It takes more than good ideas

If you want to create sustainable change it takes more than good ideas. It takes implementation. All the ideas in the world are worthless without good implementation. So why do so many good ideas fail to get implemented? Because ideas are relatively easy to come up with. Even a dysfunctional group of people, with the aide of a good facilitator can typically in just a couple of hours come up with ideas to solve problems (and some of them might even be good). But implementation is different. Implementation takes dedication and hard work and there is not a high probability that the dysfunctional group will be able to implement any of their ideas, no matter how good.

So here is my hierarchy of ideas and the ability to implement them from least effective to most effective.

1. Problem, what problem?
2. We have a problem but we have no idea how to fix it.
3. We have a problem. We have ideas (not necessarily good ones). What's implementation?
4. We have a problem. We have good ideas. We can't implement them.
5. We have a problem. We have great ideas. We don't know how to implement them.
6. We have a problem. We have ideas and an implementation plan.
7. We have a problem. We have good ideas and an implementation plan.
8. We have a problem. We have great ideas and an implementation plan.

You could keep slicing this down and discuss the effectiveness of the implementation plan, the evaluation cycle, etc. etc.. but the point is even mediocre ideas that can be implemented are better than great ideas that you don't know what to do with.

So, what are you doing with all the good ideas you have?