To set up a system for the feedback and management of ideas, it is essential to find the right tool. And the right tool is an ideation platform adapted to your corporate culture, capable of capturing ideas or good practices, and following their development and diffusion in your organisation.
An excellent article by expert George Krasadakis explains that it is better for an organisation to use a market-based ideation platform. Indeed, developing an in-house solution will be more expensive, time-consuming and risky than using a SaaS tool. Make sure that , like Beeshake, your tool is able to adapt to your specific needs 😉
In addition, an ideation platform must of course allow for the management of idea generation. But above all, it must imperatively encourage and facilitate this feedback, in a collaborative manner. A good ideation platform is always in action, ready to welcome new ideas, and giving news of those already proposed. For the administrators, it is a platform that makes it easy to manage ideas, and to communicate about them just as easily.
Here are the 10 essential criteria selected in George Krasadakis' article for choosing the right ideation platform.
1. An ideation platform that is always accessible
It may seem obvious, but a good ideation platform should always be available to its users. Indeed, employees are often invited to participate in innovation challenges, calls for ideas on specific themes, or hackathons. This iscollaborative innovation .
But you also need to provide a space for continuous ideation, to developcontinuous improvement. Because your employees can have an idea outside of any event! They should therefore be encouraged to come up with ideas all year round.
READ ALSO: Before launching a programme atcollaborative innovation : everything you need to know
2. Access to a library of ideas
Your ideation platform should make ideas accessible to everyone. Classified by theme, ideas should be easy to find and discover by your entire community of collaborators. Because ideas are alive! They are ready to be discovered by the right team, in the right context and at the right time. This is why all employees must be able to consult them, enrich them, and ask to join them!
NB. Beeshake's "Ask to join the project team" feature can help you if you want to encourage your staff to participate in proposed ideas.
3. An adaptable ideation platform, like you!
Expert George Krasadakis makes it very clear: too strict rules, with too many validation bodies and deadlines can kill innovation!
Make sure you set a framework, but remain flexible, adaptable and efficient. You do not know in advance what your staff will propose. Your system must therefore be able to adapt over time.
4. Transparency above all
Be transparent about your organisation's policy.collaborative innovation. Explain in advance what the main principles are. Here are some principles you can communicate:
- The objectives of the approach
- What is expected of employees
- How you will help employees to stimulate ideation
- How does your idea selection process break down
- Who participates in the idea selection panel
- What you plan to do with unsuccessful ideas
5. To be or not to be... anonymous?
There are several schools of thought on the subject of anonymity. At Beeshake, we support the ideas proposed "in the open", but anonymity does have its advantages.
The benefits of anonymity on your ideation platform
Anonymity allows ideas to be tested, regardless of affinity with the person(s) proposing them. Indeed, the collaborators can support the idea, enrich it or bring constructive criticism, without taking into account their possible affinities (or oppositions) with the people who proposed it. The idea can only benefit from this.
Lifting anonymity: other benefits
If employees propose ideas on their behalf, you can more easily create a sense of pride and recognition. Indeed, they will be identified by all as committed employees and as a force for innovation.
6. Collaborative features
Collaboration is an essential component of an effective innovation culture. Your ideation platform should therefore promote collaboration, and offer features that allow each user to share their opinions, knowledge and intelligence.
In short, at the heart of ideation iscollective intelligence! This type of tool will encourage the circulation of skills for the benefit of collective value creation.
7. Enriching project teams
An idea must be able to be proposed by an employee, or by a team of employees. But the project team is not fixed! In fact, just as an idea is alive, a team is alive!
It is therefore possible that an idea proposed on your ideation platform is of particular interest to certain employees. They can simply vote for it, or even ask to join the project team! The author of the project will then receive a membership request. He or she will then be able to look at the candidates' profiles, explore their skills and select the ones he or she wants. Of course, he or she can also directly invite people whose profile seems interesting to him or her to join the project team.
8. Sending effective notifications
At Beeshake, we identify 2 types of actors in thecollaborative innovation :
- The actors of innovation: employees who participate by proposing ideas
- Innovation ambassadors: these are all the people who do not necessarily propose ideas, but who nevertheless participate in the process by enriching the ideas of others, by commenting on them, supporting them, asking questions or sharing their experiences.
It is essential to communicate effectively with these two audiences.
Notifications to innovation actors will include follow-up on their project, new comments about them, or requests from other users to join their project team.
As for the notifications sent to innovation ambassadors, they will be much broader. Indeed, they can receive notifications as soon as a new project is published, as soon as a comment is made on one of their suggestions, or to inform them of news about a project they are following.
In addition to the automatic notifications, we urge you to send regular internal newsletters summarising the latest news fromcollaborative innovation in your organisation.
9. Access to statistics directly on your ideation platform
An ideation platform with a good idea management system must imperatively propose a statistical dashboard. The administrators of the tool will be able to discover statistics on participation, engagement, preferences in terms of the themes of the ideas proposed, etc. In short, they will be able to really monitor the level of activity and engagement in the platform. In short, they will be able to really monitor the level of activity and commitment in thecollaborative innovation.
10. Your ideation platform is a space for sharing and valuing
As mentioned above, a good ideation platform is a collective intelligence platform. Indeed, it must be an open space, where everyone can contribute.
To go further, what if you turned to a gamified platform?
Because gamification allows you to go further in recognising the actors and ambassadors of innovation. You can thus distribute a table of "innovation influencers" regularly.
