How to assess new ideas / disruptive innovation

In the industry of healthcare we all know that we have to either change or fail.  There is no in between.

Creating a culture to survive requires being able to break the mold a little and allow some disruptive innovation to change some of the products/services that are offered in healthcare organizations.  Hospitals are a good example of organizations that really need to do this.  Eventually inpatient admissions (their bread and butter now) will start to decline and reimbursement rates will continue to drop.

In order to survive, organizations must look at new and emerging trends. Then they have to assess how they could disrupt what they are currently doing in such a way that leaves them ahead of the game (see Creating Solutions through Open & Closed Innovation for suggestions on how to do this).
Once they have the ideas flowing in, how do they effectively assess them though?
1. Define your Innovation Process.

2. Understand your organization and what your desired outcomes are. You then plan for growth and how you will expand the core business through organic growth, new business creation, and adjacent market opportunities.

Once you have that, evaluate your product or service ideas:
1. Look at your competition and determine the risks and unknowns.
2. What are your assumptions, assess risk for each assumption, then how will you mitigate those risk?
3. Don't just have one strategy, have multiple strategies, then put those strategies back into the assumption, risk, mitigate cycle (#2) to see which one would work the best.
4. Research, research, research!  I can't stress this enough.  You have to look at evidence that will support your assessments of the idea.  You do this by gathering as much evidence as you can.  Look at other industries, similar products / services.  What made those products / services that succeeded standout compared to ones that failed?  Is it creating value?  If it is creating value, what research data can you find to back that assumption up? There are so many things you must find before making a decision and research is the key to backing up any assumptions you have to help "sell" the idea to your organization.
5. Ask yourself if the product or service is really providing value or if it is just too much.  Example of this...lets say you invented a product to speedup data download on cell phones by 5 seconds but it cost the customer $50 because it was so expensive to research and develop.  Is this really providing value to your customers?  Not really because I won't care if you speed up my data by 5 seconds for $50.
6. Create teams to assess the ideas.  Don't just look inside your organization, but look at universities students, professors, and consultants.  They may be able to help you look differently at the product / service idea.
Make sure your team has clear intent on what they are and are not allowed to do.  Prioritize their actions by creating milestones.  Lastly, allow your team to take some risk.  Don't hold them in a box that doesn't allow new ideas come.
--The Catalyst