Everyone has at least a couple of great ideas every year. The trouble is most people don’t follow up on them. I will try to explain in this post how I think about developing ideas, whether it’s business opportunities, products, efficiency improvements or anything else that could bring value to your company and customers. These are typically beyond the traditional product management feature updates and product launches. I intend this for things beyond the usual scope of your business.

Ideas

Now, not all ideas are useful. Some companies nevertheless try to get the most out of every employee. For example Googles 20% rule (every engineering/product employee can spend up to 20% of their time on anything they want) is exactly that. Companies like Google count on good ideas to be worked on during this time and hope the best ones will bubble up (Gmail started as a 20% project). The trouble is most companies are not Google and cannot afford to allow a lot of people to spend 20% time on random ideas.

I propose something a bit more focused. Start by selecting a group of people that you consider the best for contributing, managing and aggregating good ideas. The team should range from all functions of the business and not be limited by seniority.  This team will be at the core of your incubation process. Large companies can have multiple teams like this depending on geography, function or other structures.

How it works

The general idea is that the above mentioned team should meet regularly to work on a backlog of ideas. There are 3 stages of any idea inside this incubation structure.

Idea stage

This is basically the initial idea, the raw thought of what you and your team could do. At this stage it is important to discuss whether it is worth following up on. The team should think about the value this idea could bring and focus less on cost. Benefits can include anything from increasing revenue, lowering costs to creating a new product. It is important to note that ideas are extremely fragile – don’t take it lightly to kill one. It takes time to develop them to a more clear concept. This stage usually has a long backlog of sometimes crazy ideas. It’s healthy to brainstorm and collect all kinds of them – this is the most playful stage and ideas should be here for some time before moving forward.

Concept stage

A fine tuned idea with a clear concept can enter the concept stage. At this point you know what you want to do, for whom you are doing it and are making assumptions on what value it might add to them. Someone should at this point take ownership of the idea to move it forward. It is imperative that you use this stage to test assumptions. Part of it is also to develop your concept on the cost side. Consider the launch of Dropbox => their assumption was that a lot of people would find a synchronised storage space in the cloud valuable – but their idea was dependant on a large number of potential customers. So they launched a landing page with zero functionality to just explain the concept of the product and collect email addresses.  This is a great way of testing a concept. At this stage you might likely have 2-3 ideas during a year, obviously depending on your scale.

Project stage

If you have evidence that your assumptions hold true – it’s time to start a project. This is the moment that you actually commit dedicated resources to launch the feature/product/change to your customers. If you believe the idea is good and the concept tested, there is no reason not to put your full weight behind it and ship. At this point you are moving the idea out of incubation and you are actually building it.  I wouldn’t try to ship multiple ideas  from incubation at the same time, unless I was 100% sure they have been tested and you have the resources to commit to them. Each deserves the full power of your team.

The meetings

I prefer to hold meetings of the incubation team informally. Find a relaxing space in your office. Better yet, get out of your office to an environment  where you won’t be disturbed by day-to-day activities.

Step 1

The first part of the meeting should be about discussing any projects that are running and launching. Usually it’s one or none and hence this should be the shortest part of the meeting. The project already has a project team and so there is no need to reassess assumptions – it’s just good to keep an eye on the project.

Step 2

The second part of the meeting should be discussing concepts. As I mentioned before – you usually have 2-3 concepts in the works and so you should discuss them one by one covering and preparing assumptions to bested, discussing results of concept tests and costs compared to added value. As at this stage the concept already has a leader – they should be giving an update on the progress while facing challenges from other team members. Be constructive but critical. It is imperative that the team does not let a weak concept enter project stage.

Step 3

You should spend the most time in the idea stage. The reason why the agenda is backward is because you want to have as much time as possible to cover the idea stage. New ideas should be presented here and entered into the backlog. Go over the backlog one by one. If there are no updates to an idea add a flag to them – if there are no updates to the idea after 3 flags – dump them. Nobody is working on them, nobody is apparently passionate about them and that is more of a death sentence than any criticism. Focus on ideas that people are the most passionate about. At this point the owner of the idea is the person that proposed it. However – when moving from the idea stage to concept – it’s important that this setup is also tested. Is the person that came with the idea the right person to manage it going forward? Is he passionate and competent enough in the specific field to test the assumptions in the idea? If not find someone who is. Typically the person stays the same but don’t be afraid to switch. Concepts need the right “home”.

The meeting can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a day – depending on the size. I however recommend keeping it efficient and speedy. Don’t waste time circling around and going back – once you are done with one topic move and don’t look back. I recommend holding a meeting at least once a quarter to follow up on progress and collect ideas.

Sounds simple

The above is not rocket science. However the key success factor is discipline. In many companies this kind of process fails because it’s not followed up with diligence and passion. The meetings become slower, less efficient and less engaging. Sometimes the leaders don’t have the energy to keep everyone focused. Which is again why selecting the right people for this is important. This way the quality and result do not depend on a single person, but the weight is carried by many. It’s in everyones interest not to waste time but to allow the best ideas to surface and get picked up for tests and the concept stage. If all goes well you will have a healthy flow of ideas that are guaranteed to be seen and evaluated by the best people in your team. With a transparent forward moving process people will be more likely to dare and propose ideas and your business will benefit from all the innovation.