Article #1: How to Harness the Power of Ideas
A good idea is worth its weight in gold: it can help us find a new perspective on old processes; it can galvanise the approach we’ve taken or change it entirely; it can bring teams together; and it can highlight the common interests between different teams.
In other words, ideas are things to be nurtured and encouraged from all areas of our business, not just left to be discussed in the tearoom or at annual team conferences. But how?
Set time aside
Great ideas are rare, and they rarely come out of nowhere.
Good ideas are far more common, and may eventually turn out to be great, but they but need time to brew and encouragement to grow. They also need to reach the right people, the people who can take them from idea to implementation.
More and more companies in various forward-thinking industries, such as software, are encouraging their staff to engage in side-projects where they explore their own ideas. Google, for example, allows its employees to use up to 20% of company time to work on personal projects.
While 20% might not be achievable in our industry, where the demands of the pit are paramount, some smaller portion of time could still be set aside to allow individuals to formulate and begin to discuss them with their co-workers.
Involve everyone
Once an idea has been discussed, critiqued, and revised with co-workers, it’s time to introduce it to an even larger forum.
The more people who are able to hear and contribute to an idea the better it will be. They will bring their own knowledge, expertise, and perspectives to the conversation and, by now also having a stake in the idea’s success, will want to do whatever they can to make it succeed — including getting it to the person who can shepherd the idea to completion.
Consider everything
All ideas should be considered, because simply waiting for the perfect idea to drop into your lap never works.
Of course, not all ideas will succeed, not even good and sometimes great ones. But even those that we choose not to take forward are worthwhile because they teach us why they’re not feasible, or at least not right now (revisiting ideas from time to time is important, as new technology and practices may change an idea that didn’t work into one that does).
Added to that, teams that openly share ideas, work together to develop them, and understand that they will always be heard and evaluated, will be more innovative and motivated than those who feel they are ignored.
Follow a process
When it comes to identifying the ideas that are truly worth taking forward, I recommend the IDEA approach. This is a series of questions that I now ask (and answer) any time I want to submit an idea, or have an idea submitted to me, because it makes it much easier to sort the wheat from the chaff.
“I” for Interesting
What makes this idea interesting? What is its unique value? How will it change our processes and results?
“D” for Doable
Is this idea achievable? Can we make this change in a reasonable time frame? How will we perform the change?
“E” for Engaging
Who do we need to work with to develop this idea? Why should they be interested in it? Who will be resistant to the idea?
“A” is for Actions
What are the next steps? How do we start? What is the ask from the business?
If the answers to all these questions make sense, it’s time for the idea to pass up to the next level of review and approval, with all stakeholders able to see its progress through to (with luck) final implementation.
Contribute!
The best way to encourage other ideas is to contribute your own. To this end, I welcome you to put forward your ideas on the importance of collaboration in the mining industry and how mining companies can learn to communicate and share ideas better — as well as your thoughts on GEOVIA solutions — in the GEOVIA User Community.
To help you get started, we’ve put together some videos to guide you in submitting, or searching for ideas currently circulating, in the GEOVIA User Community. I'll have these added in the comments below. I look forward to reading them and engaging in a good conversation with you about them.
What’s next
Through the next two articles, I will continue looking at:
- methods for ensuring successful sharing of all datatypes — not just a select few — to all stakeholders, and
- how formalising the practice of sharing ideas between a company’s different disciplines and teams (or even outside) boosts innovation
- the fundamental, but often overlooked, connection between data and decisions.
About the Author:
Glenn BARLOW- GEOVIA Industry Process Expert Director
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