I came across a great post on HBR the other day focusing on killing off good ideas in order to concentrate your resources on a few that then come to fruition. I really liked this as an approach, perhaps because marketers are so often in a position of being idea rich and time poor, often inadvertently positioning themselves as ineffective as a result. (You've all worked with people like that - super creative types who never complete a project because they've got all wrapped up and excited by their next big idea).
So how do we decide which ideas to keep and throw our weight behind and those to let fall by the wayside?
Before I throw in my 2 pence worth, I want to make it clear that I know there are hundreds of possible ways of doing this and these are just my own, another opinion on the pile!
1) Does the idea align with your strategic objectives? Ideally all major projects should support the pillars of your annual strategy and move those lofty strategic aims forward towards a reality.
2) Can we put a dollar value on the benefit of executing the idea? I'm not saying that if we can't we shouldn't pursue it but I'd rather we could, as no idea that fits into this mould can really be a nice to have if the bottom line impact is significant.
3) Who would your team be? Again, you don't always want to avoid pursuing ideas that involve working with people who are likely to let you down and make your life more difficult. Sometimes it is unavoidable; yet I'd allow it to rule things out if confronted with a list of things with similar possible levels of benefit to the business.
