{"id":4195,"date":"2023-05-04T12:47:01","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T16:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/?p=4195"},"modified":"2024-08-01T19:56:04","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T23:56:04","slug":"what-is-idea-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/what-is-idea-management\/","title":{"rendered":"What is idea management? A complete guide + best practices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Progress happens through innovation. \u201cWhat got you here won\u2019t get you there.\u201d To drive progress, you need ideas. You can usually come up with a few by doing some research, asking others, or just winging it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, you can take a slightly more scientific and structured approach. That\u2019s called \u201cidea management\u201d, and that\u2019s exactly what this blog post is about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll go over idea management as a concept, illustrate with examples, and \u200cexplain why it\u2019s so important. We\u2019ve learned a lot by building our idea management software<\/a>, and we\u2019re happy to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

What is idea management & why you should care<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Idea management involves coming up with a new idea and bringing it to life.
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It includes generating, collecting, evaluating, and implementing that new idea. Everyone wants to be a trendsetter. But you can\u2019t really become one on your own. Every successful startup became great thanks to various ideas and experiments, many of which failed. But the ones that succeeded \u2013 those made a big difference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all thanks to ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Driving innovation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Idea management truly drives innovation. Without new ideas, your business will remain stagnant and might become irrelevant very quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New ideas can also help you improve your product. When you get feedback from your users<\/a>, team members, and the community, you\u2019ll know exactly what to fix or build. Without it, you\u2019ll end up just guessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That feedback often comes from lots of different sources \u2013 your team members, clients, prospects, and more. The trick is to keep track of them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s an example from our Canny board. This is a discussion of a feature request for changelog search. One person requested it, and others upvoted this idea and added their comments to the thread.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Changelog<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Staying organized<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Idea management also involves organizing those ideas. To stay on track, it\u2019s best to keep them all in one central location, find a way to avoid duplicates, and make sense of them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a Canny board that shows different ideas, the number of votes and comments, potential MRR, status, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Canny<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

How to manage ideas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve tried jotting down ideas on napkins, notepads, spreadsheets, and making long lists of feature requests, you know how tedious that can get. In fact, that\u2019s exactly what Missive<\/a>, an email collaboration tool, faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cBefore Canny, we had a spreadsheet. For each request, we had an email, a name, and a link to that request. Once we shipped a feature, we had to manually go through the list and follow up with each person who requested this feature. It just wasn\u2019t scalable.\u201d<\/p>\nPhilippe Lehoux, CEO at Missive<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But how exactly do you approach idea management? Do you just go around asking for new ideas? Let\u2019s go over some strategies that will help you bring the best ideas forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ideation is the first step in idea management. It\u2019s the process of coming up with new ideas and concepts. In this step, you\u2019re trying to come up with creative solutions to problems or challenges. The goal of ideation is to produce a wide range of innovative ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brainstorming<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Brainstorming is a technique within ideation that you\u2019re probably familiar with. The goal is to throw as many ideas on the board as possible, as quickly as possible. During brainstorming, there are no bad ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s an example of a brainstorming session we had at Canny to come up with content ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We broke down ideas into existing, in the works, and future ones. We also had separate columns for existing well-performing content and what the product team is focusing on at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we asked our team to suggest any ideas they could think of for each. After a quick brainstorming session, we discussed and voted on those ideas as a team.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Content<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Mind mapping<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Another technique is mind mapping. It\u2019s a slightly more visual approach to ideation. When mind mapping, you\u2019re connecting similar ideas together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can use a mind map after brainstorming and ideation. Once you have a central idea that you\u2019d like to develop further, you can create a diagram. Then, you link different concepts together using words, images, and symbols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that central idea you\u2019ll create a diagram that shows the relationships between different ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Idea box<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The idea box is exactly what it sounds like \u2013 a box for ideas. You\u2019ve seen them before \u2013 at reception desks, restaurant welcome counters, and even online. The purpose is to collect honest customer feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of having a physical box with papers in it, you can do it with the help of a software tool. You can use Canny<\/a> to collect, organize, and prioritize ideas all in one place. It\u2019s a modern and much more efficient take on an idea box!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"New <\/a> <\/span>