Provide R&D departments with fresh perspectives by deploying temporary teams of generalist ideators
Image credit: iStockphoto
Darko SavicApr 22, 2022
Please leave the feedback on this idea
Originality
Is it original or innovative?
Feasibility
Is it feasible?
Necessity
Is it targeting an unsolved problem?
Conciseness
Is it concisely described?
Bounty for the best solution
Provide a bounty for the best solution
Bounties attract serious brainpower to the challenge.
A service that provides temporary teams of talented generalist ideators to infuse fresh perspectives into specialized Research and Development teams.
Why?
A service that gets R&D departments unstuck and their ideas flowing again.
Research and development departments usually consist of experts that are highly trained in the company's narrow field of interest. This means that people there are likely to share the same knowledge and base assumptions. When the progress stalls, it's not easy to restart it.
Spending every day on the same team, tackling the same problems, does not foster creativity. This results in diminishing returns.
Creative people are likely to get fresh ideas after being exposed to fresh concepts, experiences, and information that enables new connections to be made. What better way to achieve this than to bring in a bunch of highly talented generalist problem solvers that might not even know each other.
A way for freelance ideators to make a living.
The knowledge of Nobel Prize winners spans a substantially greater number of subjects than that of their less-successful peers. More different concepts one is capable of drawing upon, the higher their likelihood of achieving a breakthrough. The idea helps make this happen through collaboration.
How it works
This is a commercial implementation of this concept with a twist that maximizes the diversity of paradigms
Provide a place where talented problem solves can sharpen and demonstrate their skills. A place with a good rating system where quality ideators can emerge.
Provide a way for the problem solvers to be hired as freelancers for temporary jobs.
Provide a service where companies with specialized research and development departments can outsource help from a temporary team of generalist ideators on a short notice.
Upon getting a request for a team, assemble it from high-ranking ideators that are available within the area or willing to travel on a short notice.
Upon arrival the generalist ideators are briefed on whatever the specialied R&D department is working on. They go through a crash-course on the necessary knowledge and mingle with the in-house team for any qeustions/answers.
The generalist team works alongside the R&D team but also brainstorms independently amongst themselves.
They stay with the department for at least two days to determine whether they can be of assistance. Using the lessons learned from this endeavor, the team can:
Continue to work alongside the R&D department's in-house team. Research and do whatever they can to help.
Be disbanded and replaced by a team of different ideators who try again. Repeat as many times as financially feasible. This could be a small price to pay for an eventual breakthrough.
Cancel the operation.
Ideator-lending agencies can be set up anywhere in the world. The Brainstorming platform makes it easy for them to find/hire the ideators for temporary jobs. As long as they find work for the ideators, they can turn a profit.
[1]Michele Root-Bernstein & Robert Root-Bernstein (2022) Polymathy Among Nobel Laureates As a Creative Strategy— The Qualitative and Phenomenological Evidence, Creativity Research Journal, DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2022.2051294
I'm in - out of the square ideas are needed everywhere in business and government.
Why try to force current staff to be ideators when we are so capable at this and love getting things changed up.
Hire us ideators only when needed and then let current staff do what they do best - carry out the innovation. Current staff can also see areas that require transformation - let them pinpoint the problems and let the ideator contractors solve them.
Please leave the feedback on this idea
MM
Michele Moore22 days ago
Many people out there, and those who are ready to invest, think that innovations are technological inventions, either hardware or software. BUT true innovators can't help themseves and work on solutions to every problem.
eg. How can we pack people into aeroplanes in a more human centred way - so I can sleep in long haul economy AND get out to the bathroom without waking my neighbour?
Please leave the feedback on this idea
Add your creative contribution
General comments
Goran Radanovic3 years ago
I agree about generalist ideators offering a different perspective. A new set of eyes tends to see something that the same old pair have missed what's under their nose.
Darko Savic Apr 22, 2022
Please leave the feedback on this idea