How many brainstorming sessions, filled with potentially brilliant ideas, have ended up as rolled up flip charts under someone’s desk?
The challenge is taking ideas to a next step post-brainstorming can be a challenge.
When I get near the end of the brainstorming process with my clients, I use a simple filtering process that ideas from mere concept to near ready to implement.
Here’s how it works…
Key Steps: Take Brainstorming from Good to Wicked-Good
- When you’ve finished with the brainstorming stage put all of your ideas on sticky notes or individual pieces of paper. (Something that allows them to be easily repositioned). Have them all stuck, off to the side, on a wall.
- Next, determine what qualifiers you (want, need, will use) to filter these ideas and a range. (You may want to have these filters in mind ahead of time, or ask the group to develop them).
Filters and their ranges include:- EASE OF IMPLEMENTATION (filter): easy-to-hard (range)
- INVESTMENT: cheap-to-expensive
- ROI: low-to-high
- THE BRAND: builds the brand-to-draws from the brand
- TIME TO MARKET: implement quickly-to-takes a while
Of course you’ll have others that are important to your company and brand…
- Create a large grid on a big wall. (Blue painter’s tape works well as it doesn’t mess up paint. Be sure to test it first!)
- Label the grid using two of your most important filters and the range. (I’ll use ROI and EASE OF IMPLEMENTATION for my example).
- Have the team move and classify the ideas into their proper range within the categories.
- Now you’ll have a ‘picture’ of which ideas (in this example) will drive the most sales and are the easiest to implement. Items in the upper-right are the best ideas on this chart.
- More than likely, you need to consider a third or fourth filter. For me, I want to consider ideas that: a) are easy for the customer and b) have a positive impact on the brand. To accomplish this, we are going to focus on and refine the best ideas in the upper-right section with these additional filters.
- Grab a few volunteers and have them remove the items that fit the next filter. I’m using “ideas that don’t strengthen the brand.” Have them move them outside of the box.
- Next (and we’re almost done), have a few different volunteers remove from the box the ideas that don’t fit your next main filter. For me, it’s ideas that “require effort on behalf of the customer.” (If this idea requires the customer to jump through hoops, it’s not a good one).
- Finally, examine what’s left in that box and you’ve got the ideas that… have a high ROI, are easier to implement, are easy on the customer, and build the brand. These ideas are ready to be championed and tested.
Instead of ending your brainstorming with simply a bunch of potentially good ideas… you’ve taken action steps and are on path to execution.
You’ve turned a GOOD use of time into a WICKED GOOD use of time.
In a tough economy, we’re going to need all the good ideas we can get. Thanks for a terrific process Paul!
Good technique. There are a number of them, of course, but variety keeps these sessions interesting. And your real point, if I read this right, is getting from a large array of ideas to the one or two that will really move the needle. Thanks for sharing this approach.
Thank you, thank you for your emphasis on strengthening the brand.
I see too many examples of brand-weakening activities that can be easily avoided. One of my favorites is ecojot – a company that makes environmentally friendly scratch pads and stationery, and wraps everything in (environmentally unfriendly) plastic! Not strengthening the brand with that move!
Companies need to look at EVERYTHING they do to determine if it strengthens or weakens the brand.
GREAT! I love working with color sticky notes for idea sessions … and this extra step is perfect. Thank you
I’m one who, while pretty good at coming up with ideas, didn’t have a good plan for filtering them. Now I do. Thanks!
i loved this post, i tweeted it to around 1,400 people
reminds me of creating a perceptual map for a company vs competitors but utlized for brainstorming instead. thanks a lot for sharing paul.
Jacob
-> Paul B – Thank you for commenting and your nice words!
-> Michael – You’re exactly right. A big idea behind this post was to encourage refining and some decision making at the end of a brainstorm session… the momentum will get you that much closer to implementation.
Also… why not use the brain power of the group in the room to help filter the ideas? More than likely *that* group who developed them are probably going to be the same who will implement them…
Thank you for commenting! – Paul
-> Wendy… This idea works really well… It’s satisfying – after spending a brain-crunching period of time coming up with ideas… to see the ones that float to the surface as the best of the best. Stickies do make this a dynamic process.
-> Paul C – The beauty of this process is that you can apply any filter you want to leave you with the only the best candidates.
-> Jacob – Thanks for the tweets. Nice to know this post made you Twitterpated.
Really liked the post. Now (in downturn) more than ever is the time for brainstorming – tweaking the business model / brand etc .. Difficult thing is to get other people to take part in brainstorming (mainly because they are embarrassed that their ideas will look silly in front of others – it is often the ’silly ideas’ that, with some wor,k can turn out to be great ideas ..
Love it! You’re talking taking divergent “out of the box” thinking, then using a visual technique to categorize and prioritize them so as to converge on the best ideas. Have you thought of using software tools to accomplish this? We do it all the time using a collaborative web software tool to capture ideas on a shared “flipchart”, put them into categories and then evaluate them using a variety of filters. The advantage of software is that the whole process is documented from beginning to end and can be done over the web as well as in a room.
Great post! I have two builds to offer:
1) Try to capture the ideas on individual pieces on paper in the first place
2) Before assuming that all the ideas not in the upper right quadrant are not good enough, play around with them for a bit. See if you can tweak them in a way that would earn them a spot in the upper right corner.
Great process! This is something that we can readily implement especially as we are still growing the organization and we have to maximize our resources. Thanks for sharing!
[...] Failing to classify the ideas to find the best ones and to set the stage for action plans to implement the best ideas (Paul Williams has written an excellent article describing how to take your brainstorming sessions from good to wicked good). [...]