Great idea! Now what?

Once you’ve done some solo brainstorming, generated some fresh ideas, shared the best ones with a colleague to narrow them down and build on them, it’s time to put them through a thorough filter to find the winning one.

Number your ideas one to however many ideas you’re evaluating.

Create a spreadsheet. Skip down a couple of rows then in the first column (A) list three to six business criteria that you’d like to measure the idea against, such as:

• Must cost less than $2,000.
• Must be able to be implemented within three months.
• Must not require extra resources to be implemented.
• Must bring in extra revenue within two months of implementation.
• Must not have to require approval from more than one other person.

In the next column (B), next to each business criteria, give a number out of five which represents how important it is that the particular criteria is to this outcome.

Now, in the next column (C), give your idea a score out of five based on how well it meets the criteria.

Lastly, in the next column, calculate the previous two columns (B x C).

Create a sum under each column to get a grand total for that idea.

That’s idea number one scored and evaluated. Continue across the spreadsheet, creating scores for the other ideas.

This system will ensure the best idea that meets the business objectives will be found quickly.

Download the spreadsheet to use as a starting point.