Business Core · Innovation · Module

Sources of ideas

Where new ideas come from and how they reach someone who can act on them. Making the routes deliberate does more than asking for more ideas.

The idea

How it works

Ideas already arrive from many places: complaints, sales conversations, suppliers, the staff who do the work, research and neighbouring industries. Drucker’s observation was that the dependable sources are mostly unglamorous — the unexpected result, the incongruity, the process need, a shift in demographics — and that they can be searched systematically.

Open innovation adds that the boundary runs both ways. Some ideas are better brought in from partners or universities, and some the organisation holds are worth licensing out. Customer feedback is gathered in the Omni Core and exceptional windows are handled under Golden Opportunities; this module takes what they surface as one input among several and gives it a route to a decision.

Working with it

In practice

  1. 01

    List the sources you actually use

    Trace where the last ten new initiatives started. The answer is often narrower than the organisation believes.

  2. 02

    Say what you are looking for

    A short search brief naming the problems worth solving directs attention in a way an open suggestion box does not.

  3. 03

    Give every idea one entry point

    One log, one owner, one acknowledgement. An idea sent to five inboxes is lost in all five.

  4. 04

    Look deliberately at the unexpected

    Unexpected successes and failures in current results are Drucker’s first source, and the one most readily explained away.

One level in

The components of sources of ideas

A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.

  1. Source map

    The routes by which ideas can reach the organisation, who watches each, and what each has produced.

    Learn

  2. Search brief

    The problems the organisation wants ideas for, and what it has decided not to pursue.

    Learn

  3. Idea log

    The single register where every idea is entered, acknowledged and given a first decision.

    Learn

Trace the last ten initiatives back to where they began. The pattern shows which sources the organisation actually listens to.

The other modules in innovation

Experiments

Breaking an idea into the assumptions it rests on and testing the riskiest one first, with the smallest test that could change the decision.

Learn

Pipeline and gates

The stages an idea passes through, the gates between them, and the criteria each must meet — agreed before the gate, including what would stop it.

Learn

Scaling or stopping

The two ends of the route: moving a proven pilot into ordinary operation, or ending a project cleanly and releasing what it held.

Learn
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