The Evolution Of An Idea: How to Quantify Innovation
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When it comes to data collection, it's easy to get lost in the world of numbers. Trying to figure out how best to measure and quantify something that might not necessarily have a numerical value - like innovation - can be overwhelming.
However, with over 94% of executives saying that they wish their team was innovating more, it’s clear that companies need a way to quantify their progress.
Qualitative data — like ideas — are so nebulous, and everyone who looks at them might take away something different. This makes turning ideas and innovation into something you can measure feel almost like spinning straw into gold. However, with the right tools and a data-driven culture, you won’t have to make a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to make it happen.
Why Measure Innovation?
It’s nearly impossible to measure the success of an idea without knowing how much effort went into creating it. Quantifying innovation allows you to track the progress and results of creative projects, as well as connect those results with financial outcomes.
With this information in hand, you can then use data-driven decision-making when developing new products or services. Additionally, measuring innovation gives your team better insights into their work and encourages them to strive for excellence by providing concrete evidence that their efforts are paying off.
Developing KPIs for your innovation strategy keeps everyone on track. It allows you to measure the progress and impact of each new idea coming in. You can use this data to allocate resources appropriately, hold teams accountable for their ideas, and show investors the fruits of your innovation spending.
Challenges of Measuring Innovation
While measuring innovation has its benefits, it’s not always an easy task. Qualitative data can be difficult to quantify and compare because it involves subjective opinions and feelings. This means that you need to come up with a way to convert qualitative information into measurable metrics so that you can track progress over time.
With quantifiable results on the minds of your innovation teams, you may be pushed to focus more on incremental innovation. Small changes are easier to measure than big ideas that lead to disruptive innovation.
Tuning in to too many metrics can become overwhelming, and can lead to teams working on low-value tasks.
You’ll want to avoid focusing too much on what is available for innovation rather than what is needed. The point of these metrics is not only to see where you are, but what will be required to get you where you want to be.
Remember that the output is not as important as the effectiveness of your process. You want to know what’s working and what could use more attention. An optimized process will ultimately produce better results, you just need to have confidence in it.
Stages of An Idea’s Evolution
In order to track ideas and data through the innovation process to deduce their efficiency, we must understand the stages of their evolution.
Stage One: Initial Idea
The first stage of the idea’s evolution is the initial idea. This could come from a brainstorming session, or even an individual creator, who then submits it to their team for further development.
During this stage, you'll need to fully plot out the idea and find a way to communicate the reasoning behind each component. This will prevent miscommunication down the line and ensure the idea is thought out enough to progress to the next stage.
Stage Two: Feedback
The second step is to get feedback from your team and colleagues. It’s important to open up the floor for ideas in order to find out what people think about the concept and how it could be improved upon in order to reach its full potential.
Stormboard's powerful storms allow everyone to interact with and comment on the idea. This will cut out the middleman of emails or notes about questions and concerns, keeping every suggestion in the same place and allowing the idea to evolve organically.
Stage Three: Collaboration
Once you and your team are convinced that the idea has wheels, you can invite other teams on board to take it for a spin. With Stormboard you can have real-time discussions about the designs and ensure that every department is on board and fully understands the project.
Stage Four: Testing
A data-driven company knows that getting information about users’ preferences is key. You can start sending out prototypes to users and tracking their responses. This will help you identify any issues and make sure you continue to develop in the right direction.
Pro Tip: Stormboard has dozens of pre-built structured templates that allow teams to dive into customer requirements, expectations, and sentiment to enable more directed, insightful testing.
Stage Five: Polishing
This stage usually takes the longest, and involves taking feedback and using it to create the best prototype possible. This is done by making adjustments and testing different features to ensure the idea works as intended.
As you go through this stage, you'll want to track the number of changes and iterations to get a better understanding of how much work was put into perfecting it. This is where Stormboard’s automatic reports come in handy, as they allow you to track changes every step of the way.
Stage Six: Quantification
This step involves collecting data from all stages of the process and using it to create metrics that measure the success of your idea. You can look at things like user feedback, time spent in each stage, and even revenue generated by the product or service.
These metrics will give you valuable insights into whether your process is working out. Once these metrics are established, they can be used to compare different ideas and decide which one is the most successful. With that data in hand, you can prioritize your efforts and determine which projects should be given more resources.
Optimizing The Process
When you’re just getting started with thinking of ideas as data that can be transformed, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Here are a few tips to stay ahead of the curve and get the most out of your qualitative data.
Allow Your Team to Dream Big
It may sound counterintuitive, but the key to turning qualitative data into quantitative information is actually allowing yourself and your team to think big. Innovation is ruled by the bold.
As important as small steps can be, they won't give you the competitive advantage that disruptive innovation will. Don’t be afraid to encourage crazy ideas - you never know what could turn into something great.
Use Critiques to Your Advantage
When you’re developing an idea, it can be easy to get so focused on the details that you forget to step back and look at how your idea fits into the bigger picture. That's why critiques are critical - they give everyone a chance to provide feedback and help shape something from all angles.
Taking in what others think allows for ideas to evolve in ways that might not have been possible without outside perspectives.
See Ideas as Data Points, Not as Things That Are Owned
It's vital to remember that ideas are nebulous things that are built over time with contributions from everyone. A half-baked idea can become the jumping-off point for a bigger discovery later on.
When you see ideas as data points, it’s easier to see the evolution of an idea, and it encourages collaboration.
Use Data to Drive Your Ideas
Just like any other big decision that your company makes, you should pull your ideas from a constant stream of data.
By using analytics and metrics to understand the market, your team can start to build on existing ideas and create something truly innovative. This will also ensure that your idea is grounded in what customers truly want and need.
Choose Relevant KPIs
If you’re measuring for something unrelated to your actual goal, it can be difficult to pin down the efficiency of your process. Some ideas for relevant KPIs include:
Amount of hours spent on successful innovation activities
Percentage of existing customers opting into newly upgraded products
Revenue from new customers
Research and Development spending compared to revenue from new ideas
Amount of teams submitting innovative projects
Amount of market innovations driven by management
The Bottom Line
You know that qualitative data is just as valuable as quantitative - if not more so. However, without the proper care taken to understand its evolution and extract data from the process, you might as well be stuck holding handfuls of straw.
Following these tips, it doesn’t have to be that way. As you utilize the tools at your disposal and put real effort into quantifying your innovative process, you’ll find yourself spinning gold in no time at all.
The easiest way to get started with evolving ideas and quantifying innovation is by jumping right in.
Stormboard offers free 30-day trials of our full-featured business plan that include all the templates, tools, and features your team will need to get started with the shift toward data-driven innovation and decision-making.
About the author:
A programmer by trade, Nick Saraev is a freelance writer and entrepreneur with a penchant for helping people excel in their careers. He's been featured on Popular Mechanics & Apple News, and has founded several successful companies in e-commerce, marketing, and artificial intelligence. When he's not working on his latest project, you can find him hiking or painting.
