5 Idea Generation Techniques That Your Employees Can Use

by Kylee Stone May 15,2015
Engagedly
PODCAST

The People Strategy Leaders Podcast

with Srikant Chellappa, CEO

In the lifecycle of an organization or a product, there are inevitable ups and downs. The key is to get past those downs, preferably through the application of innovative ideas. Normally, your first instinct might be to call in a consultant. But before you do give your employees a chance.

Here is why you should do that. Your employees have been with the organization for a while and may have even worked personally on the product. There’s nobody who knows the product or the organization better than them. More often than not, many employees tend to have great or even brilliant ideas with regard to making a product or an organization better. They just don’t know how to get them across. Get into the practice of going to your employees for fresh ideas. And show them how to come up with awesome ideas with these idea generation techniques.

1. Brooding Around A Table Is Useless

Yeah, it really is. Ideas don’t come to you when you are sitting around a conference table and looking at the other person’s face and feeling stressed out by the time pressure of thinking of a good idea fast enough. For a start, brief your employees about what kind of idea you are looking for, and then give them a timeframe within which you would like them to present ideas. And then leave them to themselves. This off-hand approach is pretty helpful because nobody is breathing down somebody else’s neck, asking them to come up with an idea quickly!

2. Play The Fool

If your mind has been furiously working and trying to find an idea and the idea refuses to materialize, then you just might be frying your brain. What you need to do is cool off. Go do something that isn’t ideating. Take a walk, have a conversation, play a game, have a coffee break. Do anything to relax. And before you know it, the idea will come to you! Other than goofing off, you can do other activities too, activities which help employees bond and therefore work better.

Also Read: 7 Ways To Curb Workplace Negativity

3. Knowledge Is Power

You cannot get ideas about something if you don’t know anything about it. You can only get ideas if you have a little bit of knowledge to go upon. So before you run off and try to generate an idea, do a little research about the job/project/product etc. That way, you’ll at least have a solid base to build from.

4. Incentive Idea Generation

You want your employees to come up with killer ideas? Then you better give them some incentives to go along, depending on how the idea changes/helps the organization. Incentives will give your employees the extra push that they need. Incentives means that there is a concrete goal to work towards and gives an employee the impetus to come up with something really great!

Also Read: Here’s A Checklist For Choosing The Right 360 Feedback Software

5. Fine tune and Refine

Sometimes, a gem of an idea gets hidden under a pile of rubbish. Carefully examine and dissect each idea. Maybe you and your employees already have thought of a good idea. All you need to do is strip away all the extraneous elements and voila, you have a good idea on your hands!

There are many other that idea generation techniques that exist. These 5 are just the tip of the iceberg. Share your idea generation techniques with us in the comments section below!


Did you know that Engagedly has a feature that helps you share awesome ideas? Request to a demo today to see that feature in action!

Kylee Stone

Kylee Stone supports the professional services team as a CX intern and psychology SME. She leverages her innate creativity with extensive background in psychology to support client experience and organizational functions. Kylee is completing her master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational psychology at the University of Missouri Science and Technology emphasizing in Applied workplace psychology and Statistical Methods.

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