” was correct 91% of the time. Crowd knowledge is a powerful thing, so you should also consider crowdsourcing. QuestionPro's idea management software enables the connection of crowdsourcing and open innovation platforms.

Phase 5

In the fifth phase, all the information gathered by the team and confirmed by experts and the crowd is taken into account and evaluated to see if the idea meets the business objectives and business plans set. One of the most important points to consider in this phase is the costs. The sixth phase deals specifically with funding. 46% of all start-ups fail due to insufficient funding, and 80% of all businesses fail due to insufficient capital. It is incredibly important to ensure that your business is financially solvent enough to get an idea off the ground. The seventh phase is where ideas are finally implemented.

The successful generation of ideas by employees requires a technological infrastructure

Research shows that 94% of all HR managers rank creativity among the most important hiring characteristics. But how much of this enormous potential is actually used in companies? It is not enough for your employees' creativity to stay within the "departments", because those who are fundamentally creative also have the ability to use this creativity across departmental boundaries and thus contribute to idea generation within company-wide innovation programmes. In the vast majority of cases, however, idea generation fails due to the lack of infrastructure to centrally record ideas somewhere and to develop them further together. QuestionPro, with its community platform for idea management, offers such a central place for structured idea generation. Idea generation requires planning. So you absolutely need a way to collect ideas, organise ideas and ultimately implement them successfully. All employees throughout the company should be encouraged to generate and exchange ideas. This leads to more inspiration and productivity.

What is idea management software?

Idea management software is a technology that helps companies and organisations collect, evaluate and develop ideas and makes a significant contribution to business growth and innovation. Idea management software supports innovative ideas far beyond the initial brainstorming phase, as it allows valuable ideas to mature until the desired end result is achieved. The technology enables both the development, filtering, elaboration, evaluation and finally the implementation and tracking of ideas. In this way, the entire idea generation process is mapped transparently and easily online and not just handled by experts behind closed doors.

QuestionPro supports you as a web-based idea management community software in collecting, developing and implementing ideas

Idea management software with many innovative tools such as QuestionPro This offers companies and organisations the opportunity to collect thoughts, opinions and ideas quickly and easily within the community platform. Other participants and contributors can rate, comment or vote on these ideas and further develop them for the benefit of the idea management or innovation management community. Designed as a web-based and scalable community cloud platform, QuestionPro idea management software can be set up with a few mouse clicks and is ready to use to automate the idea generation process. Once idea collection is complete, QuestionPro also supports the other aspects of the innovation lifecycle with many other features, such as coordination, workflow automation, idea routing, team building, idea advancement, collaboration, ReviewScale, pairwise comparisons and much more.

Individually customizable

Information about the status of an idea can be displayed publicly or confidentially throughout the process. The more progress an innovation programme shows in bringing great ideas to fruition, the more both employee engagement and customer loyalty are increased as everyone shares in the success. It also shows participants in an idea management community that it is worthwhile to participate, as it becomes clear that good ideas are being implemented. After promising ideas have been presented and many votes have been received, groups can now be formed to take care of further development. Everyone in a QuestionPro community can follow and experience the process of collecting ideas all the way to implementation. In this way, every participant sees that it is worthwhile to propose, evaluate and comment on ideas. QuestionPro's idea management software is fully customisable and designed for ease of use by users and system administrators. With just a few mouse clicks, you can start your own idea collection.

Collecting, identifying, evaluating and implementing as the main objectives

There are many activities associated with idea management, such as collecting ideas, voting and commenting on ideas, managing idea stages, tagging ideas, reviewing and evaluating ideas, ranking and clustering ideas, and more. Each of these features fulfils different requirements during the idea management process, but the three main goals of the process are to collect, identify, evaluate and implement ideas. With QuestionPro's idea management software, it is possible to achieve each of these goals.

Once the idea management software is implemented and set up, it becomes a place where people can come together in a web-based community. This is because QuestionPro's idea management software is web-based (SaaS), does not need to be installed and is operated as an "online community".

The benefits are endless, of course - sometimes the ideas turn into a new, best-selling product, and sometimes they result in reducing the company's operating costs by up to 90% or saving an endangered business. The ideas can be solicited once as part of a single challenge, or they can be collected on an ongoing basis, but whichever method the programme ends up using, what it always needs is new great ideas.

Tips for your idea management and for working with QuestionPro’s idea management software

Practical tips: We have summarized 30 valuable tips for you that will help you advance your idea management.

Respond to submitted ideas: How to initiate the exchange of ideas as a community manager and thus promote the engagement of an idea management community

Imagine submitting lively ideas within an idea management community and receiving little to no response to your engagement. What will happen? Quite simply: you will dose your commitment because you will not receive a “reward” in the form of positive reinforcement. Here are 10 simple tips on how to respond to submitted ideas to keep the idea management community engaged and motivated!

