Idea Generation and Innovation Activities

Use a remote-friendly version of the classic note and vote exercise to generate ideas quickly, vote on the most suitable, and turn them into how might we statements your group can move forward with! 

Use Craig Raine's poem A Martian Sends a Postcard Home to spur creative thinking and encourage perspective shifting in a group. After a warm-up, you can then use this martian perspective to describe your product or service and gain new insights and ideas.

At IDEO.org we have seven little rules that unlock the creative power of a brainstorming session.

The sequential building of ideas without evaluation.

Customer experience mapping is a method of documenting and visualizing the experience a customer has as they use the product or service. It also maps out their responses to their experiences.

To be used when there is a solution (even in a conceptual stage) that can be analyzed.

DAD makes it easy for a group to discover better practices that only a few members are using to solve a common problem, called positive deviant behaviors.

We’re going to uncover the behaviors and practices some of us are already using to tackle our shared challenge. It’s like going on a treasure hunt to find the solutions hidden in our midst.”When held in a local setting close to where the problem manifests, it creates a safe space to invent new and more effective practices, sparking imagination and strengthening resolve to take action. It also builds relationships between people in diverse roles. This structure enacts LS Principle #2, Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions.

1. Review key information
2. Start design work on paper, 
3. Consider multiple variations,
4. Create a detailed solution.

When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’ or a ‘creadox’.

The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creadox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.

Open Space is a methodology for large groups to create their agenda discerning important topics for discussion, suitable for conferences, community gatherings and whole system facilitation

A problem solving technique to define a problem, challenge or opportunity and to generate ideas.

One of the best ways to explore creativity is through building. Simple low fidelity prototypes can allow us to transform simple (and at times complex) ideas into something physical. In doing so we inevitably open a space for continuing to explore, reevaluate and iterate.

You have a wealth of brilliant ideas, and it can be a challenge to select which to take forward to develop further. 

This game will help you decide on, and select winning ideas.