Step 3 - Review your potential winners

It would be terrific if your ranking system gave you a definitive answer, but it is rarely the case where one idea stands head and shoulders above the rest. Most often, you will find that if you're analyzing ten or more ideas, you'll end up with three or four that lead the pack, six or seven that are pretty average, and two or three real duds. In the review stage you'll take just your high fliers and start to dig a little deeper.

The number of top ideas you want to review will depended on three factors:

1. How many ideas scored highly
2. How much time you can devote to reviewing each of these top ideas
3. How many winning ideas you want to take forward

The first two are self-explanatory, but the third one might need a little explaining.

Many people assume that you should only focus on one idea at a time, but that definitely isn’t the case. There is no golden rule set in stone that says you can only progress one idea at a time. In fact, there are many occasions when that is not the best course of action.

A business I had involved negotiating lengthy publishing contracts with large US publishers based in mainly in New York. Not only was it not possible logistically to sort these agreements out in a few weeks, but due to the commitments of the publishing executives we were dealing with, and the many lawyers involved, it was often a mammoth challenge just to get everyone in the same room at the same time. This wasn’t an odd situation - it was the norm for publishing contracts.

As a business we could have put everything on hold until these publishing agreements were finalized, but that would have meant paying the employees salaries for a year or two for doing no work. Instead, I chose to push forward on another completely unrelated business idea at the same time. This would keep the team productively employed whilst at the same time giving another idea a chance to succeed.

I’m pleased to say that over the following years both businesses were a success, but the one that succeeded the most was the idea that we only started working on whilst we were waiting for the publishing agreements on the other idea to be agreed.

So the moral of that story is you CAN work on two ideas at the same time, but you must ensure that you have the time necessary to do both ideas at the same time, and that working on either idea will not jeopardize the chances of the other idea succeeding. Don't spread yourself too thinly.

Let's get going with reviewing your top ranking ideas.

Write out your list of ideas with the one that scored the highest at the top, the second highest underneath, followed by the third highest, etc.

Take a look at the list and ask yourself honestly, counting from the top down, how many of those ideas would you like to take to the next state - the review stage.

Using those three factors mentioned above to help you decide. Whenever I carry out this exercise, I usually find it is somewhere between two and five, but I really don’t like to do in-depth reviews of five ideas at one time, so wherever possible I do my best to narrow it down to three at most.

For me the review stage always consists of doing what I call an idea blueprint. This is a cross between an idea brainstorming session and a business plan writing exercise.

In a nutshell, my idea blueprint is like my very own personal mini business plan, but it is nothing like the kind of business plan I would give to a bank or an investor. It is quick and dirty. No fancy paper or binding. No big words or pretty pictures. Lots and lots of honest feelings.

I will write a detailed post about how to create you very own idea blueprint, but for the purpose of this post I will keep it as short as possible.

Basically, you start to put some flesh on the bones of the idea.

Take yourself off somewhere where you can get your thinking engine into top gear and start asking yourself a whole heap of important questions, which will include things such as:

• How much will it cost to get this idea off the ground?
• How much money will this idea make in the short, medium and long term?
• What problems might I encounter and how will I solve them?
• Who else do I need to help me get this idea off the ground?
• What are the things that are most likely to make this idea succeed or fail?

These five questions are very important, but don’t stop after just these five. There will be heaps more questions that will spring to mind depending on the idea you are reviewing.

Don’t worry about making some supercool document that is laid out beautifully. This is a complete no-no. You can write this on anything from a serviette to several sheets of your notebook, or if you prefer outlining grab yourself a marker pen and start sketching out a mind map on your dry wipe board.

The time you spend on each idea review will vary depending on the ideas in question, but I would typically look to spend an hour on each. This gives you the chance to put flesh on the bones. You’ll probably find that you’ve answered all the initial questions in fifteen to twenty minutes, but don’t give up.

Dig deeper.

Ask more questions.

Go over the questions you’ve already asked and look for more or better answers.

If you’ve discovered some potential problems and pitfalls that could hamper an idea push yourself to come up with more solutions. It is amazing how the best stuff is often the last thing to pop out and only hits you in the fifty-ninth minute.

And now comes the easy bit.

Put your notes away in a drawer and relax. Don’t look at the ideas, or your notes again for the rest of the day.

Sleep on it.

The next day take yourself off to your quiet place again (coffee shop, library, empty office meeting room ... whatever works for you?) and read through your notes on each of the ideas you reviewed.

You’ll be amazed at the result.

After just an hour spent creating your idea blueprint for each idea, and another hour reading through those notes the following day you will almost always have your answer.

The chances are it won’t just be vaguely apparent it will be screaming I’m the one at you. Instead of just having a gut feel about which idea to pursue you will have a much better formulated view as to which idea, or ideas, offers the most potential.