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Step 5 • Evaluate Your Ideas - Part 2

So how do you begin the job of judging ideas? How can you be sure that you will consider, seriously, the best, won't overlook the possibles, and won't waste time or effort on the impossible? The first step is to turn on your objectivity. In the creative stages, we suspended our judgment temporarily to let the ideas come through the gates. But when you get to weighing alter­natives, it is often a big temptation to hop on the idea you favored all along because "It's obviously the best of the lot!" So rather than switch from hot ideation to cold judgment, it is better if you make the changeover gradually.

If you have a quantity of ideas to select from, and you should, then do your evaluating in two steps: First, give them a "loose" evaluation—screen them roughly for such categories as "im­mediate possibilities," "possible possibilities," "research project," and, of course, "no goods." Then, tighten up your evaluation first on the "immediate" and the "possible" categories. The best way to do this seems to be to measure all the ideas against some common yardstick. This yardstick will probably be whatever standards or criteria you can set up (or that may already be established) which will satisfy the needs of the problem.

It would literally be impossible for any book such as this to provide comprehensive criteria for any problem that might be met by any executive in any kind of business. Furthermore, the best criteria will usually be specifically made for any specific problem. However, problems do have "commonness," and here are some examples of criteria listings that have been used suc­cessfully to "measure" ideas of various types:

First, a rather general type, that may have its chief value in helping you sort out the "possibles" and the "maybe's": Ask— and answer—these questions about each individual idea:

Is the Idea Simple?

Does it seem obvious?—or is it too clever?—too ingenious?—too complicated?

Is It Compatible with Human Nature?

Could your mother, or the man next door, or your cousin, or the service-station attendant all accept it? Is it direct and unsophisti­cated?

Can You Write out a Simple, Clear, and Concise Statement of It? Can you do this in two or three short sentences so that it makes sense? Can it be understood and worked on by people of the average intelligence level found in the field?

Does Your Idea "Explode" in People's Minds? Does someone else react to it with "Now why didn't I think of that?" Can people accept it without lengthy explanation? If it does not explode, are you sure you have really simplified it?

Is It Timely?

Would it have been better six months or a year ago? (If so, is there any point in pursuing it now?) Will it be better six months from now? (If so, can you afford to wait?)

The U.S. Air Force has a "Key Criteria" list that is adaptable to many business and management decisions on ideas. They suggest that in using this list you rank the criteria in order of importance for any particular job. In other words, rank them so that any standards that an idea must pass will get more weight in the final decision, and those which it would merely be nice if the idea did meet will have a secondary scoring. Here are the three points:

Is It Suitable?

Will this solution do the job? Will it remedy the problem situation completely or only partially? Is it a permanent or stop-gap solu­tion?

Is It Feasible?

Will it work in actual practice? Can we afford this approach? How much will it cost?

Is It Acceptable?

Will the company president (or the board, or the union, or the customers) go along with the changes required by this plan? Are we trying to drive a tack with a sledge hammer?

One suggestion in the Air Force list—How much will it cost?— has been expanded out into still another method of evaluating ideas that has much to offer business executives. Rather than ask, "How much will it cost?" however, you ask of each and every idea on your list, "How much will it be worth if it can be made to work?"

This system, used by the General Electric Company, among others, accomplishes many things by making sure that potentially good ideas get the attention they deserve. You will often find, in evaluating any list of ideas, that some of them could be put into effect immediately. But when you evaluate them on the basis of their worth, you may find that they would cost you more to implement than they could possibly be worth. On the other hand, an idea that seems to offer only a vague possibility of being useful, if it has enough potential worth, might justify even years of engineering-development time to bring to fruition. The only other suggestion for using this system is that you try to assign your dollar-values before you let any other form of judgment get in to cloud or prejudice your thinking!

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