Get ideas to flow

From HMCwiki

Here are some ways to get ideas to flow:

1. Create a receptive environment for ideas. It starts with the manager then cascades to the staff. No one is above generating improvements and no one is without the ability to make improvement as long as the barriers to creativity have been addressed.
2. Address every idea received with importance. It’s important to its contributor. Take the time to help the contributor develop it or to realize it’s not do-able.
3. Create a system of consistent reception, feedback, nurturing, cost justifying, recognition, broadcasting, and deployment.
4. Encourage, even fight for the little idea. Idea is the life of change. It honors the person who generated it and it sends a message of value to all who are watching.
5. Develop an expectation for idea generation. Try one a month per employee. Proclaim a war on waste. Every problem that arises is great material for an idea.
6. Remove barriers which impede implementation. Get petty cash, outside assistance, approvals…whatever you can to make implementation a down-hill slide.
7. Keep the idea initiator apprised of idea status once it’s submitted. Time and lack of communication work against the generation of future idea.
8. Require initiator to evaluate the total cost, including other areas impacted, and to derive the time value or potential savings from the idea.
9. Implement the idea (which turns it into an innovation) with clarity to all who encounter it. If possible, integrate needed instruction at the point of the innovation’s use. Innovation = I + I (Idea + Implementation)
10. Broadcast the knowledge of the innovation to all who need to know of its introduction. Brag on its initiator. Take a before and after picture. Get others to apply it in their area if appropriate. Knowledge Management = G X G (How fast an ogranization Generates an idea times how fast it can Generalize the idea)
11. Sustain it. Catalogue your innovations to remind you where you’ve come from and to keep check to see if it is still enforced and useful.

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