Implementing ideas
Implementing ideas
This is the tricky bit.
It’s one thing to come up with a myriad of ideas and quite another to get them up and running in the real world.
It needs the persuasion of the people who will bear the responsibility of signing off on the project.
This is far easier, of course, if you are the guy at the top.
It is easy to think of some major companies that seem to be driven from a passion at the top.
However, in the main, you will need to persuade those persons who hold all the power in the decision making process.
Headline
Ideally, you need to be in a position to engage people that want to agree with your idea.
The title you use for the meeting can be significant.
If it’s really boring then many will attend the meeting with a negative view from the start.
In the same way don’t just state that you are meeting to solve problem ‘X’.
Couch the title in terms that reflect a key benefit that will materialise if the problem is solved.
Focus on the implementation.
For example, ‘Cost cuts using proposal ‘Y’ eliminating a key issue ‘X’.’
This gives you a basic idea but it is important to think about this and agree on the potential impact of the headline title.
Ownership
People are much more likely to accept something if they feel they have ownership.
This should come about by involving key personnel in the idea generation process.
It has a secondary effect as well.
When you present an idea to a group of people you are giving them a complete summary.
That is, you will provide:
- A background history of the problem
- A review of the options you considered
- The positives relating to the desired solution
- The negative aspects of the proposed idea
The latter is very important.
It would be foolish to suggest that you have never even considered the potential negative impacts of a proposal.
You should have done so and come up with mechanisms that either ameliorate or eliminate these negative impacts.
In addition, the proposal meeting will go much more smoothly because attendees will already be familiar with much of the background and ramifications.
Basically, get key personnel involved at an early stage.
Be proactive yourself with the proposal.
The aim isn’t to move the proposal from your responsibility into the other person’s court.
You should be willing to push this proposal forward and implement it if it gets the green light.
Senior management might make the decision to proceed but they won’t want to chase up the detail of implementation.
Finally, is your idea good?
Presumably you and the group that developed it feel it is.
Unless someone picks up on a very big flaw then keep at it, persevere and find additional solutions or opportunities that counteract any negative opinions.
Test setup
An ideal situation would be that, in some fashion, you can show that the proposal works.
Naturally, this would have to be an activity reduced in some fashion from the complete implementation.
For example:
- You could produce a model or prototype that aptly demonstrates the proposal in practice, albeit at a reduced scale.
- You could run a short term field trial that is carried out in a number of ways:
- Record the data and present them later
- Film the activity and present it later
- If you can, make sure a key individual is present no matter what system you use
- Provide a live demonstration via a link
- Can you point to something similar being implemented?
Don’t rely on the latter being a strong case.
It is very likely, that in this case, there were many variables that you were just not privy to.
Target audience
Make sure you know the persons that you are presenting to.
This means, ‘what do they want from the meeting?’
Consider this very carefully and make sure your presentation reflects this.
Good data
This must reflect the perceived benefits of implementing the proposal.
Make the presentation of the data clear, easy to understand and easy to read or visually appealing.
Great lists of numbers are of little use.
The persons you are presenting to must feel relaxed with any critical decisions that they must make.
They can only do this if all the data is completely understandable.
There are differing schools of thought concerning the allowance of questions.
If you ask people to wait until you have finished the presentation then this could go against you.
You want to have a good rapport with your audience.
Leaving questions till later can be problematic.
Will they remember to ask key questions, will they lose the focus on what has been presented?
This could make the key personnel feel less confident in getting to grips with all the issues.
If this is the case, then you are unlikely to get the go ahead in this single meeting.
If you sow confusion it can be hard to retrieve the situation.
This is where the data should reflect and reduce the major concerns of the key personnel.
At the end of the meeting be proactive.
What happens next?
Ask how the key personnel wish to proceed.
Will it be easy to consider giving the proposal the go ahead, if so, what is the timing?
Do you need another meeting?
Just don’t leave things in the air.