There may be naysayers of ideation sessions, who claim they do not work or that there is no room in the budget. However, it’s all about that small percentage of ideas that make it through the process and produce immense payoff for the company. We’ve all seen that one innovative idea or product that’s catapulted sales and increased shareholder value tremendously for an organization. All it takes is that one great idea among thousands.

Do not overlook the importance of ideation sessions in the process of achieving Innovation. To maximize efficiency, invite your customers and salespeople to participate. It’s a golden opportunity to hear the needs of your consumers, and salespeople can produce invaluable insights about the marketplace. Include other departments of your organization as well, even the ones labeled “not creative” because it would be a shame to miss out on a potential opportunity. Everyone is a consumer so all opinions are relevant.

A diverse group, forced to perform out of their comfort zone, produces the highest quality work. So hold your ideation sessions outside of predictable times and locations – try it at a client’s office or a third party venue. Avoid Monday mornings, Friday afternoons or right after lunchtime when energy levels drop. Most importantly, accept every single idea that comes through without objection or ridicule. By asking the right open-ended questions to unlock new insights and discoveries, to narrowing down to specific concepts, you can jump start the idea process and reach the next “Aha!” moment sooner than your competitors. A concept that doesn’t work at the moment could prove to be successful later on down the road – so store best practices. Maintain an idea database, cross fertilize and keep those ideas until the right technology or cost is possible.

Robert’s Rules of Innovation^TM is focused business innovation, with Robert Brands’ goal to bring one new idea to market every year. For more tips on Idea Management and the 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, see Robert’s Rules of Innovation^TM published in March 2010 by Wiley.

On any new product development team, it is up to the leader to facilitate ideation sessions that produce a regular supply of new ideas. In order for these ideation sessions to be as effective as possible, it’s valuable to include members such as the sales team, people who interact directly with customers, and maybe even a few select customers themselves to offer their insight into the meeting.

In these brainstorming sessions, which should be held regularly like two to three times a year,  it’s ideal to include a diverse group of people – perhaps from customer service, engineering or production – to create a setting ripe for creative ideas and to avoid group-think. The process should be a structured repeatable process. All ideas should be written up on the whiteboard or flip chart, then recorded and stored for future reference, with absolutely no ideas dubbed as bad. Negativity causes fear of judgment, which can seriously hurt the Ideation process and any chance of new and original ideas. Remember, good ideas can come from anywhere, so the more diverse your team and the more removed they are from their usual environments, the better for developing ideas essential to Innovation.

Ideation and the management of the ideation process pack the front end of the New Product Development funnel with a wealth of viable concepts. This portfolio approach anticipates the fact that some concepts will pan out, while others are dropped. Here are some tips on ideation:

• Focus, focus, focus. Remember that depth is better than breadth for quality idea generation. Drill down and maintain focus.

• Prioritize ideas. And keep your eye on areas that enhance perceived value, improve customer relations, and capitalize on competitive opportunities.

• Store best practices. And be sure to reference them regularly. Remember, also, to create a database of ideation session “discards”—used in combination with other concepts from the group’s “toy box,” there might be the makings of a winner.

For additional Tips, see Robert’s Rules of Innovation ™ by Wiley, Spring, 2010.

But what happens once the company opens its doors or the product hits the market? Whose responsibility is it to spot the next trend or opportunity? More important, who should be charged with shepherding the behavior of trend-spotting across the organization?

Everybody is responsible for trend spotting. This isn’t some cliquey club; limit your people’s involvement at your own peril. From the Marketing and New Product Development Departments, to sales representatives in the field, from the CEO to the receptionist or CSRs – trends happen and are spotted everywhere. Therefore, everyone needs sharp eyes and piqued ears for emerging trends.

But trend spotting doesn’t just happen. Part mandate, part innate behavior, people have to want to be on the look out for new opportunities. Just as many organizations seek to break down silos that traditionally have separated teams or departments, the same sense of unified, yet independent thinking must permeate any organization that hopes to spot and capture the Next Big Thing.

This cannot be an idle mandate – a sort of set-it-and-forget-it statement from on high. Trend spotting is learned by example, and encouraged or shepherded by senior managers who also focus on innovation. This can be the CEO of a smaller organization, or the Chief Innovation Officer at a larger one.

This kind of lead-by-example encouragement transforms employees across the enterprise into Idea Generators – trend spotters who become champions of their space and sources of new ideas that touch every part of the organization. One who submits an idea is more likely to take ownership of it – and help shepherd it in kind through the research and discovery process

(Whether a trend that is explored and later travels the path to New Product Development is another topic. To be sure, not all trends spotted and submitted to the Idea Hopper for further discovery will blossom – at least right away. Some will, and some must wait for market or company conditions to blossom in kind. And that’s fine.)

How can you improve and become more creative in organizational trend spotting?

- Create a Trend / Idea War Room. Like lighting company Sylvania “War Room” for trend spotting. Yours can be a permanent place where white and dry erase boards, competitive products, and ads clipped from magazines line the walls (see more below).

