Process for "Converging" on Best Ideas
(Scott) I've also felt that a weakness in the idea generation process is the "converging" stage. I haven't come across a process / company that has a tried and true, scientific method for identifying the best ideas.
In my experience, we tend to sort through ideas and use a combination of gut instinct and basic criteria to separate out the "winning" ideas. There must be a more concrete, systematic way to converge on great ideas. What processes do you use? What have you seen in practice that worked?
With a little brainstorming, we may be able to build a better process together.
In my experience, we tend to sort through ideas and use a combination of gut instinct and basic criteria to separate out the "winning" ideas. There must be a more concrete, systematic way to converge on great ideas. What processes do you use? What have you seen in practice that worked?
With a little brainstorming, we may be able to build a better process together.
posted by ROInnovation at 9:52 AM
2 Comments:
One of the things that I have started doing is living a day or two (sometimes longer) between idea generation sessions. This allows time to either go back to your market and competitor map and check that the ideas are not to iterative.
You can also then do product searches and develop the ideas a bit further before going into concept writing. Also with concept writing I now balance in workshop concept writing and post workshop refinement.
I think the classic 2 day workshop model is overly time pressured and as such you miss out on what could be great ideas.
HI Scott
I'm using this great converging technique borrowed from de Bono at the moment, called the CBA table. You make 3 rows and around 5 columns in a table. Put C in the top left hand box, B below it in the next row, and A below again.
C stands for Concept - a higher concept idea. B stands for Beginning idea. And A stands for Actionable idea. You then take the ideas you've created and plot them in the table. So if your idea is a small execution like "scratch and sniff packaging", put it in the A box. Or if the idea is a big concept like "interactiveness with the brand" then put it in the C. Or if it's a Beginning idea like "the inside of the box should be shown on the outside" you put it in B.
With lots of ideas you will have some Cs, Bs and As, and each new idea should be in a new column. ONce they are all plotted, start to fill int he blanks. So if and idea started as C, fill in B and A, and so on.
What this does is it forces you to balance out all the ideas and get them to the same level of comparison. Also, you start to see that some ideas share the same C, or that starting with one B leads you to 3 different As.
Hope that's not confusing - it has been so useful to use.
Pam
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