Method Tag: idea generating

  • Idea Speed Dating

    Idea Speed Dating

    Purpose

    This is a great way for a group to quickly come up with many ideas and to have people build on other’s ideas. The end result is a beautiful mural of thoughts that can be used as inspiration throughout events now and in the future.

    Instructions

    • Find a table (or series of tables) that is big enough for everyone in the group to sit around. People should fit tightly, and be shoulder to shoulder along all sides.
    • Place a large roll of paper that covers the entire table.
    • Make sure that everyone has something to draw with. Try having lots of colours.
    • Have the facilitator start playing music. Each person must start writing down an idea about the topic at hand.
    • After about 2 minutes, the music should stop. Everyone should take a step to their left so they are in the position that their neighbour was previously in.
    • The music starts again, and people must now build off of their neighbour’s idea.
    • Repeat steps 5 & 6 until the whole roll of paper is covered in ideas!

    Do

    • Stay open and positive during idea generation sessions.
    • Be creative with how you represent your ideas. Drawings & prototypes are encouraged. The bigger the better.

    Don’t

    • Judge ideas during idea generation sessions.
    • Write negative comments, or cross things out.

    Facilitator role:

    The facilitator’s role is in starting & stopping the music, and making sure that people are properly moving in the right direction. The facilitator also decides when the session is over.

  • Combining ideas

    Combining ideas

    Quick introduction

    Combining unrelated ideas is a central core in creative thinking. It’s a way to develop ideas, allowed in many formats, try them out and choose the one that fits you the best!

    Purpose

    Combining unrelated ideas often doubles or triples the value, or the possibilities of an idea.

    Instructions

    Start with picking either two random words from the list below (or you could also pick them from a magazine, a text or stuff you’re randomly exposed to). Start by examine the two words you’ve picked narrowly, think about both of them separately, possibly even look them up at Wikipedia, what’s the function of the different words, what can they be used for and what are they.
    Once the picture is clear: start combining! Think about how both things can relate to each other. As an example, how could skis be used on Route 66? Surely something like roller skis pops up as an idea, but continue combining, how could skis and Route 66 add up to something creating value together? Maybe there could be a contest on roller skis at Route 66? And so on.

    A lot of ideas don’t have an obvious immediate application, but for someone a bit more specialized within a certain field there could beobvious other connections. And that’s the whole beauty with the exercise, we all combine different ideas depending on who we are and what we know of. So, also use this as an opportunity where you can invite someone with a completely different knowledge field to do the exercise with you!

    List of words to combine

    Drums, Candy, Nose, Burp, Savanna, Mozzarella, Circus, Cow, NASA, Screw driver, Ballet, Norway, Bicycle, Steel, Sweat, Cooperation, Winning, Camera, Wi-fi, Route 66, Coffee, Wish, Gym, Love, Skis etc.

    This exercise can be done individually or in group. And it could also benefit from starting with ideas you already have. If so then start with these and add words either randomly or from a list, or by asking yourself the questions below in order to add elements that can be useful to combine.

    Extended questions

    • What can be combined?
    • Can purposes be combined?
    • How can a combination be packaged?
    • How can possible usabilities be multiplied?
    • Could there be a blend? A collection?
    • What other units can you think of combining? New materials to combine? An emotion or a color to mix in?

    Do

    • Try out the exercise both by writing and painting the things you think about.
    • Try out the exercise alone and together with someone else, and take the opportunity to ask someone with experience of another field than yours.

    Don’t

    Think to much about what’s possible or not.

    Take it to seriously, have fun and think out of the box while exercising.

    Reflection questions

    Reflection questions

    • How was it?
    • Did you feel that this was valuable for your work? In what way?
  • Brain shifter

    Brain shifter

    Purpose

    Create new ideas that you never thought about before. Bonus: Laugh and have fun in your group while you learn more about yourself and the group.

    Instructions

    1. Start by putting up a large paper on a wall (at least A1 size)
    2. Get in to character by changing your mindset and try to think like another person. E.g imagine that you are a child, a lawyer, a salsa dancer or why not a superhero? The ambitious ones can also dress up as their chosen character to give extra effect to their brainstorm.
    3. Start by drawing your thoughts on the paper. Let’s say you have chosen to be a dancer, then you could for example dance salsa while you draw your ideas on the idea-mindmap. Be sure to take turns in the group.
    4. When the time runs out you should kill your darlings and select the best idea by using Idea voting.

    Do:

    • Think and play around as much as you can.
    • Use a lot of colors when you draw the mindmap.
    • Always build on the ideas of others in order to make this a crazy idea-mindmap

    Don’t:

    • Forget to challenge your comfort zone by choosing new characters.

    Timeframe

    Total time for the brainstorm will be 1 hour. A 45 minutes session with a 10 min break, 15 minutes to kill your darlings.

    During the break you need to do 5 handstand pushups times 3. Take a glass of water and start again. The purpose with this energizer is to get blood to your brain as well as helping you stay in shape.

    Facilitator role:

    Take time on actual brainstorm and to signal when it’s time for a break. The Facilitator should also bring props for the people in your group to fully get into their characters.

    Reflection questions

    • How was it?
    • Did you feel that this was valuable for your work? In what way?
  • The 4 Elements

    The 4 Elements

    Instructions

    There are 4 methods to find the idea that creates the best environment for group work. When you’ve found the ideas, measure again or tweak it in order to make sure it fulfills these needs:

    Time, Money and Scope – all that is necessary in order to make the idea possible and realistic to the client link.

