Idea management vs. innovation management: Differences and touchpoints

Idea management is, in simple terms, fishing for pearls in the ocean of everyday life, while innovation management is the construction of the entire fishing fleet along with the processing plant and the seafood sales strategy. The first term focuses on generating and selecting ideas, the second on their commercialization and strategic business impact.

Idea management: what it is and why it isn't black magic

What is idea management in practice? It is an organized process that ensures the brilliant thoughts of your employees do not get lost in the abyss of the company kitchen by the coffee machine. It is a system that allows you to catch those small improvements that, on an annual scale, save a fortune on electricity or materials.

• Collection: Anyone can submit an idea, from an intern to the CFO (though the latter less frequently have visions unrelated to Excel spreadsheets).
• Evaluation: Someone wise (or an algorithm) checks if the idea doesn't break the laws of physics or health and safety regulations.
• Selection: We choose those initiatives that make the most economic sense.

Idea management is the democratization of creativity. It is the belief that the person standing at the machine for eight hours a day knows more about it than a consultant with a degree from a prestigious university who has only seen the plant on PowerPoint slides.

Innovation management definition: the grand strategy

What is innovation management? It is a much broader umbrella. While idea management deals with the seeds, innovation management manages the entire farm, forecasts the weather, and decides whether it is even worth sowing wheat at all.

This includes, among others:

• Innovation strategy: Where we want to be in five years and why the competition shouldn't catch up with us there.
• Organizational culture: Building an environment where a mistake does not end in public flogging but is treated like an expensive biology lesson.
• Resources and budgeting: Deciding how much real cash we burn in the research and development (R&D) furnace.

Innovation management in a company is looking at the organization as a living organism that must evolve to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs (who, as we know, had great processes but poor innovation management when faced with an asteroid).

Key differences: Scale and time horizon

Idea management vs. innovation management is not a boxing match; it is more like the relationship between an architect and a bricklayer. Both approaches are essential, but they operate at different levels of abstraction.

1. Scope: Idea management usually ends at the moment the concept is approved for implementation. Innovation management ensures that this implementation actually brings profit or a competitive advantage.
2. Participants: In an employee innovation program, we involve everyone. In an innovation strategy, we usually involve management and specialized development departments.
3. Tools: Idea management software is used for mass collection of submissions and voting. Innovation management tools are more like systems for project portfolio management and risk analysis.

On Monday morning, your goal should not be to reinvent the wheel. Your goal should be to check if someone in your team has an idea on how to make the current wheels spin 5 percent faster. This is a real gain that can be seen in the OEE table at the end of the month.

Idea management in practice: How to tackle it in our reality?

Implementing an idea management system is not just a matter of technology. It is primarily a fight against the mentality of "why change it if it works." The traditional school of process optimization often relies on guerrilla tactics and brilliant improvisations. Idea management is meant to civilize this guerrilla approach.

• Reward for sense, not just for effect: Sometimes a brilliant idea doesn't work out for reasons beyond control, but the thought process itself was worth appreciating.
• Simplify forms: If an employee has to fill out fifteen pages of an application to report a gasket replacement, that gasket will evaporate before they report it.
• Feedback is fundamental: Nothing kills creativity like a black hole where ideas disappear without a word of comment.

Summary: What to choose for your company?

If your company resembles a sluggish tanker, start with idea management. It is the fastest way to engage people and find low-hanging fruit (which in industry usually tastes like savings on raw materials). Once you learn to listen to employees, you can move on to the big game: innovation management.

Remember that even the most advanced innovation management will not work if no one at the bottom of the food chain has the courage to say that the king is naked and the technological process remembers the previous era. Idea management is the foundation on which you build the skyscraper of innovation. Without it, you are building on sand, and that, as geology textbooks teach us, rarely ends in success.