Orchid Module

The Orchid Module is an online assessment tool and management system to allow companies to get higher value contributions from individuals and teams. At the core of the Orchid Module is an online questionnaire, designed to reveal individual preferences and aptitudes towards innovation and working with ideas.

The identified personality style can then be used in a variety of ways:

• select the most appropriate individuals for a review team
• define innovation job positions in terms of aptitude
• assign people to organizational tasks that best fit their aptitude
• accelerate the new product development process
• encourage and support an innovation culture

The Orchid Module is based on several years of research by Imaginatik Research investigating the importance of personality styles on various aspects of the innovation process. It is different from other assessment tools, such as Myers-Briggs. The Orchid Module is specifically designed for the innovation process, to understand people's preferences for handling new things, rather than life in general. Support for more systematic use of such an innovation-specific tool comes from a study by IBM Business Consulting which found that companies can accelerate New Product Development (NPD) time cycles by 35% simply by making better use of personality styles through the Innovation Pipeline.

The module is provided to clients as a hosted service, integrating with hosted Idea Central systems as well as supporting internally deployed environments. The software only requires a web browser for use, and there is no end user training required, allowing for rapid deployment. The software contains the functionality for the questionnaire, as well as administration tools to manage assessment responses, control identity, build teams, and manage a global environment. The module is integrated into the Idea Central software environment through user authentication and links within the Portal Module.

Participants complete a short online questionnaire and are then provided with detailed feedback on their preferred role(s) in the innovation process, helping them focus their energy on the elements of innovation that they are best suited for. These results can be shared with team leaders, enabling them to engage the most appropriate people in the relevant stages of the innovation processes. For the administrator, the interface provides options to view users, track completion rates, and manage groups.

Main Features

Short online questionnaire: Individuals complete a simple online form with just 20 questions. It therefore requires only a negligible time commitment from participants. The questions as well as the results are easy to understand and intuitive, and the completion rate has shown itself to be very high.

Immediate personal feedback: Upon survey completion, individuals get immediate feedback on screen with a personalized report containing their style, their strengths and weaknesses, and advice on how to work more effectively personally and in a team.

Research base: Imaginatik Research and its partner, Creative Advantage, have a program of ongoing research to develop and validate the questionnaire, and to expand the use of the tool into new areas such as evaluation team selection and focus group composition.

Administration tools: The module contains specialized tools to allow the administrator to invite people to participate, track completion rates, check scores, build teams, and provide information to support innovation teamwork.

Full integration: The Orchid Module integrates fully with the Idea Central software environment and its other add-on modules.