How are Ideas Flowing in Your Organisation?
Just imagine for a moment, your organisation's ideas as a flowing river.
What does that river look like?
Is it a steady stream of clear, actionable ideas or a chaotic whirlpool of disjointed thoughts?
While observing various organisations, I’ve noticed some common challenges:
there’s often a lack of flow. Ideas aren’t being shared across teams, remaining isolated within individual silos, which hampers visibility and prevents organisation and prioritisation.
many ideas are either too abstract or excessively detailed. This results in a cluttered flow with numerous duplicates that aren’t immediately evident. These ideas also lack the iterations needed to become unique and valuable. This lack of nuance and differentiation adds to the confusion and clutter, further muddying the waters of our metaphorical idea river, adding to the confusion and reducing their potential impact.
ideas or their contexts often aren't visible in the right place or at the right time. For instance, an idea discussed in a meeting between marketing and sales on a Tuesday might actually be extremely relevant for a conversation with the product function on a different day, but due to their not being visible or brought up at the right time, they fail to reach the right people.
This can lead to significant inefficiencies. Time, attention, and resources might be allocated to discussing and developing ideas that aren't the best fit for the current situation or context. Similarly, we may not pick up on ideas that could provide an important breakthrough or a valuable new perspective.
So, how can you improve the flow of ideas in your organisations?
You don't necessarily need an outsider to reveal what your organisation already knows, however, you may benefit from an agile consultant who can facilitate this process by:
Create a space to process and elaborate on ideas at the right level of detail, ensuring they fit into the correct workflow.
Foster transparency and organisation to enable collective thinking and avoid duplication of opportunities.
Facilitate effective discussions and track progress to ensure ideas are timely and appropriately evaluated.
By streamlining your 'idea river', you can foster an environment where sharing, organising, and acting on ideas becomes a natural and productive process.
