Ideastorming for Innovation

One of the best ways to come up with ideas for Innovation is to Ideastorm. Ideastorming is brainstorming for ideas with the goal of coming up with as many ideas as possible. That means coming up with both good and bad ideas – then sifting through them to find the gems.

I like doing improv exercises during an innovation session because it helps get people in the right mindset for brainstorming. In one exercise, you take an everyday item like a plastic bag or a pencil then ask each participant to hold the item, come up with a use for the item, and then pass it onto the next person. The item keeps going around the room until the group comes up with many, many uses for the item. This forces participants to get creative about the different ways an everyday item could be used. A plastic bag wrapped around your ears is Santa’s beard. Held above your head, it’s a balloon hat. Blown up, it’s a whoopee cushion. And so on. The point is to get creative and exhaust all of the ideas.

Ideastorming is similar to this exercise. Ideastorming is a common technique used for brainstorming ideas to fill an innovation funnel for your brand. Some of the ideas will be outrageous and some might border on the impossible. It’s totally okay. The point of an ideation is to come up with as many ideas as possible, and not to judge. At the end of the day, when you’ve exhausted all possible creative ideas, you’ll take a hard look at the ideas and determine their link to a consumer insight and fit with the brand. At that stage, the ideas will get shortlisted - but at the start, you’ll want to vet out as many ideas as possible.

Ideastorms should take place in a space outside of your day-to-day business, and the space should be big enough to allow for breaking out into teams. Once you assemble the right creative mix of people, start the Ideastorm by first setting out the ground rules:

1.  Turn off the outside world.  

It’s hard to be creative when you are being distracted by e-mails, phone calls and texts. It’s best to turn all technology off.

2.  Don’t hold back.

Get everyone to participate. Let everyone know that their opinion counts and that their ideas are important.

3.  There are no bad ideas.

Under no circumstances is anyone to say that an idea is bad or stupid. There are no bad ideas in an Ideastorm – period.

4.  Never say “yes, but” - only use “yes, and.”

This is a classic improv rule. When you are doing an improv skit, you have to work with whatever wacky situation that your improv partner throws out at you. “Yes, but” invalidates the other actor’s imagination, while ‘yes, and’ builds upon it. Always use “yes, and” statements when Ideastorming.

Here’s why the ground rules are important: lackluster ideas inspire great ideas. A bad idea might have a kernel of an idea that’s interesting. That kernel may lead to another idea. That idea might be okay, but after more creative thinking, it becomes great. When you Ideastorm, you get lots of ideas – most of which may be unusable. But within the ideas will be those gems that will be truly valuable to your brand innovation efforts.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you Ideastorm for your brand:

1.  Articulate the scope of ideation.

Innovation should come from the core of a brand so it’s important to first set up the parameters of the Ideastorm. Identify what’s in-scope and what’s out-of-scope for the brand based on the brand's vision. I wrote about innovation coming from the core here in this post. In short, innovation should build upon the equities of the brand. For Ideastorms, it’s best not to be too restrictive in the scope of innovation so that you don’t inhibit creativity.

2.  Use insights-led stimuli to Ideastorm.

Use stimuli that are grounded in your consumer experience or your brand equity. I wrote earlier about developing innovation platforms to spark thoughts. Use these while ideating to help inspire ideas. You may choose to print them on big boards and have people paper the boards with ideas as the platforms are being presented. You can also use a description of 'a day in the life of the consumer' to come up with ideas, or you can use a consumer need state and specific pain points to ideate from. These types of stimuli will help you generate insights-led ideas.

3.  Use far-out stimuli to Ideastorm.

To get participants to stretch their imagination, use stimuli that isn't normally associated with your category or brand. For example, fill a box with interesting products from outside of your category and have the group ideate off of the contents. You can also do this exercise by having participants go outside into the local stores in search of interesting products. Have people ideate off of mood photographs or personalities. Once I brought in Story Cubes and had participants ideate off of a story we created. Stimuli like I mentioned above can lead you to novel ideas for your brand or consumer that aren't very obvious.

4.  Make it fun.

Innovation is fun. Creating is fun. Your participants should feel like kids in an art class with access to lots of materials. Bring in toys and Play-doh to set the tone. Get people to move around. Enable people to work comfortably and sit on the ground if they want. Make it interactive and engaging.

5.  Paper the walls with ideas.

In your Ideastorm, you should have lots of space to move about and lots of wall space to post your ideas up. If you don’t have wall space, use the windows or bring in big boards to post your ideas. Have the ideas visible so people can see the fruits of their labor.

Your Ideastorm is only the first step in an innovation brainstorming session. Once you have all your ideas on the wall, you have to now figure out which ones are worthy of further development. You’ve spent a lot of time getting out as many ideas as possible. Now it’s time to identify which ideas have merit to turn into more fully-developed ideas. To do this, have participants walk around the room and identify the 10 ideas that they like the most. Then compare with the group and see which ideas are the most compelling to both build the business and to meet consumer needs.

Once these ideas are identified, there is more creative thinking that needs to be done to get that gem of an idea further polished until it becomes a brilliant idea. In a two-day brainstorming session, I usually allocate one day to Ideastorming and one day to polishing ideas. Polishing ideas is a different type of creative work that involves art and discipline. It involves putting the ideas through the rigor of marketing strategy and identifying the insights from which the ideas will be built upon.

If you’ve set the right context for your Ideastorm, you will get lots of great ideas which can move to the next stage of development. Eventually, after you’ve developed them, turned them into concepts, and refined them with consumers, you will have some great ideas to fill your brand’s innovation pipeline.