Forecasting the Success of Novel Ideas in Organisations

Question 1

Accurate creative forecasting (managers vs creators)

Answer 1

Creators more accurate than managers when forecasting others’ novel ideas

Question 2

Divergent thinking

Answer 2

Idea generation (creators)

Question 3

Convergent thinking

Answer 3

Idea evaluation (managers) (creators)

Question 4

How creative ideas become innovations (3 stages)

Answer 4

1. Variation - creators, expected to generate novel and useful ideas
2. Selection - manager, decided which ideas should be implemented
3. Retention - external audience, determines ultimate success of idea

Question 5

Manager errors when selecting ideas

Answer 5

False negatives - rejecting good ideas due to an underestimation of their potential success
False positives - selecting bad ideas based on overestimation of their potential success
Creators may have advantage in forecasting success of ideas from other creators
Managers may be rooted by their domain knowledge

Question 6

Creators forecasts

Answer 6

Tend to over-evaluate their own ideas and success and quality of these can influence their judgement
May overestimate extent to which focal audience is familiar with multiple domain ideas

Question 7

Past success and idea quality

Answer 7

Self-serving attributions, attributing success to internal factors (skill) instead of external (luck)

Question 8

Boundary conditions

Answer 8

Forecasting about own ideas

Past success with ideas