rws may 2006 idc ug boston v8 - scaled innovation

Rob Spencer, Pfizer, IdC User Group, Boston, May 2006 1

Idea Central Users’ Group Meeting May 25, 2006 Boston, MA

Rob Spencer Pfizer Global Research & Development,

Groton Labs

Idea Maps

and

Ask the Experts


Idea Maps


idea from Alice : “Guerilla Marketing” cost - low speed - medium scope - narrow

idea from Rob : “Home Sales” cost - low speed - medium scope - narrow

idea from Charley : “Hot Dogs” cost - low speed - medium scope - narrow

cluster 2 cost - medium speed - medium scope - medium

cluster 4 cost - high speed - medium scope - high

cluster 5 cost - low-medium speed - medium scope - narrow-medium

Problem: the number and breadth of ideas from a large event is hard to grasp

Maps are a familiar and effective means to convey a large amount of information at a glance.

This concept was presented at the November 2005 User Group meeting;

what follows is an example of its implementation.


A Flash Session can generate 100 ideas in an hour -- can we also accelerate their comprehension ?

create ideas build with comments

rech

arge

rech

arge

create ideas

In this session, 33 people generated 122 ideas and 158 comments in 75 minutes.

It seemed like a perfect event to try building an Idea Map to help the review team.


But wait, there’s more ! Time Profile of a Flash Session with Flash Review

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

11 AM 12 PM 1 PM 2 PM 3 PM 4 PM time

entri

es p

er 2

min

ute

time

slic

e

Idea Comment Review

In this offsite meeting, 52 people generated 186 ideas, 45 comments, and 1057 reviews in 2 hours.

You can do Flash Reviews too..


How the Idea Maps were generated:

1.  All ideas were binned into one or more Idea Groups.

2.  An Event Report was created for Excel.

3.  Extra columns were added, one per Idea Group, containing 1 if the idea (row) was in that Idea Group (column), and zero otherwise.

4.  Similar columns were added for the event’s Scope and Urgency questions (typical high-medium-low questions; see my November 2005 IdC UG slides).

5.  For each Idea row, a Comment_Count column had the number of comments (a few Excel tricks make this easy).

6.  The rows for the Ideas (not Comments) were exported to Spotfire®.

7.  Once in Spotfire®, principal components were generated based on the Idea Group columns, and colors and symbols assigned to the others.

Steps 2-7 took less than an hour.


A Five-Dimensional Idea Map Each symbol represents an idea from the event.

Clicking a symbol shows its full details here.

Five Dimensions

1.  x-axis = principal component 1 based on Idea Groups

2.  y-axis = principal component 2 based on Idea Groups

3.  size = number of comments

4.  color = scope question

5.  shape = urgency question


Dragging selects a cluster of related ideas for view or export.


Subsets of ideas can be displayed or hidden, based on the questions in the event.


Idea titles can be shown; zooming in makes them separate and readable.


There are other visualization tools out there too : http://www.touchgraph.com/


Ask the Experts (an inverted, off-brand use of Idea Central)


There are lots of ways to use Idea Central •  Challenges = Events

•  Flash Sessions

•  Ask the Experts

•  Speed Dating

•  Flash Reviews

•  2 events: Find Root Causes --> Find Solutions

•  Prediction Market Reviews

•  Survivor

•  The Moose on the Table problem ...in which everyone is Anonymous !


Two Ways to Use Idea Central

? Time-Bounded Challenges This is the way that Imaginatik uses it.

1. A small team has a problem, so they...

2. Pose a challenge, which... !

3. Elicits some specific ideas, which...

4. Helps the team.

The software implementation for these is identical.

Ask the Experts This is another way that we’re using it.

?

1. A small team has expertise, so they...

2. Advertise their skills, which...

3. Elicits some specific problems...

4. Which the experts answer, thereby...

5. Helping to solve the problem.

!


Challenges Ask the Experts

idea question

comment answer

review (self evaluation)

The differences are in the usage and descriptions of actions :


How do you fit these on a crowded Portal ? Put all of your Ask the Experts links together on a redirect page, which will also get you “food court” advertising benefits.

You probably don’t have to put this redirect page inside your firewall, but it’s very easy to maintain and extend there.

Clever trick: The “Ask the Experts” banner is an image inserted as a link. Thanks Mark !


Nature 438, 15 December 2005, p 900-901

What’s the quality of the answers ? So far the length and quality of the questions and answers has been incredibly high : Putting your name on your answer in view of your peers assures high quality.

analysis of 2 events of each type, 885 total ideas + comments

In a similar vein, note that Wikipedia is reportedly as good as the Encyclopedia Brittanica:

We’re averaging 3.2 answers per question, so the average total reply length is 3.2 x 179 = 570 words of answer per question = 1 - 1.5 pages of text


An Ask-the-Experts site takes up a whole instance forever, and its traffic is low.

What’s the ROI ?

Do the math on your own organization. You will probably find something like this :

If, once a year, one answer saves one person just five days of unnecessary work, it’s worth it.

The question should be the ROI of a decision not to try it !


Questions ?

rws may 2006 idc ug boston v8 - scaled innovation

Documents