I have been in work places full of half-baked ideas. Typically the management needs to be able to resolve something. It could be a real problem, an imaginary problem, an itch or even a personal pain. And because insufficient thought went into defining the problem, we rush into trying to come up with solutions which do not necessarily speak to the actual problem at hand.
Following that, because the problem was not well understood, it becomes much more difficult for the staff to actually develop and flesh out the ideas. When problems are well understood, the solution can be interrogated properly to make sure it tackle the critical parameters and aspects of the problem. In fact, when problems are properly articulated, the solutions would be more than obvious once proposed.
When all of these process of pondering are not present, we develop half-baked ideas. And we don’t realise that because the understanding of the problem isn’t there for us to test the ideas against. So very often when the half-baked ideas are in the more practical or implementation phase, new problems are uncovered and often we may discover new things that force us back to the drawing board. Often, it is better to interrogate ideas, think them through, flesh them out, and develop them further before committing resources. Otherwise, half-baked ideas are going to be the most resource-intensive ones.