James Gardner, Chief Technology Officer at the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK and author of the blog, Banker Vision, explains the key components of corporate innovation.  Gardner’s “tools of innovation” also are aligned with the fundamental building blocks of prediction and idea markets. 

The Tools of Innovation – excerpts from James Gardner’s BankerVision 
Our commentary in italics

A.M Mills, the author of Hell Bent on Success asks me to explain what I mean by the “tools of innovation”. It is possible to summarise, I think, because everything you need to know about doing innovation happens in four stages.

1. Futurecasting
The first is futurecasting. This is the process of working out what is likely to happen in the future so you can guide subsequent iterations of your innovation process. In the book, for example, I explain a specific futurecasting process based loosely on a scenario planning methodology, but anything that gets structured consideration of the future on the table is a good thing. Why is this important? Well, firstly, you can never ask a senior person for support on something new, especially if that new thing impacts current business or revenue, without rehearsal. They need time to think over consequences, and making them think about the future helps them do that. The second reason is that random innovation without a guide won’t always result in new things that solve the strategic problems of the firm. Out of the box thinking is all very well, but if you are not only out of the box, but out of the ballpark, it is usually not helpful.  

For example, GE has run imagination markets successfully for several years, providing a vehicle for leaders to think about the future in the context of other options. GE imagination markets resulted in higher quality ideas than traditional methods.

• 60% of ideas rated as high quality
• Gathered valuable ideas and engaged employees in a fun way

2. Ideation
Ideation is the process of collecting ideas and deciding how good they are relative to all the other ideas that you might have. The thing is, if you’re running a programme, you’ll likely have far more ideas than resources to execute them. So you have to have a way of deciding what you’re going to work on. Of course, if you’re still thinking that the answer to your innovation challenge is getting the good ideas, then you have some work to do. Ideas are everywhere, and usually all you need to do is find a good way of collecting them. Anyway, you’ll have more ideas than you know what to do with, so one of the main tools of innovation is a decent way to prioritise. Usually, people create various scoring systems to do this, but crowd based methods, such as voting and prediction markets work just as well. 

For example, Motorola launched an idea market in 2007, powered by Consensus Point, for  employees to prioritize thousands of ideas on a quarterly basis. Motorola realized the following benefits, in addition to effectively prioritizing ideas: 

• Increased number of new ideas that are pursued from 11% to 22%
• Decreased number of duplicate ideas by 50%

3. Innovate
The third stage is what I call the “innovate” stage, which is really all about the tools and processes you use to work out – in detail – the stuff that has to happen before an idea is actually fundable.  Anyway, to get to the crux of the matter here, you need to answer three questions. “Can we do this?”, which is technically, operationally, and environmentally, is the idea actually possible. “Should we do this?”, which is primarily economic, i.e. can we afford it, and if we can, will anyone want it?. And, finally, “When?”, which is mainly about the response of competitors or internal players. Answering all that means you have a case which is a candidate for funding and delivery. As you’d expect, there are lots of things you do for each of those questions to get to decent answers for as little investment as possible. 

For example, GE employees participating in the company’s “Imagination Market” trade or buy “ideas” based on how closely they believe an idea is aligned to the business objectives, how an idea compares to other alternatives, and if the idea is operationally feasible. Most often, the ideas represent new technology or new product ideas.

4. Execution
Once you have money, the final stage is execution, which is all about building the thing and getting it out in the market. Key tools here include all the things you need to do to win over users, prove you know what you’re doing from an operational perspective (remember, it’s innovation, so its new, so no one will have made it work before), and a ton of other things. But I think the most important thing is you don’t even get to the Execute stage until you’ve done a substantial amount of groundwork first.

Gardner’s “tools of innovation” are a useful guide to effective innovation management, and idea/innovation markets enable several steps in his recommended process.

 License Agreement Provides Access to Successful GE Imagination Market, Comprehensive Innovation Management Process 

Nashville, TN – Consensus Point LLC, a leading provider of prediction market software and services announced the addition of Rebecca Whitehead Munn to the leadership team and a license agreement with General Electric (“GE”).   Through the GE relationship, Consensus Point customers can have access to the proven GE Imagination Market process and benefit by identifying the most promising ideas for business growth.  GE’s Imagination Markets help answer tough business questions such as “what new technology ideas should we be investing in” and “what new products should we develop”. Market participants can submit their own ideas for entry into the market, and they can buy and sell shares of any idea in the market based on how well they believe the idea will contribute to the market’s objectives. At the end of the market, the business leader has a rank-ordered list of ideas.

GE has implemented the Consensus Point solution for idea management in over 10 GE businesses since 2006. The GE Imagination Market has uncovered innovative ideas based upon a variety of business-designated criteria. By licensing and integrating the GE “Imagination Market” technology process, Consensus Point provides a proven, comprehensive design and solution leveraging the prediction market expertise of Consensus Point and the business innovation leadership of GE.  In the recent GE-wide Imagination Market, over 1,400 employees from 170 business segments representing 42 countries suggested over 220 business model innovation ideas. GE Imagination Markets provide a fun way to engage people globally in new idea generation and result in an abundance of relevant ideas that can aid in setting future strategic directions.

Rebecca Munn joined the Consensus Point team as Senior Vice President of Sales. She brings over 22 years of proven experience in strategic planning, sales and marketing leadership, business unit operations, and services delivery. At Consensus Point, Ms. Munn is leading sales, sales operations, marketing, and customer relationships. She has held leadership positions with several global service and technology companies, most recently as the Vice President of Sales Operations of Healthways.  Ms. Munn also held several leadership roles at Cisco Systems, including the former Director of the Services Division, Connected Health Vertical, and principal in the Internet Business Solutions Group. She was the co-founder of The Arbora Group, a retail and wholesale operations start-up, in 2001. Ms. Munn is a former board member of the Nashville Technology Council. She earned an executive MBA from the University of Colorado and a BBA in marketing from the University of Texas at Austin.

“Our customers now have access to GE’s global experience in innovation management and proven design for the Imagination Market, commented Linda Rebrovick, CEO, Consensus Point.  “This fully integrated solution, including the Consensus Point Foresight software and GE Imagination Market process, allows organizations to rapidly launch and realize the significant benefits of an idea and innovation market. Some of our customers have cut the time to process ideas in half through using idea markets. In addition to the GE partnership, we are pleased to announce the continued growth of our company with the addition of Rebecca Munn to our leadership team.”