    Passion

    Do you feel passionate about the idea? If you don’t, the group will most likely fail, and the client will notice it.

    Combos

    Boil the ideas down, because many of them may be similar and can make the core idea stronger without killing them off.

    Debate team

    Pick a side with one of the ideas you like and then have a debate around your choice.

    1-10

    Rate the ideas from 1-10, base your rates on logic (see the Logical list):
    Scale up the ideas, that will create a strong picture of how it can work.

    In this process you have to observe 1 thing. What do the team members base their decisions on – is it from the client perspective or a personal one? This can create friction in the settlement of the idea. If this happens, try to compare the arguments against each other, and determine how every decision should be made, personal or professional.

  • The Insights Game

    The Insights Game

    Purpose

    When we get older our brain develops it’s ability to connect different facts and see new patterns and challenge old views with new knowledge. As grownups we can not memorise and learn new things as fast as when we where children but because we have more experiences we have a bigger spectrum of information to use to see the big picture. This method will help you to practice your ability to generating insights and see new patterns.

    The basic idea is to take a moment to reflect upon new insights you receive and see if it fits in any patterns already in your head or if it changes any of your previous views. New thoughts creates new connections in your brain and more connections makes it possible for your brain to process even more abstract problems which is a good reason for you to practice this.

    Instructions

    This method is for one person, but the process can of course also be implemented on a group as well. To encourage people to start practising seeing the big pictures and challenge their previous views you can introduce them to the reflection questions.

    You get one point for each insight. You need to have at least one new insight a day, if not it is Game Over and you have to start over with 0 points. For insights that changes your previous view on a subject you get extra points.

    The goal and the reward of this game is that you will improve your ability to see the big picture, process more complex problems and challenge your beliefs. When you reach nirvana you have completed the game!

    Do

    • Write down new insights and ideas when you have them to aloud yourself a moment to reflect upon what it means and how you can use it.
    • Aloud yourself to celebrate your victory’s in the insights game!

    Don’t

    • Neglect your moments of enlightenment. It doesn’t matter how small the insights are, all are valuable.

    Example

    For the past couple of weeks you have noticed that a growing number of people are sharing the same pictures as their friends on their Facebook wall. One day you discover a new share button below photos you post on your wall and you realize that this is the reason why so many of your friends are suddenly sharing the same photos.

    The following day you are reading a blog post on WordPress about Tumblr. The authors opinion about Tumblr users is that they are only re-blogging each others posts without coming up with any new ideas of their own and that the only reason why Tumblr has reached so many users is because it is so easy to regularly update your blog with new content.

    Now you realize that Facebook added the share button to photos to imitate the re-blog function of Tumblr. By acknowledging this new insight you not only learn why Facebook implemented the share button but you also become aware that you have to constantly questions why the sites are changing their products the way they do – in this case to make regular Tumblr users stay on Facebook.

    This process doesn’t take up a lot of your time but it will help you to learn more of what is happening around you and about how you work.

    Facilitator role

    You are the facilitator of your own learning. Use a notebook to take notes of your new insights. You can use these the below questions to get started.

    Reflection questions

    • What happened today?
    • What did I learn from this?
    • How does this fit into the big picture?
    • Does this challenge any of my previous knowledge?
    • How can I use this in other situations?
  • Empty your brain

    Empty your brain

    Quick introduction

    The Empty Brain method is about getting everything out of your head and down on paper so that you can stop thinking about it!  It’s a method you can use everyday, or when you feel it’s needed. The empty brain method can be done in a group as well as individually.

    Purpose

    This method is helpful when you need to start up an idea session, giving your brain a fresh new sheet to start from. It can also be used as a way to structure your thoughts and tasks gathered in your mind, where the output can be a to-do list or a timeline with tasks mapped to it.

    Instructions

    The empty brain method contains 2 steps.

    Step 1. You need a sheet of paper, a pen, and a moment to sit down.

    Start by writing down everything you need to get done. Continue by writing down everything you’re thinking off, i.e. not only task related thoughts. This can take a while, but can also be fairly quick, depending on how much stuff you got spinning around in your head. When you work in group, this part of the method could preferably be done all together in a discussion, sitting around with one large piece of paper. Note the input of all participants of the group on the same paper.

    When all the ideas are written down let the paper take over the responsibility for them, so that your brain no longer have to keep track of those things.

    Step 2 is about how to organize your data.

    One way of doing this is to find the 10 most important things you need to get done immediately and focus on results. Another way is to categorize and prioritize the tasks (example themes could be: business / home / friends), map them to a time schedule as a to do or you can just store them for later on.

    Now, when it’s time to work, you can use the task-prioritization and go through the tasks one by one. When finishing, write a big line through each task after completing them!  (Satisfying!)

    Depending on how you use the method – this could also be the moment to do another Empty Brain session over the new task you have ahead.

    Do

    • Make sure to write up every little thing that comes to mind, everything from “buy bread” to “book a meeting with Mrs. X”
    • Remember it’s important to let go of things once you’ve put them on paper!

    Don’t

    • Make it to complicated!
    • Hesitate!

    Facilitator role

    If driven by a facilitator, the role is to be responsible for setting up the method for how to empty the brain. E.g. choose between mind mapping/timeline/other.

    Reflection questions

    • How was it?
    • Did you feel that this was valuable for your work? In what way?
    • Could other methods for structuring the ideas once they are on paper work better for you?