Age
- Children
- Teenagers
- Adults and seniors
Culture
- In other cultures
- The culture of the bride
- The culture of the bridegroom
Geopolitics
- In other countries/with other systems
Time pressure
-Without time pressure
-With great time pressure
The wedding party points of view
Explanation of the point of view
The couple
Lilly and Jonny stand at the center of the question
The parents of the couple
They are very close to their children
The witnesses to the marriage
They are close friends of the couple
Children
Many families with children are invited
Seniors
Many seniors are invited
Money: With a lot of money
So dreams can be formulated
Money: Without money
So the little things that cost nothing but give a great deal won’t be forgotten
On another planet:
on Venus, the planet of love
For some kitsch and utopian fantasies
In another culture:
in the family of the Russian Tsar
Inspiration from other cultures
At another time: in the Middle Ages
For great down-to-earthiness
Reverse point of view
To find out what the worst scenario would be
After Lilly and Jonny’s point of view has been defined, a question should be formulated for every point of view. The question has the aim of enabling the potential friends, whom the couple will ask for advice, to take the said perspective and force them to answer the question from this point of view.
The questions for the ideation phase are often very broad. Lilly and Jonny won’t organize a workshop in their case, but they will probably collect answers during a shared dinner with their friends or via social media/e-mail. For a “working environment,” a physical workshop is advisable because creativity might suffer in a digital workshop, although feedback can be collected quickly in the latter.
To forestall respondents’ expressing only those ideas the couple is willing to hear, some of the ideation should be done on an anonymous basis, such as in writing or by means of an online tool. Anonymity is not absolutely necessary for collecting great ideas—after all, it’s fun to talk about things that are pleasing. But if you want to know what might bother people, anonymity is a must. To the question of “What would be the worst wedding party?” some of Lilly and Jonny’s friends responded they would fear having to sit at the same table with the same people all night long. Some friends are horrified at having to wear a suit all day long. Many families would like to stay overnight locally but cannot afford an expensive hotel.
The wedding party
points of view
Questions
The couple
What does the couple wish for the wedding party?
The parents of the couple
What do the parents of the couple wish for the wedding party?
The witnesses to the marriage
What do the witnesses wish for the wedding party?
Children
What do children wish for a wedding party?
Seniors
What do seniors wish for a wedding party?
Planet Venus
What would a wedding party on Venus look like?
In the family of the Russian Tsar?
What would a wedding party in the family of the Russian Tsar look like?
In the Middle Ages?
What did a wedding party in medieval times look like?
Reverse point of view
What would be the worst wedding party?
EXPERT TIP
Use 9-window tool and daisy map
There are countless methods for adding structure to the insights: Venn diagrams, mind maps, system maps, cluster analyses, customer journeys, and so forth.
The 9-window tool is a simple method for analyzing potential application cases and customer needs. In so doing, the product or service is more closely examined in the dimensions of “system” and “time.”
“System” refers to the structure of a product or service, including its entire environment. It invites you to zoom in to the product/service (subsystem) or to consider the super system (zoom out).
In the dimension of “time,” we vary the temporal consideration and focus on what happened in the past or might happen in the future. This approach helps us overcome barriers and see the product or digital service from a different point of view.
With the 9-window tool, Marc can structure his business idea about the theme of “patient record”
Jonny, who predicts that the banking landscape will change in the way they lend money, can transmit the effects of various blockchain evolution levels to the respective subsystems and super systems (example 2).
Frequently, the many elements are prioritized, such as by means of scoring. The elements with the highest score are pursued and one or several are chosen for the PoV.
A daisy map can be used to depict the most important elements. Its advantage is that the most important items are highlighted, so it’s not always the top item that is automatically seen as the most important. All five to eight flower petals are equal, as it were.
HOW MIGHT WE...
formulate a PoV?
As we could see from the example of Lilly and Jonny’s wedding, the PoVs serve mainly to collect, structure, and weight all insights so as to find the relevant points. They also help us identify contradictions and determine the priorities for the next iterations. This is referred to as synthesis.
Synthesis is about finding the important needs and patterns of users, including those that were undiscovered up to now. The result of our synthesis is one condensed sentence, the PoV, which determines the question for the coming ideation phase. We will return to the topic of the synthesis in this expert tip because it poses a great challenge for many design thinking teams.
