You can also build momentum by going directly to the users of the new system to brainstorm on additional functionality, Kapur says. In fact, this step should be formally built into the project plan at the outset. "It should be talked about as part of the planning process that four to six weeks after the project has been completed and basic fine-tuning has been done, we will meet quarterly to ask how to get additional value from what is running," he says.

The brainstorming sessions should be led by a trained facilitator, not by IT, Kapur says. Ideas might range from the refinement of a navigation protocol to decreasing the number of steps in a particular process. "The ideas might seem minor," he says, "but if you gather them every two or three months, and each incurs 2 percent to 3 percent savings, they progressively add up."

And good ideas should be rewarded, he adds: "If an idea ends up saving the company [money], a certain percentage should be given to the people who came up with the idea."

The important thing, Kapur says, is to create a formal process that enables these ideas to come to light. For instance, create an "ideas portfolio" to collect good ideas, and choose an appropriate person to broadcast ideas about completed or ongoing projects that can be applied to other parts of the company. "If there's no process to capture these ideas, many will slip away," Kapur says. "But at the right organizational level, people will know who else should know about it."

Reining in ideas