Practical approach: How to enhance innovation democracy with the means of idea management in an expert organization?

Innovation is changing from closed environments to more open platforms. It is claimed to be become democratic. The opening democratization of innovation forces organizations to rethink the practical methods of managing innovation both internally and externally. Researchers claim that systematic management of innovation is a key success factor for most innovative companies. The paper describes a case where an idea management tool was developed and brought into practice in a demanding expert organisation. The first phase of innovation process, idea generation, has been crucial for companies' renewal and success in closed environments. Idea generation should be rich and even chaotic process and it has typically been carried out in forms of various idea calls and listings. Today, new technologies offer companies a way to generate and further develop ideas in open virtual spaces that can be shared globally and by all levels of an organization. Nevertheless, chaos and numerous ideas and insights set prerequisites for idea evaluation. In this case the challenge was tackled by introducing two entities: Firstly, the idea gardens, where the ideas can be planted, further developed, commented and rated by all the users. Secondly, an evaluation tool, with which the "ripe" ideas can be evaluated by specialists by using an integrated web survey tool. However, introducing an idea management tool is only a starting point on organisations' journey towards successful innovations. The most demanding task is to link innovation process development and organisation culture. This paper contributes to the conversation of creation of an innovative organisation by a practical point of view. The paper concentrates on the fuzzy front-end of the innovation process, idea generation, and gives insight of how to develop innovation democracy within an expert organisation.