To explain the levels of the depth of ideas and the term “requirements” better, we use the following model: We imagine we are standing in front of a ditch and want to get to the other side.
1. What is the problem? (level 1)
A ditch cuts off this side from the other side.
So our problem is that we must get to the opposite side somehow. We start brainstorming with the question: How can we get to the other side? “Safely,” “in one piece,” “dry,” and so on, are not ideas but the requirements for the solution. They don’t help us in this situation.
2. The brainstorming question (level 2)
The formulation of the brainstorming question is crucial and largely determines how many ideas can be generated or how greatly the possible solution space is expanded. Depending on the question, we restrict and channel the solution space or else expand it. The following formulations illustrate this: “What could we lay across the ditch to get to the other side?” versus “How can one overcome a physical barrier such as a ditch?”
3. Possible solution ideas (level 3)
We might “fly,” “build a bridge,” “beam ourselves,” or “fill the ditch with so much material that we can walk across it.”
4. Idea variants (level 4)
Any number of variants can evolve for each of these ideas. In a second brainstorming session, the question might be: How many ways are there to fly? “With an airplane,” “with a flying bicycle,” “with bird wings,” “like in the Red Bull ad,” “by pole vaulting,” and the like.
If one group finds it hard to get away from requirements, it is advisable to have them build rudimentary models of their “ideas.” This will make it mandatory for requirements to be implemented as an idea.
Tips for depth of ideas:
We formulate the brainstorming question so it matches the solution space we want to open up.
We can still adapt the brainstorming question during a workshop.
The solutions from level 3 can be consolidated in a morphological box; more variants of partial solutions are conceivable.
If a group has a hard time advancing to level 3, the instruction to translate the ideas into a physical prototype is often quite helpful. It forces the participants to become more specific. Implementing a physical model in a “user-friendly” way will help them engage in level 3.
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Quick ’n’ dirty prototyping
“Prototyping”—building an idea as a physical model—is another creativity technique. The diversity of the provided material determines whether more ideas will emerge or not. The more odds and ends are available, the better it is. A balloon that’s been discovered summons up the idea that something could be flexible and stretchable; a piece of cord reminds a participant that the thing might be portable.
The rubber dog in the prototyping material box:
More or less by accident, Lilly threw a rubber toy dog into the prototyping box. When the participants in the brainstorming session were tasked to translate their ideas into physical models, one of them found the toy and was highly amused by it. He started to spin ideas: “The dog could do this and that in the machine,” whereupon his team members joined in and came up with more ideas. The team had a lot of fun with the dog, which enabled them to break out of their habitual thought patterns and reflect upon things they had thought little about up to now. Until the very end, the dog contributed materially to the successful outcome. Since then, it has been an integral part of Lilly’s prototyping box that she brings along to the workshops.
EXPERT TIP SCAMPER
SCAMPER is a further development of the well-known Osborn checklist. Alex Osborn, a brainstorming expert, developed in collaboration with Sidney Parnes one of the first approaches to the creative problem-solving process. For ideation, the Scamper method uses—along with brainstorming—a list of questions that should provide food for thought toward solving the problem. In our experience, it is important initially to see an example and then go through the detailed questions. SCAMPER is an acronym and stands for the terms:
SCAMPER = Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, Rearrange
SCAMPER is useful when we would like to stimulate creativity and find even more ideas. Basically, SCAMPER can be used for nearly anything: for products, processes, systems, solutions, services, business models, or ecosystems. In the event that individual questions or elements are not quite suitable or obvious, that doesn’t matter for the application. We simply leave these questions out.
Substitute
What can be substituted?
What can be used in its place?
Who can be involved instead?
Which process could be used instead?
What other material could be used instead?
Combine
What can be combined?
What can be mixed?
How might certain parts be connected?
Which purposes could be combined?
Adapt
What other ideas are suggested by it?
Is there anything that is similar and can be applied to the existing problem?
Have there been similar situations in the past?
Modify
What modification could be introduced?
Can the meaning be changed?
How might the color or shape be changed?
What can be increased?
What can be reduced?
What could be modernized?
Can it be enlarged?
Can it be downsized?
Put to other uses
For what other purposes could it be used in its present state?
