Think back to your last “brainstorming” meeting and try to imagine the people sitting around the room or conference table. How many of these people are staring at the clock, twiddling their thumbs, and just not participating? At first you may look at them and think to yourself, “they are lazy and do not understand what we are trying to do here” and you may not be entirely wrong, but there is something else happening. “Brainstorming” meetings are set up for people to slack off and piggyback on others good ideas; this style of innovation is in a rut and we need to change.
Below are a few methods of innovative thinking that have been hand crafted by marketing innovation experts, Drew Boyd and Jacob Goldenberg. These tips will finally give you the structured innovation that you need. All of these methods are applicable for products and services.
1. Shrink the size of the group – In the initial stages of innovative thinking there should be no more than 2 people in each group bouncing ideas off of eachother. If you add anyone else into this collaboration, there are always two people carrying the weight and one person observing. You want each member of your team thinking at their highest potential and continually contributing.
2. Time yourself – Always set a time limit when pairing up for innovative thinking. I recommend giving each pair 2 minutes to come up with as many ideas as possible. When you give people 10,15,or 20 minutes they will never use the whole time for innovation and the conversation always trails off into small talk.
3. “Yes and…” – After the 2 minutes are up for each pair, have them join with another group to make a group of four. In this new group of four, present all of your ideas to each other and after each idea say the phrase “yes and…” and develop the idea further. This will encourage each group of four to push each others ideas forward and come up with something great. Once again you should set a time restriction and give them 4 minutes to share and develop ideas further. At this point hopefully there are a few ideas that have bubbled up to the top as the best and are ready to be talked about in further depth.
4. Could I / Should I? – Always ask yourself these two questions for each idea that comes to you; Can you develop this product or service? and should you? You should never move forward with a product if either of the answers are no.
5. There IS such a thing as a bad idea – Our 4th grade teachers got it wrong when telling us this myth. Bad ideas take the group off track and wastes the time of everyone participating. Timing yourself should create a filter to catch the unrelated or sarcastic ideas.
6. Be a team – Throughout life so many people are just waiting for their turn to chime into a conversation. Remind your team that they are just that, a team. Listen to each others ideas and develop them as far as they can go. If a company gets one great idea out of a meeting it is a success, even if you weren’t the originator.
Follow these steps and tips and you will not just come up with more ideas, but ideas that are truly creative ideas that can change the trajectory of your company.