WHAT IS IDEATION CONSULTING?

Ideation consulting speaks to advisory services focused on helping companies generate innovative ideas and solutions. In today’s competitive landscape across all industries, developing cutting-edge products, services and ways of doing business is imperative to stay ahead of rivals. Yet many organizations new to ideation consulting struggle with siloed teams, change-averse cultures and lack of creativity that hinders ideating. That’s where consultants come in.

These specialists work closely with clients to assess their current innovation ecosystems, identify obstacles or gaps that limit conceptual thinking, and provide recommendations to nurture creativity at an organizational level. They offer frameworks, best practices and staff workshops tailored to fostering an experimental, collaborative environment where ideas flow freely.

Core services ideation consulting firms typically offer include design thinking coaching to spark outside-the-box brainstorming, hackathon and incubator program development to prototype nascent concepts, and communication/change management training to gain stakeholder buy-in. Some also leverage proprietary ideation software platforms that provide templates for inventing new offerings tailored to a company’s business needs and strategic vision.

Effective consultants act as innovation guides – helping teams generative ideas during interactive sessions but also equipping clients with ideation tools and mindsets embedded permanently into operations. That ensures a culture of innovation that perseveres beyond any individual project. Ideation advisors must excel in quickly grasping a client’s capabilities, weaknesses and objectives to customize approaches accordingly. Strong listening, creativity and empathy skills are essential.

The ideation process consultants facilitate can span market analysis to identify customer demands or emerging trends to act upon, brainstorming events to unlock wild ideas, concept refinement using design thinking principles, prototyping/testing new concepts quickly, and developing implementation roadmaps for those ideas worth pursuing. Firms may offer advisory services around one or more phases based on specialty. The ultimate goal is to yield differentiating products, services, strategies or even new business models that the competition may not have considered to power value creation.

All industries from Fortune 500 consumer goods companies to disruptive Silicon Valley tech startups leverage ideation consulting to infuse more inventive thinking into operations. With increasing business volatility globally, demand for outside-the-box ideas continues rising.