Far too often I’ve sat in brainstorming sessions where ideas died a slow death afterwards. Ideas alone are not innovation; without a process of evaluation, selection and execution, they remain mere ideas.

Brainstorming sessions and idea challenges have become commonly used corporate innovation initiatives. In ideation sessions, a higher quantity of ideas are encouraged in order to get to the truly breakthrough ideas. However, if you’re the Innovation Manager collating hundreds of ideas at the culmination of such an initiative, how do you choose the best ideas to carry through to implementation?

Before we delve into some tried and tested methods for evaluating ideas, let’s look at what not to do.

·       Don’t consider the idea’s projected revenue, return on investment (ROI) or net present value (NPV). Managers shouldn’t place too much emphasis on financial metrics for early stage ideas because most of the assumptions underpinning ideas are yet to be determined.

·       Don’t jump ahead to execution and think about the logistics of the idea. Again, the concepts have yet to be tested. Instead, consider how well the idea solves the problem at hand.

·       Don’t use resource or budget constraints as an excuse not to explore the ideas. Although not all ideas can be tested immediately, resource constraints can be an effective way to challenge teams to prototype ideas with less budget.

Let’s look at three methods for evaluation of ideas - used by innovation industry thought leaders:

Method 1 - Ask the right questions at the right times

Scott Anthony, managing partner of Innosight and author of The First Mile: A Launch Manual for Getting Great Ideas into the Market, uses a set of criteria to decide whether to explore an idea more deeply.

Here are some of the key questions to ask:

1. Does this fit our strategy?
2. Can we get to the market without any technological miracles?
3. Is there someone who is a strong advocate of the idea and willing to push the idea forward?

Asking these questions helps to make the second decision about whether to run experiments to address the key underlying assumptions. Anthony then asks the following questions:

• Does this fit a pattern? (You can find a a 12-question pattern generally found to be a helpful starting point for these efforts in The Innovator’s Guide to Growth)
• Can we build a “reverse income statement” where reasonable assumptions support reaching our profit and revenue targets?
• Is the testing plan well thought out?

Method 2- Identifying the greatest JTBD

Jobs-to-be-Done innovation theory (JTBD) is the subject of Professor Clayton Christensen’s latest book, Competing Against Luck. The central idea behind JTBD is that customers are not buying your products but rather, “they are hiring them to get a job done.”

Check out ourFuture Squared podcast interview with Christensen’s co-author Karen Dillon for more insight into this.

Christensen stresses that a “job to be done” is not an all-purpose catchphrase. “Jobs are complex and multifaceted. The term “job” is shorthand for what an individual really seeks to accomplish in a given circumstance and these jobs are never simply about function—they have powerful social and emotional dimensions. In most situations, the jobs that customers want to get done for which no good solutions exist are the ones that provide the greatest opportunity for innovation.

In the case of evaluating ideas using the JTBD method, idea assessment is a function of how important the job is and how satisfied customers are with existing solutions. One way to measure the importance and existing satisfaction of an idea or ‘job’ is by asking customers for their ratings on a Likert scale. As shown by the exhibit below, these responses can then be plotted and categorized as over-served, served right, or underserved.

In general, under-served outcome expectations are high-priority and are best addressed with a strategy of making the solution better. Over-served outcome expectations lead you to make existing solutions simpler, cheaper, and more available to more people. If the outcome expectations are served right, don’t do anything; focus instead on the other outcome expectations.

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