Selection

Assemble a diverse range of individuals, with a range of skills from across your business. Include subject matter experts to ensure the ideas are feasible and well as creative minds who will think outside the box.

Bring together all the ideas from the ideation workshop and remove any duplicate ideas. Use post-its, cue cards, digital pin boards or online tools to organise the remaining ideas.

Carry out an initial review of all your ideas. Rule out those that will not solve the problem or are not feasible. As a group, consider which of the remaining ideas have development potential. You will most likely have a few strong ideas that you can begin to evaluate more closely.

Develop a selection criteria to assess your ideas. Agree on the criteria as a group and consider how each one fits with your business under specific categories.

• Strategy: Does the idea align with your business strategy? Is it risky to take the idea forward, or is it riskier not to make a change at all?
• Capability: Do you have the skills and technology you need to take the idea forward? If not, what is required to bridge this gap? Think about the impact on all elements of your business, such as finance, HR and communications.
• Market: How would you describe your target market? What is it its size, and who are the people in it? Are there already competitors in this market? Is there demand for the idea?
• Customer: Will your idea solve a problem for your customers? If so, how much will they pay for it? If your idea is an internal business process, business model or management structure your customers are your colleagues.
• Budget: How much will it cost to bring this idea to market? How many people will you need to develop it? How will you finance development, testing and launch? How profitable do you expect it to be?
• Value: Will the idea provide a great value proposition and a successful business model?

Develop a matrix to help you evaluate your ideas. Assign a maximum value of 100 for each idea, and break this down further, allowing a maximum value for each criterion. Distribute the points evenly or allocate a higher value to your priority criteria.

Complete the matrix for each idea, calculating the score as you go. The best idea will be the one with the highest mark at the end of the process.