Every PoV sentence is a starting point that will be adapted in the next iteration lap.
What do we focus on in the PoV phase?
We recognize patterns in the needs of users.
We see opportunities where others see problems.
We understand the needs of our customers at all levels.
We provide clarity about assumptions and hypotheses.
We immerse ourselves in systems and make them tangible.
We consolidate information and interpret it.
We understand findings and emphasize the most important insights.
We create the starting point and focus on the PoV for the next ideation.
We recommend formulating the PoV in a catchy sentence. Use various formulations. Try and test which variant is best for you, the team, and the situation.
Approach
PoV sentence/fill-in-the-blank text
How might we
How might we . . .
e.g., in the form:
How might we help [the user, customer] to achieve [a certain goal]?
Or: How many ways are there to achieve [a certain target] for [the user]?
Example: How might we help patients keep their health records safe and share them with a doctor at a given time?
Stanford PoV
[User] needs to [need] because [surprising insight].
Or: [Who] wants [what] for [need fulfillment] because [motivation] . . .
Example:
The patient must have the data sovereignty for his health data because he wants to avoid abuse.
Agile methods
User stories
As a [role/persona] (“who”) I would like to [action, destination, wish] (“what”),
in order to achieve [benefit] (“why”).
KEY LE
ARNINGS
Find the right focus
Try to find the point of view with a 360° view.
Look at the situation from different points of view and define the focus for the next iteration.
Use the 9-window tool to explore what happens before and after the use of the product as well as what is happening in the system.
Present the needs not in the form of a list but as a daisy map.
Change perspective, e.g., “time” (before, after), “money” (with, without), etc.
Use a fill-in-the-blank text in different variants, which can be changed according to project, maturity, preferences.
Start a project with pretty simple WH questions: “How might we. . .?” or “How many different ways are there for…?”
Always develop various PoV questions and choose the most suitable one from among them.
1.7 How to generate ideas
Without ideas, no new products! The importance of finding good ideas at the right time is enormous, putting both participants and workshop facilitators, whose job is to tease out ideas from attendees, under pressure.
We know from studies that groundbreaking ideas don’t always emerge during a brainstorming session; sometimes, the creative spark leaps while you have a shower or scribble something on a napkin. This is why creative companies give their employees more and more leeway to allow for this type of intrinsic inspiration to happen; for instance, in the form of workdays on which employees are allowed to do whatever they want. The only condition is for them to report back what they have done.
However, often the milestones already have been set, and as product developers or engineers we are in no position to explain to the boss that we want to spend the next four hours in the shower because the chances of hitting on great ideas are better there. So we need methods and tools of structured ideation.
Peter in particular is under a lot of pressure due to deadlines. He must deliver up creative results and, consequently, get his team to cough up creative outputs and put people in the right mood at the touch of a button. Lilly knows from experience that some factors must be met for this touch of the button to be effective. The following credo actually seems too banal and childish to her: “A good mood is the #1 prerequisite.” Despite this, she’s convinced that the potential of shared ideation can only unfold when a casual, relaxed atmosphere prevails. Only then can attendees engage in a search for ideas on a broad basis. The switch to a different or new environment alone can change the mood. If the meeting takes place week after week in the same conference room that is associated with some boring statistics, it is not conducive to a good atmosphere. So why not move the workshop to another room, outside, or even to the closest bar?
EXPERT TIP
Rules for a good brainstorming session
Before beginning with any brainstorming, people must laugh at least once. A warmup that makes participants smile helps. From our experience, it’s best when they smile at one another.
Thinking in hierarchical structures is a hindrance to free and unfettered ideation. An apprentice does not want to make a peculiar impression on his boss when expressing a fanciful idea.
For this reason, we are encouraged to point out that the assistant and the accountant, the CEO and the marketing officer of the company, can all make an important contribution in the process of ideation. If participants do not know one another, so much the better! Not having general introductions before the brainstorming session, which would include announcing who has which role, has proven useful indeed. A nonbiased dialog is of great value.
