There are free tools to advanced solutions such as CogniStreamer. In this article we describe six pitfalls that can be made by customers in the selection and deployment of an innovation management software solution. We also provide a possible solution for every pitfall which can be used to avoid them. CogniStreamer has more than a decade of experience with idea management and open innovation solutions. Therefore, the information is based on this experience.

Pitfall 1: no attention to “what’s in it for me”

Each organisation uses a large number of software applications. If you wish to introduce an idea management software, there is a chance that the employee thinks “yet another platform”. The result is that few people will participate actively in the idea campaigns. Nowadays, nice visuals or fancy features are not enough to get the internal community into motion and keep them active.

Solution: Consider a program that motivates the employee to join your idea campaign. Make sure that the “reward”, which certainly does not need to be financially, is both good for the idea as for the person or team who posted/enriched the idea. In other words: make sure you have an answer to the question “what’s in it for me”. CogniStreamer offers a workshop that specifically explains the “commitment of the community”. Intrinsic motivation of the employees is thereby paramount.

Pitfall 2: ideation as “stand alone” initiative (no “end-to-end” process)

When you launch a first ideation campaign (and you took pitfall 1 into account), you will certainly receive a large number of ideas. Your colleagues will congratulate you on this great initiative of the innovation department. However, if your idea campaign is not part of an end-to-end process, it will be difficult to develop the ideas in the organisation. Little will happen with the ideas and the internal community will drop out. The 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th idea campaign will become a lot harder…

Solution: Make sure you are also thinking of implementing or further dealing with the chosen ideas into the organisation. In other words, make sure that your idea campaign is part of an “end-to-end” process. Communicate the complete process at the start of a campaign and explain the idea selection criteria. Therefore, it is important that both the top management and the business environment already get involved in the set up of the idea campaign. Not to mention, we can only speak of innovation when an idea gets implemented!

Pitfall 3: Focus on idea collection rather than on idea enrichment

In line with pitfall 2 but viewed from a different angle: some companies use the ideation management software purely for the “gathering” of ideas from the community. It is good to rely on the internal (or external) community for the gathering of ideas. However, organisations that use this approach, utilize only partially the potential of the “wisdom of the crowd”.

Solution: Use the community (or the experts in this community) also to further enrich the ideas and to ‘shape’ the ideas for example through qualitative (SWOT analysis) and quantitative (online spider reviews) evaluation tools or online business model canvas-like solutions. Our experience shows that the highest creation of added value happens with the enrichment of ideas and not in the collection of ideas. Make sure you have a solution that offers this.

Pitfall 4: “We are building something ourselves with our intranet platform…”

“The IT department has already invested in a content management system on our intranet, so let’s just use that to start.” Nowadays, software tools such as CogniStreamer are not expensive for corporates. Actually they are only a very small part of the total cost to set up an open innovation solution. If you do not have a budget for this, you have to wonder if this initiative is really supported by the top management. The thought “first, we start with our intranet solution and later on we will prove it to the management…”, is counterproductive because then you do not take pitfall 2 into account.

Solution: just like SharePoint is not made to build your CRM package, and like you do not use Excel for your accounting package, is your basic intranet not made to enrich ideas in a collaborative way. It is certainly not optimal when you will work with external stakeholders or if you will grant internal rights that vary from idea campaign to idea campaign. (In one campaign, you are moderator, in another campaign you are a regular user and every role has different rights.) If you already use an internal content management system and this solution should stay, you can opt for an integration with an ideation management platform. Information can be shared between the two platforms via an integration. For example: SharePoint serves as a “social platform” (e.g. for the larger community) and the ideation management platform as a “processing system” (e.g. for enrichment and validation). A single sign-on between both environments seems to be a must in this solution.

Pitfall 5: “unsolicited ideation”

When you ask the community to think about open questions like “post here your innovative idea” (this is called ‘unsolicited ideation’ in the sector) and you do not give the challenge approach (“how can we…”), you will receive a lot of ideas that are irrelevant to the innovation management. Your ideation solution is then a labour-intensive process for the innovation team. Moreover, chances are that there are not that much interesting ideas for the current needs. Both you and your community will get frustrated and the project will die a quiet death. Unsolicited ideation can be detrimental if you don’t spend enough time to deal with the ideas.

Solution: Try to start with a challenge approach (“how can we…”). Once this goes well, you can start an unsolicited idea campaign. However, the probability that an unsolicited campaign is successful, remains smaller than with a solicited approach.

Pitfall 6: “online and offline”

Algorithms, semantic technology and other valuable and necessary functionality on the ideation platform, do not intend to replace ‘human’ but they are used to encourage collaboration and support. Ideation will become more successful when using ideation software, but also the spontaneous off-line interaction between people remains an important link.

Solution: You will get the best results when you combine “face to face” sessions with ideation and enrichment sessions on the ideation platform. Think how much more efficient and effective face to face meetings are when there has been filled in an online SWOT or business model canvas like solution prior to this meeting.

Conclusion: the selection and successful implementation of an innovation management software involves more than choosing the “tool”. The pitfalls described above are not insurmountable but when there is no or insufficient attention paid to them, they will not lead to a successful project. CogniStreamer offers state of the art innovation management software and provides professional guidance to tackle the above described pitfalls.