It kind of happens like that. You have to occasionally keep your mouth shut because if you voice every product idea you have, then your staff may think that is

It kind of happens like that. You have to occasionally keep your mouth shut because if you voice every product idea you have, then your staff may think that is what you want them to do. It may just be some idle random concept that comes to mind, but if you say it and find out later that your people have worked on it, you may be sad. So if you say, wouldn't it be cool if we made (product x) out loud, and it is related to something your company might do, don't be too shocked if someone in your company hears you and then does it. If you weren't serious, and that person has spent 20 hours working hard on it, you will now come to two conclusions. 1. You have wasted their time and your money 2. You now have to disappoint a hard working, dedicated employee. You can't do that too often or they get frustrated and leave. So in my experience, when you have only ad hoc, verbal only meetings about product, you will get bad results. I have made this error myself in the past. If I want a good result from my staff, I have to give them clear, written direction so that they can follow it and not need to continually check with me. You may once in a great while get a product you make a profit on, but it is the exception and not the rule. It shouldn't take you so long to write out the new idea that you should try to save time by blurting it out. Simply tell your people what the idea is, and how it fits in with their previous priorities. Toyota uses a sheet of A3 to propose ideas. The constraint helps produce clearer direction. http://a3thinking.com/faq.html http://a3thinking.com/faq.html