For what purpose could it be used if it were modified?
Eliminate
What could be eliminated?
What are the things it would still work without?
Rearrange
What other patterns would also work?
What modifications could be introduced?
What could be replaced?
What could be rearranged?
KEY LEARNINGS
Generate ideas
Make sure the environment offers a good atmosphere and build up team members’ creative confidence.
Laugh a lot but never laugh at one another!
Creativity sessions should always be in at least two parts. Provide a “brain dump” at the beginning and then stimulate creativity.
Motivate participants to deliver a great quantity of ideas, such as via contests between teams, or by using additional sources of inspiration such as the problem reversal technique and other creativity techniques.
Differentiate between requirements and features. Properties such as “ergonomic” or “cutting edge” are not solutions to the problem.
Separate the ideation (the generation of ideas) from the evaluation of the ideas.
Designate a moderator, who guides in the creativity technique, and a facilitator, who leads through the process.
Comply with the brainstorming rules (e.g., no criticism of ideas, quantity goes before quality, etc.).
Communicate the various ideas uniformly and objectively.
Make use of methods such as SCAMPER, which help us to increase creativity by providing food for thought.
1.8 How to structure and select ideas
When we apply various types of brainstorming, we amass many ideas. In addition, we have consciously encouraged the teams to generate as many ideas as possible. Peter and Lilly are aware of the phenomenon: Once the team’s initial reluctance has been overcome and a positive mindset has set in, ideas keep cropping up in rapid succession. Often, the screens, windows, and walls are not big enough to place all the ideas.
The agony of choice. Selecting ideas is a real challenge. For one, each one of us interprets the drawings, words, or short texts on the Post-its differently. Second, there are ideas whose basic thought goes in the same direction, and ideas that solve a completely different problem than originally intended.
The examples show that ideas can be grouped, assigned, or simply described by an umbrella term. The way is the goal, and the discussion about a meaningful classification in itself results in everybody having the same understanding of the ideas in the end. Depending on how solid the understanding and how refined the degree of detailing is, ideas can be selected directly or undergo further analysis, specification, and structuring. There are various possibilities for evaluating ideas and clusters. Having participants vote for ideas by placing adhesive dots on them is a simple way to do it. The vote is quick and democratic.
Structuring, such as with concept maps, improves the clarity of the ideas and makes it easier for the team to plan the next steps and tackle them in a focused way. Once the idea has been selected, the next step is to present it in a way appropriate for the target group. Again, there are various possibilities for this, such as creating a communication sheet of the concept ideas.
If the range of ideas is very broad and the scope of the question has been greatly expanded, the ideas can initially be grouped into overarching topics and then clustered again.
A) Matches the question
B) Exciting
C) Out of scope
Other groupings are possible:
D) Today – Tomorrow – Future
E) B2B – B2C – B2B2C
F) Incremental versus radical
The clustering can be used at an earlier stage to preselect the ideas, such as on the basis of the speed of dissemination and implementability, or on the basis of a Churchill matrix with the dimensions of importance and urgency.
G) Stepwise selection using the “speed of dissemination and implementability” matrix
The first step of this two-tier procedure focuses on the speed of dissemination and the speed of adaptation. Especially in a political environment—which prevails at Peter’s company, for instance—it is useful to consider the decision makers and one’s own influence on the potential rollout. The best ideas are characterized by rapid dissemination and fast adaptation. In a second step, the implementability and financial feasibility are investigated. This results in implementation alternatives or indications of the functional scope.
H) Selection based on the criteria of “important and urgent”
This matrix is particularly suitable when the search is for which measures to use.
We show the urgency on the x-axis and the importance on the y-axis. Then we discuss with the team which measures must be allocated to which quadrant. Once all measures have been entered, we can enter the to-do’s, including the respective responsibilities, and determine milestones.
EXPERT TIP
Select ideas that aim at a great vision
We all know the phenomenon of criteria being developed in large organizations to select potential ideas. These criteria enable a large number of teams to develop innovations in a more targeted way. Often, the criteria act as a kind of guardrail or specify certain financial goals. In general, such criteria are inhibiting, but because they do exist in reality, we should discuss them. If the criteria are not known within the framework of a well-defined strategy and vision, it is useful to ask some key questions:
What might the vision be?
