Measuring innovation and creativity can be tricky because it involves determining the value of ideas that have not yet been implemented, or even identified. Traditional measures of profit or return on income don’t work for something that is in its infancy. So how do you measure creativity? I think the best way is to factor in all the core concepts that show creativity is alive in an organisation.
Number of ideas
One of the main issues is whether you are generating a large number of ideas. You need to measure not only the number, but the period of time over which you are having them.
Types of ideas
You also need ideas that are a little crazy or difficult to implement. Are all your ideas very similar to the current way of doing things? If so, you need to push yourself for more different and varied input and output.
Ideas put into practice
Finally, you also need to measure the number of ideas actually being worked on, and the number of ideas implemented.
Based on the above there may be a number of measures you want to consider:
· Number of ideas generated in the last month / quarter / year.
· Number of brainstorming meetings to generate ideas.
· Number of techniques used to generate ideas.
· Number of ideas rejected (shows how fecund you have been).
· Number of ideas implemented.
· Number of ideas implemented which have changed the marketplace.
· Number of awards for new market offerings / products.
· Profit from ideas implemented.
· Money saved from ideas generated.
· Market perception of how creative you are compared to others (via surveys).
There are probably many more, but you want to focus on a core of standards which will indicate you are concentrating on creativity and innovation, and which will show employees you are serious about this area.
2 comments:
Hi Mark, thank you. Measuring the number of ideas is very effective because I think you can only in hindsight say that you have been creative independent of the organization or in the case of an individual the personal attributes. Is this your original idea or do you have a source for that (which I would be happy to quote)?
These ideas are mainly created from my experiences at work and in life generally. There is no single source where these ideas came from, just lots of reading and synthesising experience over time. In fact, I wrote this entry because of my frustration at not being able to find an answer to how to measure creativity anywhere else!
Post a Comment