Transcript Sealed Air Workshop - University of the Pacific

Innovation Leadership Training
Day Three
February 19, 2009
All materials © NetCentrics 2008 unless otherwise noted
Welcome
• Welcome back to innovation training
• Today we’ll quickly recap the learnings from
the last program
• Then turn our attention to idea generation
techniques
Recap
• In our first session we looked at the
relationship between innovation and strategy
• We created definitions for innovation to
define scope
• We created innovation charters and defined
innovation model facets
• Finally, we examined some appropriate
metrics and goals for innovation
Recap
• Last session we examined trends and
customer insight tools and techniques
• We looked at methods to understand and
capture customer unmet and undermet needs
• We outlined a strategy mapping process to
identify likely opportunities
• We had a brief introduction to customer
experience journey and scenario planning
Discussion
• Any thoughts or comments on what we
covered last time?
• Has anyone had the opportunity to put any of
that into practice?
Pre-work
• You were assigned two short white papers on
ideation techniques and a book from Roger
von Oech
• What are your takeaways from your reading?
• How many of you have participated in
“brainstorming” or other ideation efforts?
What We Want to Accomplish
Goals for this section
• Our goal this section
– Examine a number of ideation techniques
– Try out a few, including the facilitation of a live
brainstorm
Key Points
• Most of you are familiar with “brainstorming”
but may have experienced varying results
– There’s more to a good brainstorm than some
people gathered in a conference room
• There are other ideation tools and is relevant
to specific types of generation and idea types
– We’ll review a few from the reading
• Examine the “best practices” for ideation and
try some out
Idea Generation
• Ideas are constantly generated within your
organization. While interesting, they often
don’t align to your real needs
• Most people have participated in
“brainstorms” and assume that this is the only
approach to structured ideation
• Many people believe that creativity and
ideation can’t be managed
Idea Generation
• As opposed to an “open suggestion”
submission of ideas, formal idea generation
techniques seek to generate ideas (usually in a
group setting) for a specific opportunity or
challenge
• This “directed ideation” serves to create more
ideas and obtain involvement from a wider
audience.
Ideation versus Suggestion
Open Suggestion
• A good innovation program makes room for
open suggestion but does not rely on this
approach for the majority of the ideas
• Some people generate ideas more effectively
outside the ideation process
• However, open suggestion and unstructured
brainstorming often diverge from corporate
strategies and needs
Agenda for Today
• Review a number of idea generation
techniques
• Review the best practices for idea generation
• Conduct a brief brainstorming exercise using
best practices
• Review and implement several other idea
generation techniques
Experiences
• What have been your experiences with
brainstorming?
– Good experiences
– Challenges/failures
• What caused it to work well or poorly for you?
Techniques
• We’ve considered and you’ve read about a
number of techniques, including:
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Brainstorming
Brain-writing
“bugs-me” list / journal
Guaranteed success/Guaranteed failure
Reduce/Eliminate/Increase (from Blue Ocean)
Mind-mapping
Restating the problem
Analogies from other industries
Settings
• There are at least two types of settings for
most idea generation activities:
– Live, face to face or distributed
– Rolling, asynchronous
• The first is generally considered a brainstorm
or workshop, or can be conducted over a
teleconference
• The second is generally called an idea
campaign or idea jam
Rationale
• Face to face
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More intensive, more interactive
Smaller, more focused teams
Shorter timeframe, easier to scale
Fewer, more distinct ideas
Less overhead and administration
• Campaigns
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Much broader participation
Many more ideas generated
Longer time period
Encourages broad involvement
Need a software application to capture and share ideas
More planning and administration required
Best Practices
• Creativity and idea generation have been
carefully studied
• There are a number of best practices that can
dramatically improve the outcome of any
ideation session
• We’ll examine a few of those best practices
now
Statement of the Opportunity
• State the problem or opportunity in such a
way that encourages discovery and creativity
• Ideation sessions and idea generation is
difficult on very limited concepts or yes/no
type questions
• Use open ended questions to encourage
creative thinking
– From “Reduce costs 10 percent” to How can we
dramatically reduce the cost of manufacturing?
Right tool for the goal
• Generally speaking, the more people involved, the
less disruptive or radical the ideas will become
• This is because it is hard to get the group dynamics
right – for radical thinking everyone has to be “on
board”
• The implication is that smaller teams are more likely
to have more disruptive ideas
• Idea campaigns and public brainstorms are great for
incremental innovation
Group Ideation
• Live brainstorms are simply well run meetings
that have:
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An agenda
A clear scope and purpose
Rules and expectations of the participants
Pre-work
Follow up actions
Great facilitation
• In unsuccessful ideation sessions, one or more
of these factors is missing
Agenda / Scope
• Successful ideation sessions start with a clear
purpose and scope
• You must identify a reasonable opportunity to
address or a clear challenge or problem to
solve
• This must be stated so that everyone is on the
“same page” at the start of the event and so
they understand the focus of the idea
generation
Rules
• There are basically seven cardinal rules for
successful group brainstorming
– Every idea is a good idea
– No judging during generation
– Build on each other’s ideas
– One conversation at a time
– Ideas belong to the group
– Encourage “wild” ideas
– Go for quantity not necessarily quality
Pre-Work
• Good ideation requires that people come to
the event prepared
• They must understand the challenge or
problem and the scope or space within which
to ideate
• Good communication of the scope and any
background or source material is important
• Otherwise much of the meeting is used
getting participants “up to speed”
Framing Document
• To ensure we communicate our expectations
effectively and to help shape the thinking of
the invited participants, we recommend the
creation of a “framing document”
• This document is provided to the participants
a day or two before the session to help inform
and shape their thinking.
Contents
• A framing document contains
– An overview or introduction to the challenge or
opportunity
– Identification of background material to review
beforehand
– How the brainstorm will be conducted
– Key topics for consideration
– What the expected outcomes are for the ideas
Exercise
• Let’s review and build a “framing document”
to present to the team for brainstorming
Discussion
• What do you take away from the exercise?
Key Takeaways
• Good idea generation is based on careful
preparation, good facilitation and clear goals
and expected outcomes
• There are a number of techniques that can be
applied, for live sessions and distributed
sessions, group or individual work
• Our goal is not to make you an expert but to
demonstrate some of the tools and provide
best practices