How We Define Simple Vs Complex Ideas

Here’s a good question about Katie’s latest post:

So let me have a go at answering it.

First of all Bromford utilise a variation of the Three Horizons Model.

The 3 horizons model is a growth strategy framework by McKinsey that is usually used when thinking about the future of a company. It can help you manage growth in a coordinated way.

Horizon 1 is  the most dominant way of doing things right now – the current situation. Generally, this way of working will decline over time although there may be some bits of this old way of doing things that are worth keeping in the future. ​

Horizon 3 is the way we want things to work in the future. This is the vision. It may be that pockets of this way of working are already happening on the fringes.​

Horizon 2 are the innovations that help make the shift from Horizon 1 to Horizon 3. There are always new ideas and ways of doing things being tested out. Sometimes these are just small experiments but sometimes, for a while, they can become the most common way of working. There are two types of innovations. H2+ innovations are those that genuinely move on from Horizon 1 and make Horizon 3 more likely. On the other hand, H2- innovations are the ‘sticking plasters’ that either just prop up a failing Horizon 1 or get absorbed into it.

So innovation at Bromford generally focuses on Horizon 1 + 2 and we use an Ideas Filter to populate them.

How we define ideas

Generally we put ideas into three categories:

  • Simple Ideas: These are things that could be tackled immediately by a team or individual. They have low to no resource and usually they will be completely safe to fail

  • Complex Ideas: These are more likely problems than ideas (although they often articulated as ideas). The key thing here is the solution is not immediately clear and will benefit from some problem definition. Usually these are beyond team capability in that it will take more skills and resources to solve the problem than they have available.

  • Future Ideas: These are often trends rather than ideas or ideas voiced because of a trend. In these cases the problem is not defined never mind the solution. They are almost always beyond strategy, and unclear.

All ideas that we uncover that are deemed to be actionable (by which we mean we shouldn't immediately dismiss it and we could start doing something or thinking about it) are placed on our innovation pipeline which covers all three horizons.

Importantly, we’ve learned that simple, complex and future ideas all need different types of governance and executive oversight. For future ideas executives should be heavily involved, for simple ones they should get the hell out of the way.

We’ll be covering our innovation pipeline and the different types of governance in future posts. Please let us know if you’d like us to cover anything else.