Practical Innovation in Government

8

Systems for Getting and Handling Large Numbers of Small Front-Line Ideas

Today, the best idea systems in the world routinely implement twenty, fifty, or even a hundred ideas per employee per year. Although these high-performing systems may look very different, they all operate on the same underlying principles. They are simple, rapid, and efficient. They are also team based, with ideas being discussed, decided on, and largely implemented by the front-line employees themselves. A “typical” system works as follows. People bring problems and improvement ideas to regular meetings of their work teams. If the underlying problem is easily understood and someone has a simple solution that is obviously worth trying, the team quickly agrees upon it ...