What are the personal preferences at management level?
What is our enterprise’s culture, its values, and and sense of morals?
Which growth areas have already been defined as part of a strategy discussion?
What is the financial contribution an idea must yield as a minimum?
What are the customer needs and trends on the market?
When defining criteria, it is important to be aware of reality. The potential market opportunity can be as great as it may be, but if the decision makers (e.g., top management) don’t cotton to it, the idea will fail. At the least, when financial resources are allocated, we will be confronted with this situation. As illustrated, a selection via the dual matrix with the dimensions of speed of dissemination and implementability can be useful.
The values a company stands for are equally important. If it goes against the moral grain of a company to use customer data from digital channels for other business models or to sell it profitably, such ideas will have little success. Defining of these and other criteria at an early stage has at least the advantage that the waste of resources is reduced and effectiveness is boosted.
But we ought to try everything in our power to overcome such restrictions. In our experience, “submarine” projects have proven useful: projects that are initiated on the q.t. with a small number of dedicated employees and “go to the surface” only once the initial results were worked out in prototype form and have won over the decision makers.
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Structure as a poster
Any type of structure can be depicted as a poster; for example, as a simple pro-and-con poster. The goal is to visualize the collective intelligence of a team or capture a mood. For example, we query pro and con arguments on a subject in a poster form and then have participants rate them. Lilly uses this variant to obtain quick feedback about the course from the participants at the end of her design thinking event without having to get into prolonged discussions.
For scheduling, we can draw the poster in the form of a timeline. Let’s take the planning and iterative creation of The Design Thinking Playbook as an example. Again, we had the “courage to drop”! The party atmosphere at the end of the project was quite motivating for editors and experts. How we can use such elements otherwise and visualize them in a target-oriented way will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2.3.
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Working with concept maps, mind maps, systems maps, or giga maps
A concept map is basically nothing more than the visualization of concepts that shows us the correlations. Thus a concept map in a figurative sense is the graphic depiction of knowledge and an excellent means for us to bring order to our thoughts. The depiction of the concept map is freer than that of the better-known mind mapping.
In the mind map, the key concept is written in the center and then built up from inside to outside. Thus it looks like a tree: branches on which terms are written go off from the key concept. Hence the mind map is more a means for brainstorming. It helps to bring order to the discovered points but it doesn’t show the correlations among them.
A concept map can start from several key concepts. Often there are cross-connections between the branched concepts, similar to a road network. For this reason, the creation of concept maps takes more time than that of a mind map. In our experience, at least three new creations or restructurings are usually necessary to get to a good result.
As the name suggests, a systems map is a visualization of the system. The various actors and stakeholders as well as the observed elements are sketched. Interrelationships and influences can also be depicted. In so doing, an iterative adaptation and detailing takes place. Typically, you go from the rough to the detailed (i.e., top-down). Thinking in variants is also an important element. In a systems map, material, energy, money, and information flows can be depicted. A systems map helps to understand and visualize the problem.
We will address the topic of systems thinking in greater depth in Chapter 3.1. Chapter 3.3 will deal with business ecosystem design.
Other concepts, such as the giga map, will also be investigated more closely. A pragmatic description of a giga map would be “a big messy map of a big messy thing.” It is also a stripped-down form of the systems map, while following the basic idea of the concept map. Giga maps can help us draw up a holistic conception of a specific task, for instance. In a final version, the giga map helps to communicate the treatise. But usually, largely owing to its complexity, it is only understood by those who created it.
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Document and communicate ideas with communication sheets
We work frequently with teams all over the world in major projects and organizations. The simple and clear documentation and communication of ideas is, hence, extremely important. Communication sheets on the concept ideas are a good way to achieve clarity. Ideas can be shared easily with such templates. Moreover, ideas become tangible, and possible misunderstandings are minimized.
With the compilation of communication sheets, we achieve
the visualization of the problem and the situation,
an improved understanding of the problem and idea,
a better understanding of possible influences on customers and users,
order to our thoughts,
the recognition of approaches to the solution, and
the documentation, summary and depiction of our knowledge.
HOW MIGHT WE...
structure and select ideas?
The Design Thinking Playbook Page 10
