Harness the intellectual capability of your staff to drive improvement

1. Money too tight to
mention?
Innovation without the outlay

2. The problem
Having right-shored and right-sized the remaining
functions that haven't been outsourced and
entered into strategic alliances with your main
vendors your leadership team still needs to drive
out ever greater efficiency...
Basically "do more for less"

3. A simple solution
Help is at hand in one simple but very powerful
word - INNOVATE. It's neither as difficult nor as
expensive as you may think as nobody knows
more about your company and your clients than
your staff...
Harness all this brainpower to solve problems!

4. How to do it (1/2)
• Define a business problem needing a solution. Start
small but it has to be measurable
• Tell staff you need their help to solve this problem by
submitting ideas. Encourage participation with small
incentives, choosing one or more to progress into a
proof of concept
• Help build business cases and presentations with the
staff who submitted these ideas. This not only
empowers them and builds soft skills but also builds
an emotional attachment to the success of their ideas

5. How to do it (2/2)
• Have the leadership team agree on the strongest
performer from the proof of concept and scale up
into a full-blown initiative. If the other ideas are
also feasible and will provide incremental
improvements then enter them into an 'innovation
pipeline' where they can be regularly assessed
and progressed
• Measure the improvements, celebrate the
successes and repeat on a regular basis to keep
momentum and enthusiasm going!

6. Benefits... really?
Once this cycle gets going the benefits will roll in -
not just for the company but for the staff as the
chances are it'll ignite a desire for being inquisitive
and innovative.
Just make sure it's relevant, fun and inclusive

7. Does it really work?
Yes, it really does - why not try searching online for
'crowdsourcing ideas' and you'll find a famous
University doing something very similar! I've even
added the link below, to save you a couple of
seconds!
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/e-innovation/university-oxford-harnesses-student-lecturer-brain-power-
cloud-platform-156470?
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