I recently blogged about Idea Management Systems, noting some of the key issues in the design and implementation of Idea Management Systems.
These points and the central importance of a well designed Idea Management Systems are reinforced in a recent Business Week article by Jeneanne Rae, which suggests that:
In the annals of corporate innovation history, 2006 should go down as the year of “idea management.” As innovation is more widely recognized as a new business discipline, executives are lining up to implement idea-management systems
Rae’s article argues that an Ideas Management system is a good starting point, but in and of itself may not be enough to constitute an innovation program, as the ideas generated may not be tied closely enough to the corporate strategic objectives and the Ideas Management System in itself may not provide enough infrastructure to push change through organisational cultural resistance.
In particular, Rae argues that there are common problems experienced in implementing an idea management system, including:
- There may be too many ideas generated to manage effectively
- The ideas generated may not be linked tightly enough with corporate strategic objectives
- The ideas management process may not be streamlined and ideas assessed to deliver corporate value in general and new growth platforms in particular
However, it is important to note that these issues raised by Rae are not problems with Idea Management Systems per se – a properly designed Idea Management system can readily and effectively addressed each of these concerns, tie ideas generated to corporate objectives, and select the most valuable ideas and properly resource and fund their implementation. What Rae is noting, by contrast, is some common problems in the design and implementation of Idea Management Systems – and what Rae is really calling for seems to be for organisations to design their Idea Management Systems properly from the outset, taking into account the potential pitfalls they might experience.