Idea Generation & Screen

The most embryonic form of a new product or service. It often consists of a high-level view of the solution envisioned for the opportunity.

• New product design to eliminate improper installation
• Method to keep mold from growing on home exteriors
• A more efficient use of concrete for foundations
• A wall stud that is dimensionally stable
• A simple and effective way for builders to sell my product as an upgrade
• Low-energy use technology to produce my products
  See for example: TOOLBASE Home Building Topics

This demonstrates how an idea was generated after opportunities were uncovered.

Opportunities Uncovered

• Builder focus on increasing sales
• Builders have very high likelihood of using website to promote buyer traffic
• Lower energy bills most important aspect of "green building"
• Builders rank use of innovative materials very highly as a means to encourage home sales

One Idea Generated

• A way for builder to sell energy efficient upgrades on their web sites by allowing potential homebuyers to choose options and see estimated energy cost savings

Ideas come in all sizes

• Harvesting (existing) ideas
  • Internal sources - technical, marketing & sales, etc. (Searching internal resources)
  • External source - end users, customers, other stakeholders, general public, competitors, etc.
• Generating (new) ideas from identified opportunities (Innovation styles and techniques)
• Group and individual idea generation (Idea Generator)
  • Online versions or shareware ideation
  • How ideation shapes prototypes which, in turn, can be tested
• Creative approach (right brain) - brainstorming (BrainStorm)
• Systematic approach (left brain) - TRIZ, etc. (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving)
• Disciplines and Lead-user panels
• Observational research, ethnography
• Generate ideas & evaluate in separate steps
• Maintain pool of ideas
• Evaluate Ideas
• Idea screening survey or concept test
• Customer visits
• Focus groups
• Lead-user & disciplines panels
• Combined methods (A case review of NPD at Andersen Windows)
• Scoring model example using - NEWPROD
  -------------Factor (Weighted %)---------------
  • Product superiority/differentiation (63%)
  • Overall product/firm/resource compatibility (68%)
  • Market need, growth, and size (47%)
  • Economic advantage of product to end user (41%)
  • Technological resource compatibility (37%)
  • Product definition & scope (66%)
  • Market competitiveness (75%)
  • Newness to the firm (27%)

Other Useful Tools & Techniques

• Axon Idea Processor for organizing ideas
• VisiMap for adding structure to the creativity process
• BrainEKP for creating a visual knowledge base of the creativity process
• FreeMind for tracking the progress of your creativity process