When we feel there is a steep hierarchy in our company, we can try out the reverse approach: We form a team only from trainees, for instance, so they will have the opportunity to raise their profile and show others their creative potential. In the next workshop, the groups will then almost certainly mix at their own initiative.
The beauty of brainstorming is everybody is given the opportunity to come up with good ideas, no matter which function or role he or she has.
What are the rules we comply with in a good brainstorming session?
Brainstorming rules are numerous. Our top three are:
Creative confidence
We express all ideas that come into our heads, no matter how silly they might appear to us. Maybe the next person can base another idea exactly on our “silly” contribution. For this to work, we need the relaxed atmosphere just described.
Quantity goes before quality
Very, very important! The point of this phase is to fill the hat with as many ideas as possible—evaluation comes later. We resist the temptation of being satisfied with the first good idea. Maybe an even better idea is only five minutes away in our brainstorming session.
No criticism of ideas
Under no circumstances are ideas allowed to be criticized during this phase. The evaluation of the ideas takes place later in a separate step.
How can we get participants to break loose from their supposedly serious professionalism and open up to new and unconventional things?
Quite conventional ideas usually mark the beginning of a brainstorming session. Their novelty value is low.
Peter has had the experience of some of his colleagues coming to every workshop with a fixed idea of how the solution might look. During the brainstorming session, it is hard to pull them away from these fixed ideas, and they generate little that is new. For this reason, Peter always holds a first session at the beginning, which he refers to as the “brain dump.” All attendees have the opportunity in this session to dump their ideas so they are open to new things.
The actual search for ideas only begins in the second step. Peter encourages the participants to break out of their usual thought patterns so they can come up with some “wild” ideas. He uses two specific tricks; here’s how we implement them in our workshops:
1) When we moderate a workshop with several groups, we can shape the search for ideas as an internal contest. We stop the brainstorming session after halftime and request that the groups state the number of collected ideas.
For the individual teams, this is an incentive to catch up, so they will inevitably have to venture in the direction of “wilder” ideas if they have undermatched the creative performance of the other groups. This approach allows us to see which group is wrestling with difficulties. If one group is far behind in their number of ideas, we watch to find out exactly what inhibits the team. Usually, it turns out this group has—against instructions—begun to discuss and evaluate the ideas.
2) We have the groups present the two best and two dumbest solutions they have generated. This moment is a valuable experience for every group. First, the task will induce a few giggles, which is quite a help for creating a positive atmosphere. Second, and far more important, now a debate is launched on whether some of the ideas are actually as dumb as had been assumed at first. Every dumb idea has potential! When we know how to reverse the idea successfully into something positive, we will gain valuable perspectives with a guaranteed novelty value.
EXPERT TIP
Creativity techniques
Problem reversal technique
The problem reversal technique is Lilly’s favorite method when she asks students to generate ideas for something but they don’t really have any desire to join in. Lilly reverses the question and asks, for example, “How would you prevent creativity on your team?” The problem reversal technique stimulates creativity and gives participants the opportunity to have fun with a topic. In a second step, every negative statement is reversed into a positive one.
We must emphasize, though, that this method is less suitable for finding new product ideas. The reversed question, “What would something have to be like?” often results in a requirements list instead of ideas. We have nonetheless had good experience with the problem reversal technique; for example, for the revision and/or improvement of service processes.
Requirements versus ideas
Lilly learns that students in the tech
nical area in particular have great difficulties finding “real ideas.” They have a hard time differentiating between requirements and ideas. In a brainstorming session for a new headset, participants wrote “ergonomic,” “lightweight,” and “user-friendly” on their Post-its. Those participants coming from business administration wrote down words such as “cheaper” or “cutting-edge design.” At this point, Lilly interrupts and explains that these things are not actually ideas but requirements for the product. Of course, we must also be clear about the problem for which we want to generate ideas. In this case: How might we communicate in the future without cell phones? The terms “ergonomic” and “cutting edge” do not entail a solution to the problem. An idea would be that, in the future, the electronics would be implanted under the skin to communicate worldwide. A somewhat less abstract idea would be to integrate the communication in accessories and clothing, such as with Google Glass.
HOW MIGHT WE...
generate depth when searching for ideas?
Depth of ideas
The Design Thinking Playbook Page 9
