{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.030231459612659425, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004487482286254133, 'mean_word_length': 4.5504587155963305, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Innovation by The Side Door

Mr. Darcy is the perfect dog: a two-year-old male Black Lab with boundless happy energy. He camps out by the glass kitchen door, and when a squirrel walks by outside, he snaps to attention and barks to be let out, intensely focused on the problem he sees outside. Meanwhile his older, wiser mother keeps calm and thinks a moment. Because she's not blinded by his urgency, she remembers that there's a dog flap at the side of the house, so she takes a slightly longer way around and is always first outside. In most organizations, and swelling the ranks at every innovation conference, are plenty of Mr. Darcys-good managers, sincere, honest, straightforward, intent on innovation (they say). But too often they bump into a thick glass door-call it organizational inertia-and are frustrated. In this article, we will find a path to a side door that's easier to open. We will explore a number of ways to use idea management processes and tools to improve some everyday business practices. In the end, we will find that we have circled back and have found an easier route to innovation. Idea Management To begin, it is important to review the intended use and properties of a good idea management system. The principal process supported by such a system is challenge-based problem solving, which entails: 1. Identification of a business problem and the person or small team with the responsibility, authority and motivation to solve it. 2. Recasting the problem at a level of detail and in a format appropriate to "advertise" broadly. 3. Identification of a target audience of people, and announcement of the challenge to them. 4. A collection mechanism for their ideas about solutions. 5. A facile means for others to comment and build upon the submitted ideas. 6. Identification of a review team, and a review system that embeds the criteria and tools to allow reading, combination, ranking, and decision-making about the ideas and comments. 7. The means for archiving, searching and next-steps tracking as the agreed best ideas are taken back by the sponsoring team. This is the classic divergent (steps 1-3) followed by convergent (steps 5-7) approach to problem solving. It is what is meant throughout this article by "run a challenge" or "run a campaign." It is ideally suited for driving innovation, and certainly may be used for that purpose. But remember that we have assumed that there are some glass doors, some organizational barriers, that preclude such a direct approach. So no more talk about innovation! We'll aim our process and supporting tools at a less sexy, but more approachable goal: making business meetings more effective. In so doing we will sow the seeds of management trust and cultural change essential to our larger goal of fostering innovation. More Effective Business Meetings Large-scale business meetings are familiar affairs. Several times a year in any large organization, dozens to hundreds of people travel to a hotel or conference center for a few days of presentations, breakout sessions, food and drink. Such meetings are good and essential for building relationships, trust and motivation. They are not so effective with lots of details or careful evaluation of options. So our first "trick" is to run a campaign 2-4 weeks before such a meeting. This campaign, sponsored by the meeting organizers and directed to the attendees, can: * Get the substrate and details out in the open before the meeting. Dear Attendee (the e-mail reads), We look forward to seeing you at the Strategy 2010 meeting next month. Please take the attached challenge now, in which you submit 3-5 specific things that your business unit could do this year to prepare for the agreed future we seek. The organizers will review all entries, and the best will be highlighted in the opening session and used to build our action plans. Thus, by holding out the prospect of praise or embarrassment, the attendees are driven to do some relevant homework, in a structured way that begins the meeting with hundreds of options, seen and reviewed, ready to be discussed face-to-face, negotiated, and built into something better than the illegible flip charts and sticky notes where so many meetings end. …