"A year from now, you may wish that you had started today" - Karen Lamb

First off, sorry for not letting everyone know I was on vacation last week.  It was a wonderful week in Orlando spent relaxing, playing golf and letting a bunch of different ideas incubate. 

One of the things I am frequently asked is, "Where/How do we start building an innovation program?"  With all of the information available and the advice of countless consultants in the market today, it can be quite confusing. 

Here is a brief overview of the Design-to-Launch process that I typically use for most consultation engagements:

1. Announce that you are actually putting a program together.  You'll be surprised by who comes out of the woodwork.
2. Secure and publicly announce executive or other senior leadership commitments
   
3. Identify the promising idea generators and potential idea champions within your organization
4. Has your company tried this before?  If yes, study what worked and what didn't work the last time
5. Begin designing your processes and sub-programs:
• Training
• Creativity
• Innovation
• Idea generation
• Collaborative idea development
• Practitioner and facilitator
  
• Metrics
• Idea management systems
• Culture change activities
• Risk taking/limits
• Idea time
• Trust
• Idea sharing
  
• Reward/Recognition systems
• Points for Prizes
• Idea Stock Market
• Idea Lottery
• Frequent Idea Submitter Program
  
• Idea filtering and selection criteria
• Managers
• Idea Committee
• Senior Leader Committee
  
• Idea solicitation criteria
• How to submit an idea
  
• Innovation-related performance planning
6. Establish innovation program practitioners (facilitators, directors, champions, collaboration specialists, communication specialists, etc.)
7. Announce a general idea campaign to solicit process improvements, enhanced customer experiences, etc.
8. Heavily market the general idea campaign
9. Announce and celebrate success stories
10. Announce a specific idea campaign around one of your most pressing business problems
11. Heavily market the specific idea campaign
12. Announce and celebrate success stories
13. Hand off most promising ideas to development teams for implementation
14. Heavily market the idea implementation process and status
    
15. Provide constant communication and feedback to idea generators

Like I said, it is a pretty high level view of what transpires when developing an innovation management program from the ground up, but it at least gives you some logical steps to get started in designing your own program for harvesting the great ideas within your organization and putting them into action.

Have a great week!!!