A company’s big challenge with innovation is seldom the volume of ideas. Indeed, in a survey conducted this year by my company, only 6% of corporate innovators said that their biggest problem was having too few ideas. But not all ideas are equal, and poor or highly derivative ideas might consume far too much attention. Frequently those ideas are related to emerging trends, involve more than the company can do on its own, require nurturing, and are cross-functional in nature. The real need is to ensure that the right ideas get ahead and get considered.
