We’ve all been to brainstorming or ideation sessions where the ideas we generate are meant to lead to positive change.
But what frequently happens is the session yielded great ideas, but somehow, they never saw the light of day. Why?
I can think of two reasons why this happens.
One: Sturgeon’s Law is in effect
Sturgeon’s Law states 90% of science fiction is crud, but 90% of everything is crud). In a situation where a team of mixed folks are throwing out ideas, with the rule “no ideas are bad,” inevitably, some of them must be bad.
This is by design. If we kill ideas, we kill the creative process. This is OK. We are planning to weed out ideas that cannot be used. If we are smart, we will not throw them out. We will save them because one person’s bad idea might spark a truly innovative idea in someone else.
Two: No implementation process
It’s great to have a culture that values creativity, but that same culture must also value process. Part of that process must include an implementation plan for the good ideas, and a means for saving and indexing the unused ideas.
I cannot stress the importance of saving old ideas. I’ve seen a lot of consultants come in with brilliant creativity exercises, but no follow through process detailing what to do with unused ideas.
Some companies use spreadsheets, but this seems manual and time-consuming to me. Better to implement an “Idea Portfolio” to your company. This could be as simple as a Tumblr or WordPress blog, or a Pinterest or Trello board. There’s literally hundreds of ways to do this. My vote is for a WordPress blog for the sole reason that ideas can be categorized, tagged, and searched easily.
