CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR IDEA MANAGEMENT

Abstract

One of the key success factors of innovation is creative idea as a starting point. Creative and innovative ideas represent the initial step in the innovation process, but also the basis for organization for achieving competitive advantage in the market. Idea management can be seen as a process of recognizing the need for ideas, their generation and evaluation, which means it represents a distinct segment of innovation project management belonging to the fuzzy front end. The importance of the fuzzy front end and the role of the idea management, is exceptional both in science (a large number of reference publications) and practice (application of various software solutions for managing this part of the innovation project). Considering the basic characteristics of the early stages (uncertainty, ambiguity, complexity) together with the fact that they are recognized as a critical success factor, it can be concluded that effective management of this part of the project is one of the biggest challenges in innovation management. According to the indicated importance of idea management, the aim of the paper is to present a conceptual model for idea management that can serve as a guide for the realization of this phase. The model is presented in the form of an algorithm that emerged as a result of interpreting the functioning of the idea management system.