The phrase “turning ideas into action” is a Russian doll. Managing
ideas to implementation process is important for at least two reasons:
a)To make effective use of resources – investing in one idea uses resources that could be applied to another idea. Yet all ideas do not have same likelihood of success.
b)To prevent re-engineering. There is often not enough time to properly develop and commercialise a product but there always seems to be time to go back and fix it. It has been estimated that cost of re-engineering ranges from low to high billions every year.
Effective idea to implementation involves a number of disciplines:
a)Effective idea selection – first stage of innovation. Innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation (as opposed to creativity, which can be defined as problem identification and idea generation).
b)Effective idea development – which involves a second tier of competencies. Where effective idea selection may be management, sales and end-user focused, idea development also requires technicians, designers and like.
