Shift to Ideation
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Define ideation.
- Explain why ideation is important.
- Describe the brainstorming planning process.
- Write a How Might We brainstorm prompt.
Why Ideation Is Important
If you’ve completed other badges in the Learn Strategy Design trail, you’ve learned about some key concepts and steps involved, from alignment as a strategic craft to framing a challenge through research and discovery. In this module, you explore ideation methods and best practices you can use during the design process.
If you’re feeling a time crunch and wondering whether you have time to spend on ideation— the process of generating solution ideas—think of it this way: Building the wrong solution is more expensive, and takes more time than ideation.
The chances that any of us can come up with the right solution the first time we think about a challenge are pretty slim. The ideation and concepting phase of the design process is a rigorous practice of creating a selection of ideas to consider. A byproduct of this practice is that you discover the tradeoffs (common trade-offs are effort vs. value, time vs. cost, compromise vs. sacrifice) implicit in your options.
Ideation can last a couple of days or a couple of weeks, depending on the scale of the challenge, but spending even a little bit of time on it reduces the risk of building the wrong solution, and having to rebuild it later. To see the ideation process in action, let’s check in with our fictional company, Cloud Kicks.
In the Challenge Framing and Scoping and Research for Strategy Design modules, Cloud Kicks:
- Researched customers and competitors.
- Framed the design challenge.
- Prioritized customer needs.
- Identified moments that matter—moments of engagement between users and an organization that have a significant impact on overall satisfaction with an experience or product.
- Wrote job statements—statements that use the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework to provide a clear understanding of what customers want to achieve using a product or service.
Now they’re ready to begin the ideation process, which means planning its first brainstorming session.
Plan a Brainstorm
Cloud Kicks plans to brainstorm solutions that directly address the JTBD it developed in the Research for Strategy Design module. To prepare for its brainstorming session, Cloud Kicks invites a group of people with diverse perspectives, backgrounds, abilities, experiences, and professional disciplines, helping to eliminate blind spots. And the strategist writes some brainstorming prompts.
Who to Invite to a Brainstorm
The ideal size for a group of people brainstorming is no smaller than 3 and no bigger than 10. Create your list with a few things in mind. Invite:
- People who know your users: Salespeople, researchers, customer support representatives—people who regularly interact with users at your organization.
- People who are generative: They like coming up with new ideas and have an easy time brainstorming.
- A mix of optimists and realists: People who know what’s possible and don’t default to “no” or think of all the reasons why innovation won’t work.
You may also choose to bring in trusted customers or thought partners (individuals who challenge your thinking or assumptions and spark innovation) from outside your organization if you need more people who demonstrate the characteristics above. You can hold a brainstorming session virtually or in person, so don’t let geography limit who you invite.
Identify Brainstorming Prompts
The next thing you need is a good collection of brainstorming prompts, known as provocations. Provocations inspire broad thinking about solutions to one aspect of the challenge you’re trying to solve. These prompts should contain enough context to focus the ideas on solutions that could work, but not so much context that they include the answer—this severely limits the freedom and creativity of the group.
A common format for a provocation is the How Might We or HMW statement. It’s such an effective tool for framing challenges that design teams use it at the level of framing the project challenge (as seen in the Challenge Framing and Scoping module) and again at the level of brainstorming ideation. See if you can tell the difference between a project-level HMW and a brainstorm-level HMW.
Challenge Framing Project Level:
- “How might we increase customer patience and satisfaction in the waiting time between order and delivery, especially amidst supply chain disruptions?"
Ideation Brainstorm Level:
- “How might we make customers feel more connected during the waiting period for the delivery of custom shoes?”
- “How might we reassure customers that their custom shoes are being manufactured and shipped during the waiting period after they place an order?”
- “How might we highlight our sustainability practices to reinforce customers’ satisfaction with their Cloud Kicks purchase?”
Do you see the difference? In the case of framing the project, the HMW statement encapsulates the entire challenge and opportunity. In contrast, the brainstorm provocation HMW is smaller, less holistic, and more tactical. It drives toward more specific customer outcomes, is built on an insight or JTBD, and has more of the customer’s context built in.
You can test that your How Might We is well written by doing a rapid ideation exercise with your team. See if you can quickly and easily come up with five ideas based on your prompt. They don’t have to be great ideas; you’re assessing whether they come easily. If not, try rewriting your prompt a level higher or less constrained, and a level lower or more constrained, and test again.
Another key practice is to write more brainstorm prompts than you can fit into a single, hour-long session and then select the best ones with your team. Best might mean the most inspiring or those that feel like they could encourage the most divergent thinking. It’s typically easier to tame a wild idea—vet it for feasibility and viability—than it is to make an evolutionary idea more revolutionary.
Now that you’re all prepped for your brainstorming session, you’re ready to learn the brainstorming rules that set your session up for success.
