Effective Ideation

Brainstorming is one of the most common workshops, there are many styles and yet, in my experience, most of these are not very effective. Just like Jonathan at AJ&Smart said, these workshops end up being big, messy discussions where the loudest person wins. There are just many who are not as verbal but has the greatest, most surprising ideas ever.

I proposed to lead and facilitate a brainstorming workshop different from the usual group discussion session. Contrary to the conventional brainstorming method where the floor is opened for everyone to voice their opinions, and often results in only the vocal fews or the higher ranked officers are heard, this session encourage every individual to contribute even when they are not so vocal. This enable every possible ideas to surface, even from the quieter individuals.

Taking bits and pieces from Design Thinking methodology and AJ&Smart framework. The main idea is to diverge then converge, do it together but solo.

In one of the workshops, our objective is to come up with a brand name and logo for a product. We’ve everyone in a comfortable room, did a quick brief on the objective and expectation, answer any question from the team.

I’ve prepared each step on a slide that is time-boxed, making sure it’s fast-paced and short. The whole session took less than 30 minutes. We’ve gotten many ideas that distill into a tangible one, and the team knows that they’re part of it. Everyone has enjoyed it and feel that it’s effective, and would no doubt doing it again for future projects.

 

What I did

  • Brainstorming
  • Design Thinking
  • Workshop