Idea Diagnostics: 3 Steps to Evaluating the Feasibility of an Idea
That was my idea!
Often times you can fall in love with an idea and think you are so brilliant for having the idea. You feel good about yourself for developing what you think is a good idea and you go around telling others your good idea in hopes that they too feel inspired by the idea because this secretly validates the “good idea” feeling that you may be experiencing.
Ideas are important to everything, it helps us improve products, save time, make things more efficient and either make or save us money. However, sometimes our egos become attached to an idea and we run with it without evaluating its efficacy because we think since the idea came from us it makes us important or special in some way.
When this happens, it does not mean you have a good idea. It means your ego has attached itself to the good feelings and that has clouded the assessment of an idea. Not every “good idea” you have is going to make you money or be the correct solution to enhance an outcome.
Sometime this can trip you up because, you do not know when to let go of a marginal idea and move onto a new idea that better “course corrects” your vision and makes you money. In fact, sometimes you ego, around an idea, can become so strong it makes you broke.
On the flip side you can become so cautious about the validity of an idea that you go over and over it and over it and over it in your mind hoping to avoid the possibility of failure. This can give you analysis paralysis and you do not move forward with an idea simply out of an in ability to commit to implementing an idea. The object in evaluating a good idea or not, is to not become over cautious or ego driven.
Here are 3 steps to help you evaluate whether an idea should be followed up on or not.
- 1) If you ask a “how to solve” question, this requires some brainstorming. Get a piece of paper and let your ideas flow (if you have a team, that’s even better) without judgment or analysis, write these ideas down. When you have brainstormed several ideas walk away from the list you just created and come back for at least an hour.
- 2) Then come back to the table and have the team evaluate which ideas seem the best and begin the evaluations process by asking some questions. This takes your ego out of the process and helps you also not have too much analysis paralysis of the idea.
o How easy will his be to implement?
o Is it cost effective?
o How much time will be needed before results should show?
o Will it make or save money?
o How much staff or team is needed? - 3) Let the team mutually pick the idea on the table that they feel will benefit the “how to solve” question. Then begin monitoring and managing the idea to make sure it is producing the desired outcomes.
Is my idea feasible?
If you have an idea and you are hoping gets you a small business startup that earns you millions then you must evaluate whether your idea is viable by asking market questions. You may run a survey or ask questions of your customers.- o Is there a market for this product?
o What problem does it solve?
o How big is that market?
o Is this long term market or fad market? Fad=(2 years or less)
(technology is a fad market because in two years the technology will have morphed)
o Can you upgrade the fad market?
o What kind of money will you need?
o Can you create joint ventures with it?
o Can you get it to market before the fad time ends?
o How many joint venture partners will you need?
o How may units, packages, widgets need to be sold before you meet your breakeven point?
Ideas are so important to have and being able to analyze their efficacy and feasibility will help you materialize the best of your ideas.
As always, I would love to hear your comments and ask you to please forward this post by using the share the love tabs below.
May you direct your dreams.