• When brainstorming ideas, ask idea management community members for an image if they didn't upload one when submitting an idea. Posts with an image actually receive 40% more engagement than posts without an image.
• Say thank you! “Thank you for this stimulating idea.” A thank you for submitting an idea is the least you can do to show your appreciation. This is possible automatically with QuestionPro’s idea management community.
• Ask for an example. “What a great suggestion! Can you post a link to an example?” Encourage your community members to follow up after submitting an idea. A link to an example can also make the submitted idea more concrete.
• Ask the author to share their idea with their network. “Thank you for your idea! Share it with your friends so they can help make it even better!” Encouraging your community members to invite friends and acquaintances to help spread the idea will help you grow your community faster and with even less effort.
• Provide an explanation if an idea is not considered. “We received tons of great ideas. Although this idea is very noteworthy, the review panel concluded that it cannot be implemented this year. While her idea was not selected for implementation this year, it has been archived for possible future use. We wanted you to know how much it meant that you participated in the process! I hope we see you again in our next campaign”.
• Use emoticons! When suggesting an idea for further development, use the “party” emoji. Even if you say “no” to an idea, you can respond to someone with a friendly smiley face.
• Ask the idea author to chime in on similar ideas if you think a similar idea already exists. “Have you looked at Marina's idea? Maybe you’ll connect and continue working on this idea together?”
• Mention experts and ask them what they think of an idea submitted. “@claudia.meyer – what do you think of @azize’s idea?”
• Ask for suggestions. “This idea is really interesting. Have you thought about who might work on it? We would welcome your suggestions.”
• Find the positive part(s) of an idea and ask the community member to develop the idea further. Even if you don't think the existing idea will move forward today, you can encourage new thinking and collaboration to improve the idea for later consideration.

Simple tips for dealing with submitted ideas and their development

Have you launched an idea management community and need tips to get started? Here are some suggestions to help you get started.

• Find a place to store ideas that you won't adopt. It becomes difficult to archive ideas if you don't have space for ideas that won't evolve. The QuestionPro idea management software offers you exactly that, namely an idea archive that is searchable. All ideas should have a place where they go when they are no longer considered.
• Initiate regular meetings on specific dates to discuss ideas within the team. The result of each of these sessions should be a shortlist of submitted ideas from the idea management community, which are assigned to individual responsible persons for further development.
• Start with the “low-hanging fruit.” Look for ideas that are easy to implement or “quick wins.” Quickly identifying these solutions and sharing the results increases confidence in the idea or innovation program and paves the way for further more complex ideas. The University of Alabama at Birmingham did just that, implementing 200 ideas in its first year.
• Be a conduit of ideas. Getting ideas out to the people who have the skills to implement them is key. Be an intermediary between good ideas and the professionals who have the resources to make them happen.
• Share incremental progress. You don't have to wait until an idea is fully implemented to share progress. Send pictures of committee meetings where ideas are discussed, share videos describing next steps, and celebrate the things you learned along the way.
• Ask members of the idea management community for volunteers to help you implement the ideas. There are almost certainly members within your community who have the expertise you need to advance promising ideas.

Tips for increasing engagement in an idea management community

A successful idea management community depends on the commitment of the community members. If you're having trouble getting members into the community or discussion, try one of the following tips to get more participation in your QuestionPro community.

• Enable SSO and social login. Adding single sign-on functionality significantly improves your user engagement. If you're at work, you can integrate with any SSO system your IT team uses. If you invite the public to participate, make sure you allow social sign-on. This lowers barriers to entry and maximizes the performance of your network.
• Send regular messages to community members. We found that the half-life of engagement after sending an email, such as tasks or calls for ideas to be submitted, rated, and commented on, is five days. So if the message goes out on Monday and community members start participating, everything will be back to normal on Friday. So you need to be constantly visible as a community manager to achieve ongoing engagement.
• Add deadlines when sending tasks or calls to the idea management community. Adding an end date to a campaign creates a sense of urgency and sometimes even encourages creativity.
• Offer an incentive. It doesn't necessarily have to be money, recognition also counts. Redwood Credit Union offers trophies for active participation in the idea management community, and over 70% of their workforce participates in their community.
• Highlight a forward-looking idea. Nothing sparks discussion like a promising or popular idea. Let the community know that an idea is doing great. Try this regularly and on all channels.
• Respond to every idea submitted by every community member. This shows that the people behind the platform actually read the ideas and take them seriously. This level of validation creates trust in the idea management community.

1:1 live online presentation:
Idea management with the QuestionPro community platform.

Would you like to rely on innovative technologies for your idea management in the future? Use QuestionPro's community platform to generate, evaluate and develop ideas. We will show you in a 1:1 live online demo how you can use the community platform to create a central location for idea management.

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KEYWORDS OF THIS BLOG POST

Idea management | Community | importance | Suggestions