This is a book review of IdeaFlow by Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn with a foreword by David Kelley. This review is unpaid and has no affiliate links.
Innovation for many businesses can be hard. For many, innovation sounds incredibly risky. There are no sure things in innovation, so why should any business take bets on things that may have no return on investment, especially when times are hard.
Idea flow = ideas/time
The premise of ideaflow is that the only metric that matters is how many ideas you can generate within a timeframe. It requires a collection of materials, facts, experiences, perspectives, data and less on anecdotes and analogy.
Written in 2022, IdeaFlow’s 300 pages discusses ideas of now only why idea generation is valuable, but demystifies a lot of the processes. It repeats a lot of similar discussion in Eric Reiss’ book Lean Startup. Indeed, you could even argue that IdeaFlow could be summarised and pre-appended to Reiss’ build-measure-learn loop.
On page 52 the authors argue that “what sets winners apart […] is volume. If you want better outcomes fill the top of your innovation funnel with many, many ideas for achieving them.”
So, how many ideas is enough? The book argues for a “2000-1 ratio”, referencing Bob Sutton of the design company IDEO. It lists an example of a toy manufacturer producing 4000 product ideas that eventually work its way through to 200 working prototypes.
In some ways IdeaFlow mirrors a sales funnel, or sales pipeline and fills the top of the sales funnel with say 2000 ideas to get to to 100 working prototypes, which are then refined further to 5 projects.
One of the case studies it looks at is Taco Bell, and how they generated 50 concepts a month.
This number may seem high, it isn’t uncommon. I recall speaking to a design lecturer who asked his students to come up with 100 ideas, and they couldn’t use variations either!
So, an initial seed is needed, then selection, then sleep; then solve. It argues to go analog, rather than digital and aims for quick scrappy tests; to continue to use curiosity to drive innovation, to create a portfolio of experiments, to create a pipeline of ideas, and to keep ideas moving through the pipeline, through validation, collection of data and funnel this back into the seed-select-sleep-solve process.
I really liked how ideaflow’s golden thread throughout was to amplify your ideaflow, to flood your idea with ideas, to build an innovation pipeline, then put your ideas to the test.
I really liked the idea of keeping a portfolio of frames (how might we), a portfolio of experiments and idea; though I was disappointed in how it doesn’t really describe or detail how to make a portfolio, and what the difference between a portfolio, a database, and an excel spreadsheet. Presumably, the portfolio are success’; whereas the others are just states? I’m not sure. I do wish it gave examples.
IdeaFlow doesn’t explore what its consider’s an idea. It frames that “every business problem is an ideas problem”, but it doesn’t explore what ideas are within the context of ideaflow. Just make lots of them, and throw them at the problem; that is, if you have defined the problem.
On the subject of ideas, I wish it explored how great thinkers, inventors of the past explored ideas. How did Leonardo di vinci think? What mental models can we employ? How does first principles work with ideaflow?
I think this aspect of ideas and problem solving go hand in hand, and whilst I understand the rationale and focus of the book to look at business problems needing business ideas with a creative lens, I would like to have seen a more in-depth discussion and exploration of problems, mental models and other tools.
Another critique I have about the book is, what actually makes a good idea; what is the methodology of pruning or selection, what metrics should we use to pick? Whilst the authors do suggest some metric idea, I do feel they gloss over this; perhaps this is because in order to pick metrics, context matters.
Another critique I don’t feel the book answers is the concept of credibility. You may have a fantastic idea, your process is sound, the customer need is well addressed; but your brand credibility is questionable. Not everyone is Steve Jobs. Not everyone can sell ideas, or has the credibility of a well-known brand. What do you do when your credibility is zero?
One final critique I have is the book doesn’t really explore what to do when the idea is good, but the market doesn’t care. I’d like to have seen how ideaflow deals with reframing, or what to do with ideas that have no business value, but solves user needs really well. For example, imagine wood furniture that uses Japanese carpentry methods to make furniture without screws. This might be cool, but its useless for a company that might get 20-30% of its sales from screws.
I did feel the book was a bit too long, and parts seem obvious — flood your problem with ideas, keep a working journal, create a pipeline, cultivate the idea crop through critique and testing and keep a portfolio of your ideas, solutions. You could do all of this in Notion or another software of your choice.
Whilst I don’t think the concepts or ideas are new, I did enjoy ideaflow, and the metric of how many ideas you can throw at a problem in a compressed amount of time and use a systemised approach to seeding, sorting, selection, testing will be useful reminders to creatives and business’ alike.
My overall take-away from this book is that innovation is fishing, not hunting.
Overall: 7.5/10