You have a great idea – what next?
Before proceeding further, a crucial step in the innovation process is ensuring that your idea is feasible and as strong as it can be.
To assist individual public servants in assessing their ideas the Toolkit includes the Innovation Development Early Assessment System (IDEAS) for the Public Sector.
The IDEAS framework helps to assess, at an early stage, whether or not you want to pursue a project or whether it needs further work to strengthen its merits, or whether it should be abandoned or put aside for now. IDEAS may also be helpful as a framework in presenting your ideas to others.
This methodology is:
- structured using a comprehensive set of standardised assessment criteria
- aimed at early assessment when there is not much tangible data available
- designed to identify ideas with genuine merit that warrant further development and testing.
If you have an idea that you want to assess you can start the IDEAS assessment.
Please note that the IDEAS material is not subject to the Creative Commons licence. The IDEAS material draws on the work of Professor John English.
The IDEAS material is also available in another format if you are unable to use the interactive IDEAS feature.
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Hi,
An important element of design is to align the desirable, viable and possible ? What does this mean and how does it connect with Ideas Assessment.
Desirable is will the customer (the end-user) get what they want or need from the change? Is it desirable from the customer’s point of view?
Viable – is it worth doing? What’s the business value?
Possible – can we do it? Will the idea create a barrier? There can be barriers for selecting, implmenting and sustaining ideas
When an idea is being assessed, it is critical that the DVP is part of the assessment and this is an example of how design thinking connects with assessing innovative ideas.
A good question Sharon – the assessment questions do pretty much cover all three – e.g. perceptions/understanding of the problem, stakeholders views, risks and resources required/available. Indeed the IDEAS process should be able to help people in the ‘design’ of their idea by identifying its likely weaknesses or problems and whether the idea needs to be further developed or is not right for the time.
Hi,
Just wondering whether you could provide more information about Professor John English?
There are a lot of John Englishs on the earth and it would be nice to be able to have a full attribution so that readers can find the specific John English that this work is based on.
Cheers,
Cassandra
Hi Cassandra – Professor English is associated with the Australian Innovation Research Centre at the University of Tasmania.
This is a great service by the government. When I first started out in business, I had loads of ideas, but many of them just weren’t feasible if they were to be introduced to the market. A reality check from the IDEAS program would have saved me years of wasted time.
My daughter has a lot of innovative ideas and I’m going to suggest she go through the IDEAS process before taking it on seriously.
Regards
Sally
OK, I’ve accused you of putting me on a spam list because I put a comment on the Global Jam comments, which, after 5 attempt at trying to post didn’t go through. Same on this one which i’ve now posted on the Ozloop site. You’ve got a real problem with posting here. No “thank you for your comment”?
Damn. Just realized it’s just turned 9. Surely you don’t turn the spam filter on when you’re not in the office? please wipe this one & the 9.06 post.
Just checkin if this does work at all. I’m getting no reply when i hit the “post comment” button. Is this going through at all?
Hi Alex,
I take it you don’t like having these discussions above the radar. I hope you don’t mind. I like to keep these things in the open.
http://apsozloop.ning.com/profiles/blogs/innovation-just-a-matter-of-being-a-bit-sociable-above-the-radar
Simon – happy to have the conversation, but this page is really for discussion about the IDEAS framework. If you wouldn’t mind, it would be preferable to have the discussion on the Suggest Improvements page (http://innovation.govspace.gov.au/about/suggest-improvements/). Your other comment on the Global Service Jam post was placed in moderation by the system as it was caught by the language filter – it would be appreciated if you could please note our moderation policy (http://innovation.govspace.gov.au/about/moderation-policy-and-process/) and ensure that comments are civil and respectful. Thanks, Alex
Guys,
I was looking through you site, which I’ll give 8/10. Probably the best of all attempts at interactivity, in the gov.au space, I’ve seen in 10 years of watching the development of the Web. The great pity for it is that it’s buried. The other problem is that it’s still in what i call “service delivery” mode. But that’s a product of the culture which Australian public employees must live in. We still haven’t got to the point where OZ.gov.au (and most others) are user/citizen centric and bring the online services to a users me.gov.au account.
Well forget the latter prob for a bit. But can we try and get the govspace domain aligned with the usual brochureware. E.g. I was talking to Tess, who provides the secretariat for this council. http://www.innovation.gov.au/Industry/InformationandCommunicationsTechnologies/ITIIC/Pages/default.aspx and she has a newsletter which is circulated for interested parties, so long as you know ...
... about it and ask her. So in that regard, it’s a bit like your “innovation network”. An email list where social conversations about new ideas never get above the radar.
Is there a chance you might consider collaborating, or even linking between, similar domains in both govspace and gov domains. Just so people like Tess can overcome their concerns about being overwhelmed & get into the interactive world. You’ve done a great job here but it’s a bit of a ghost town no?
Thanks for the comments (and the rating). The target of this site is very much members of the public service, and we have been working to raise its profile over the past year, since the launch of the Australian Public Service Innovation Action Plan. We are happy to work with others in the APS (and relevant stakeholders from without), but I’m not sure I fully understand your suggestion. I’d be interested to get a better idea of what you’re proposing – if you would like to discuss further, please send us an email (psi at innovation.gov.au).
(Sorry for the delay in responding.)
Alex