All content © Roger Cruz unless otherwise specified.

Brainstorming

Owned by Roger Cruz, created
Last updated: Mar 28, 2023
4 min read

 

Intro

My notes on how to brainstorm with teams.

Documentation

 

 

Environment

  • Turning off cell phones and computers. ,

  • Create a separate environment from distracting activities (go offsite or to another floor/building)

  • Create a positive mindset (food, music, whatever gets you in the right mood)

    • Bluetooth speaker and playlist.

 

Ice breakers

The broken watch face

  • Divide into team. Race each other. You have 10 mins.

  • Watch fell and broke into 4 pieces. The numbers in each piece add up to 15. How is this possible?

Rules for Ideation

  • Breakneck timeboxing.

    • Set a very short time for your brainstorming exercise. It keeps participants focused.

  • Quantity over quality

    • Generate as many ideas as you can in the time period. Do not evaluate them.

  • No judgement.

    • Don’t worry what people will think or if this is the best idea for the problem.

    • Ignore your own judgement:

      • How will other people view me if I share the idea?

      • Is it different or interesting enough?

      • Which one do I like best or which one will be more fun to make?

  • Positive, Reckless Abandon

    • Do not evaluate ideas at this point. That will come later.

      • Generating ideas is subjective. Evaluating them is objective.

      • Subjective and objective are two forms of perception, and the main difference between them is that a subjective point of view focuses on a personal interpretation of the subject, while an objective viewpoint is based on factual data

    • Don’t worry about generating ideas that are safe, proven, or common because you are worried about getting it wrong.

    • Ignore consequences of your ideas.

  • This should be fun. It is a game.

 

Pirate Care Package - An Ideation Exercise

 

Pirates are away from home for long periods of time, away from the people and things they love. They get lonely from home, just like kids going away to college or military stationed abroad, so you're going to help them with a care package. You're generating ideas of items to fill a care package for a pirate. Generate as many ideas for the care package contents as can in only three minutes.

Source: Rapid Ideation LinkedIn course

Do this activity individually. Count up how many ideas you came up with. Each person read the first, last and middle of your list. Which one do you think is your best idea?

Rules for Iteration (Eval Phase)

  • Define measurement criteria to choose a few ideas that will advance to the next phase

  • Choose based on their potential because you'll have two more opportunities to improve on the base ideas if they're not quite there yet.

  • Take each advancer as a core idea and spend your time iterating on that idea.

    • When you think of that idea, what else do you think of?

    • Are there offshoots to that idea that come to mind?

    • Use spider mapping (main idea at the center) and related ideas as offshoots (do not evaluate them)

    • Time-box this phase.

 

Rules for Inflation

The last stage is inflation. Make that one idea better by inflating their value, their purpose, or their worth through features, add-ons, ecosystem benefits, build out.

  • Spider mapping that advancer idea again,

    • Think about all the things that could be added to this idea to make it better.

    • If it's a product, are there accessories or features that can make it even better?

    • If it's an event, are there partnerships or environmental intersections like venues or spaces that make that idea really shine?

The Spoon Exercise

(Create teams of 2-3 people max)

Problem: your new client has a warehouse full of spoons, but she's also come to understand that customers don't want just spoons. They like other utensils in the set. She only has spoons and needs to get rid of them (millions of them). So she needs you to come up with another purpose for these. They're no longer silverware. They need to be marketed as something else. They need to be given another purpose, sold as something else that somebody would want.

 

Measurement criteria:

  1. the idea needs to be as useful to as many people as possible.

  2. the idea shouldn't be about food intake at all.

  3. if it's commercially successful the idea should spawn other business opportunities, either in different industries or accompanying products.

  4. the idea can't require a fundamental change in shape to the object. The client doesn't want to have to alter the product to sell it.

 

Ideation:

  • You have 3 minutes to generate as many ideas as possible.

    • positive reckless abandon

  • Have fun.

 

Iteration:

  • Using our measurement criteria, identify three ideas that will be your advancers.

    • Find three ideas on your list that you believe have enough potential to move forward.

    • You have 1 min

  • Spider mapping - Take your first idea and write it on your board or on your paper, and circle it.

    • When you think of the idea, what else do you think of? Are there offshoots on that idea that come to mind? - Write them as offshoot lines from the main idea circle.

    • You have 2 mins

    • Repeat for the 2nd and 3rd idea.


Decision:

  • Using your measurement criteria, which idea do you believe has the most potential? It may be one of your original three, or it may be something you found during the iteration phase.

  • Select 1 idea to move forward. You have 2 mins

 

Inflation:

  • Your goal is to make this idea better by thinking of any accessories your new product might have with it, or packaging, or advertising slogans, or other industries that could use it, any other products that this product might lead to if it's successful.

    • Are there other tangential uses for this product within the current idea.

    • What would make this product even better?

  • You have 3 mins

 

Review:

  • Each team present your idea

 

All content © Roger Cruz unless otherwise specified.