- Solicit outside involvement. Do you have field reps, distributors, retailers who are on the front lines of customer interaction? They can help target opportunities by specific geographies or market segments.

- Tap tradeshows. I’ve always encouraged aggressive trend spotting at tradeshows. As your people walk the floor, encourage them to envision and cross apply. At Kohler, we would attend design and household appliance shows, and come up with better and trend fitting kitchen product designs for faucets and sinks.

- Read (with a trend-spotting eye) trade and consumer magazines. See something cool? Tear it out and stick it to the wall. Let the Innovation Team mull them over. Ideas may crystallize.

- Buy new and competitive products. Tinker with them in a War Room. It’s amazing what will emerge.

- Buy your own service. Experience the process. Where does it shine? More importantly, where is it frustrating? What can be made easier and better?

- Ask your customers. For customer-facing organizations, customers often are your best trend spotters. When I was at Airspray we convened with multitude of disciplines. But most came from customers via sales, rife with bias and lacking filter.

- Set an agenda for trend management. Along with feeding the Idea Hopper, plan to manage ideas and attack the opportunities they present.

Trend spotting in the innovative workplace is by necessity a persistent activity. Opportunities emerge for competitive advantage. Competitive forces constantly emerge that require reaction. It’s a natural part of a corporate evolution, whether related to new product or services development, or the establishment of new internal processes meant to improve the organization itself.

Aristotle is thought to have said, “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” Replace “Excellence” with “trend spotting.” And embrace the mandate.

By Robert Brands (with Jeff Zbar)

Robert Brands is the founder of InnovationCoach.com, and the author of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, with Martin Kleinman and which will be published in March by Wiley (www.robertsrulesofinnovation.com).

It needs new views, fresh thinking, a different perspective from across the organization.

We’ve noted that Innovation = Creative x Risk Taking. Setting aside risk for the moment, creativity is a central element to the innovation process. But it must continually be nourished with new ideas from a variety of sources.

Ideation is not a single event. It doesn’t originate from a single silo or one person or one department, although it can come from a single source. Ideation thrives in an open environment; think Wikipedia, the open-source, online repository of the world’s specialized knowledge. It is the result of a collaborative process that welcomes minds and teams from across any organization of any size.

How can you foster a fertile ideation environment?

Start by creating an “idea hopper.” This idea bank is the repository of any idea to be pursued, saved, reconsidered – or at least explored.

In the closing scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Ark of the Covenant is crated and stashed in endless warehouse of similar, non-descript crates. This is the polar opposite. Don’t think of the Hopper as a bottomless pit. Think actionable. While this idea database can be managed online or as a Access Dbase, Word  or Excel spreadsheet, the key word is “managed.” Ideas come in and are vetted by the Innovation Team and the Chief Innovation Officer [link to previous blog on CIO ]. The CIO will organize ideas in order of importance or relevance based on the organization’s current path or needs. Then the ideas then are presented at the next meeting of the Ideation or Brainstorming Session.

About that session… Brainstorm sessions should be held at a regular interval  and include a variety of participants from across the organization. This isn’t just a place for R&D or the New Product team. Sales should be there. So should Marketing. Include Customer Service. Those who interact with customers and have a feel for the shifting tidings of the consumer should have input in ideation – whether in feeding the hopper or digesting its contents.

The meetings also should be structured. They should be scheduled, with an agenda in place so participants know what to expect, the topics of discussion, and the anticipated outcomes. In this instance, the CIO should defer to a facilitator or Innovation Coach who can lead the session with complete neutrality. He or she (or someone designated for that task) will write, chart, graph or otherwise gather every idea presented. There are no bad ideas. All concepts should be filed, prioritized, validated, for future reference and / or use in combination with other ideation session results. The outcome of each meeting besides feeding the hopper is a prioritized list to be worked in in Product Development

Next, feed that hopper. This database needs that constant diet of fresh ideas – especially between brainstorming sessions. Welcome ideas from all corners of the organization – from the C-Suite to the receptionist’s desk. You never know where the next Great Idea will come from.

To be clear, new “ideas” aren’t simply about products. Ideas can include process changes, technological enhancements – anything that represents change in the organization.

In ideation, think green. In those brainstorming sessions, some ideas will rise, some will fall. Throw none away. Those that don’t pass muster at that moment should be placed back in the hopper and recycled. Some ideas fail based on momentary circumstances: bad timing, market conditions, technological disconnect, conflict with the organization’s current needs or vision – any of which can change very quickly. In fact, two ideas discarded today may morph into a better concept tomorrow. Keeping them in the hopper ensures they can be revisited in the future.

The process of ideation isn’t inherently a risk-taking endeavor. But it is part of the experimentation equation. As we’ve noted previously [please link to the blog on Risk], Risk plus Experimentation (plus Failure) equals an Improved Environment for Innovation.

The risk here is to break the mold. Open the silos. Welcome input from across the organization. You might come away thinking, “What a great idea!”