Ideation

What you need before running an ideation session for a project

Ideation sessions can be useful in all phases of a project, but the most important part is in the alpha stage when you have collected and prioritised user needs and pain points. In ideation, you usually start with a clear user-centred challenge to solve. You can start with a problem statement, point of view or a “how might we...” question.

These plays can help get you on the right track before you start ideation:

• Problem definition
• Stakeholder mapping
• Impact mapping
• Desktop research
• User research planning
• How might we

Mindsets for ideation

Creativity problem-solving is at the centre of ideation. It is a common misconception that creativity is a talent reserved for the select few. Anyone can be creative with practice and the right mindsets! Teams can practise and improve their ability to innovate by using ideation activities frequently. Most ideation methods welcome a large quantity of ideas more than the quality of one idea. This attitude can help teams relax and open up, without worrying about how “good” an idea is.

By understanding and actively practising the mindsets you need for effective ideation, it will be easier to plan and run ideation activities with your team.

Agile approach

An Agile mindset is typified by customer focus, collaboration, iteration and continuous learning. A truly agile way of working includes quickly learning what works and what doesn't, and what we may need to do differently next time.

Failure is a chance to grow, develop and adapt your product or service, and yourself. Willingness to try and possibly fail is something that teams and organisations need to embrace in order to succeed in a fast-moving, digital age.

Comfort with ambiguity

Ambiguity is when an idea or situation is unclear or confusing or can be understood in more than one way. In a world that's constantly changing it's rare for things to be completely clear or precise. Having the ability to act and make decisions without having every detail is a key component in dealing with ambiguity. Getting comfortable with ambiguity is also about the ability to put aside traditional strategies and replace them with explorative approaches such as Design Thinking. The benefit of embracing ambiguity is that it allows you to pursue lots of different ideas, and to arrive at unexpected and innovative solutions.

Explorer's mind

By being curious you will be able to see new possibilities that are not normally visible. Curiosity can also be very valuable through times of uncertainty and rapid change, to help people manage the fear of the unknown. Curiosity helps people look outwards and be interested about what they will learn from the new experience. Learning something new, overcoming challenges and exploring our potential are all possible because we are curious and have the desire to explore.

Embracing diversity

Organisations with diverse and inclusive workforces are more likely to generate a wider range of ideas and perspectives. The more opinions, the more variety, and the more diversity we bring to the table the more we can build our creativity and learn new and different ways of doing things.

When we don't take all perspectives into account, when teams work in silos, and when disadvantaged groups aren't given a seat at the table, we stifle innovation and miss opportunities to improve. Being surrounded by people with different backgrounds and perspectives can sometimes be uncomfortable but it's everyone's responsibility to be mindful and accepting of one another.

Divergent and convergent thinking

Divergent thinking involves generating a wide range of possible solutions with a free-flowing, open-minded approach to exploring new ideas. Ideation workshops always start with a divergent thinking activity.

Convergent thinking involves selecting and refining ideas, based on the criteria and constraints set for the problem at hand. The goal of convergent thinking is to narrow down the options and identify the best possible solution that can effectively address the challenge.

Group ideation

When done in a group setting, ideation activities are especially effective for generating a wide range of ideas and perspectives. By giving everyone in the group an equal voice, you have a higher chance of generating more diverse and innovative ideas.
Including users and stakeholders in ideation and co-design activities is a great way to gain instant feedback and make quick decisions on the spot. That will save time and effort, and make sure timelines are met, because you will test your ideas early in the project process.

Often there are playful elements as part of ideation workshops. Some activities might seem silly or childlike at first glance, but the playful parts always serve a purpose. When we play, we are more relaxed, less self-conscious, and more willing to take risks. ideation activities allow us to explore different ideas without worrying about the consequences, which can lead to innovative solutions and breakthrough ideas.

Ideation toolbox

When choosing an ideation activity, it's important to consider the specific needs of your project, as well as the team involved. We have developed ideation plays that we have found the most useful for a wide range of projects.

The following ideation plays are currently part of our playbook:

• Silent brainstorm
• Powers of ten

Introduce ideation principles

Every ideation play will be more successful if you have set the scene and introduced some basic rules to your team.

The following guidelines will encourage the participants to express themselves and not to hold back on ideas:

• Encourage wild ideas: Crazy ideas can inspire people to think of unusual and innovative solutions. There are no bad ideas!
• Defer judgement: You never know where a great solution is going to grow from. Perhaps it's that wild idea your colleague shared?
• Go for quantity: Thomas Edison once said, “To have a great idea, have a lot of them.”
• Build on each other's ideas: Stay positive and curious, with a "yes, and..." Mindset.
• Stay on topic: Save time and effort by staying on topic and solving one problem at a time.
• Express yourself, your way: Add sticky notes, drawings, voice messages or other ways to communicate your ideas clearly. If all ideas are shared and understood, they can be reviewed, built upon and discussed in a collaborative way.

If you are running an ideation session in person, you could print our ideation poster and put on the wall so that the ideation principles are visible throughout the workshop.

Encourage divergent thinking with a creative warm up

A warm up activity is a quick and playful activity before jumping into the main ideation activity. This will help get people ready for the main ideation activity, which is all about divergent thinking.

Running the main activity

Most ideation plays follow a similar process, where you use divergent thinking to go wide and generate many ideas. Many ideation sessions also involve a converging activity, where you prioritise and make decisions around what to explore further.

Below is a high-level walk-through of how ideation workshops are commonly structured.

1. Generate ideas individually, without constraints

This is where you start tackling the problem or opportunity that you wish to ideate around. In this divergent thinking phase, you will individually generate ideas. By starting out this way, you will get a much more diverse set of ideas.

In this early phase, encourage your team to ignore any constraints that might hold them back. Encourage wild ideas. Remind participants that quantity is better than quality at this point and that there are no bad ideas!

2. Review all ideas as a group, with constraints

As you review each other’s ideas, you will often be able to group ideas into themes. A helpful play that can support this process is the “grouping” play. Review and discuss all ideas as a group. In this phase, you might also collaborate to grow or expand on these ideas.

As you are reviewing ideas, make sure you and your team are now also aware of and consider project constraints. Are there any ideas that fall outside of the existing constraints? It might not necessarily mean they can’t be considered. As a group, you might be able to see opportunities to make these ideas work. But if some ideas are impossible in the current situation, put those ideas in a dedicated parking lot area. This will make sure you are still keeping these ideas for when circumstances might change in the future.

3. Decide what idea to explore and test first

Here you will decide as a group which idea(s) you think has the most potential to be a valuable solution to test. A helpful play to support this process is the dot voting play.

This part depends on the ideation play you are doing. Some plays might not end with deciding, or you might choose to decide on a direction after the ideation session, to give yourself and the participants time to digest all ideas.

After an ideation play, you can choose to share the outcomes with the participants in a follow-up email. This would either be an exported PDF of a virtual Miro board, re-sharing the Miro board link, or sharing photos of the physical sticky notes from an in-person session (you could save these in your project files in Teams).

Depending on the project, you could schedule and invite participants to a follow-up session, to either explore ideas further or make decisions around ideas.  To make decisions and prioritise solution ideas, you might want to invite different or more people to a follow-up session to make sure you are keeping all your stakeholders involved and informed in the project process.

Ideation principles poster