Idea Generation Techniques
We have always thought that procrastination was a bad habit, day-dreaming was a waste of time and team meetings that did not end up with SMART objectives were useless. On the contrary, research is now proving that innovation is a product of idea generation that happens through thoughtful brainstorming, suggesting the worst possible idea, and fantasizing not only outside the box but with no box in mind. Therefore, it seems like entrepreneurs not afraid of criticism are now leading top performing companies.
Take your time and try preferably with a team some of the most common ideation techniques mentioned below:
- Brainstorming: Build good ideas from each other’s wild ideas
- Brain writing: This is like brainstorming, but everyone writes down and passes ideas for others to add to before discussing these
- Brain walking: This is like brain-writing, but members walk around the room, adding to others’ ideas
- Worst possible idea: Take an inverted brainstorming approach, emboldening more reserved individuals to produce bad ideas and yielding valuable threads
- Challenging Assumptions: Overturn established beliefs about problems, revealing fresh perspectives
- Mind mapping: Use this graphical technique to connect ideas to problems’ major and minor qualities
- Sketching/Sketch storming: Use rough sketches/diagrams to express ideas/potential solutions and explore the design space
- Storyboarding: Develop a visual problem/design/solution-related story to illustrate a situation’s dynamics
- Bodystorming: Use role-playing in scenarios/customer-journey steps to find solutions
- Crowdstorming: Your target audiences generate and validate ideas through feedback (e.g., social media) to provide valuable solution insights
All you need for a successful ideation session is to remain conscious of your individual/team’s purpose. With that in mind feel free to be irrational, wrong and creative. Try to avoid narrowing down ideas or eliminating your thoughts without writing, go above and beyond with your thoughts, note them all down then move into the steps of narrowing down and selection.