Eliminate, eliminate
Eliminate, eliminate
My mantra, repeated ad nauseum, is that ideas on their own have no value. It can be fun to create them but unless they result in a decision and then in action they cannot add value to your organisation.
So somehow you have to eliminate all the ideas which don’t quite make the mark and focus on those that achieve your objectives.
How a final decision is made is something of a lottery in most organisations: gut-feel, the influence of powerful individual voices, popularity, preference for the status quo, flipping a coin…
What is interesting is that although decisions are made in a haphazard way, the outcomes of those decisions – mistakes – are subject to rigorous analysis and investigation.
A company I know of, recently had to pay one of its clients compensation of around £60,000 because it handled a decision, made some years ago, badly. The management team knew that the decision they had made was a poor one but for years they got away without changing it. From time to time someone would say “Do you think we should look at that decision again because it is only luck that has protected us so far?” but the decision was made to leave it.
A few months ago a client finally picked them up on their working practices and demanded to be reimbursed. £60,000 is only the tip of the iceberg of course, because in addition they not only lost their client’s future business but their reputation was damaged. They will be paying for that for many years to come.
Making great decisions is something we will look at more in future newsletters but here is a simple, 8 step process which all ideas should be subject to at the very least.
Ask the questions about each idea and give the appropriate score. You may need to carry out some research in order to give an accurate score in some cases. Do not rush in to action. Time spent making a good decision now will save a huge amount of time (not to mention money) later on.
1. Can I/we communicate this idea completely and clearly? (Score out of 20)
2. How much interest do I/we have in this idea? (Score out of 20)
3. How good is my/our opportunity for implementing it? (Score out of 20)
4. How good is the idea’s timing? (Score out of 5)
5. Do I/we have the skills to implement this idea? (Score out of 10)
6. Would following through on this be a good application of my/our strengths? (Score out of 10)
7. Does this idea have good competitive advantage? (Score out of 5)
8. How unique is this idea? (Score out of 10)
Ideas scoring 50+ have merit. The rest either need much more work or should be rejected.
Remember, there are no guarantees that every decision you make will get the results you intended. Being creative involves taking some risk. But you can minimise that risk by being consistent in the way you make decisions.
