Idea and Innovation Blog

As things go, there is a certain status that comes with size. Scale it seems is the street cred that makes the good..great; the known...ubiquitous; the powerful...mighty. And because folks immersed in innovation are  as susceptible as any to this seek out this revered status, the temptations is to think and go big. Which is fine when it comes  to process branding, increasing idea generation volumes and attracting a greater number of participants. It is less desirable when it comes to turning ideas into innovations.

Innovation communities that work on evolving an idea need not be enormous; in fact, rather than trying to big at everything, things often work-out best when smaller more specialized groups “break-off” to work on ideas that interest them – besides making the process more manageable, it is a key driver for self-motivation and bringing the right expertise to a given idea.

This approach forms small social networks around a specific vision and/or goal - as such, they don't necessarily need to be big; just purposeful and with the right players. The potential of many smaller groups working on many more focused initiatives creates an “ant farm” efficiency that can’t be matched by any centralized mechanism. Direction, motivation and management are shared and understood by the team and overseen by each idea’s champion; task and deliverables are handled by their respective experts or offered out for ownership rather than being delegated - and the output consistent with a format established beforehand that calls for certain requisite knowledge , data and information in order to aide accelerated decision-making when the idea is ready for Prime Time.

This more organic, agile and holistic approach enables participants to work on ideas and tasks that they know they can contribute to in a meaningful and rewarding capacity. As a result, it creates better developed ideas and accelerates an idea’s evolutionary trajectory.

Now imagine a whole bunch of these self-managing posses working away at innovations for your organizations; individually they appear small, but together, they are acting big.