Ideation and Divergence Techniques

Ideation and Divergence Techniques

I am sure many of you have been in an ideation session where a small group was asked for their ideas, everyone said something in turn, and someone wrote down what was said, probably on a white or black board. While this is ideation, don’t let that be your gold standard. There is a lot more to it than that. Reflecting on the steps and attention to detail I suggest in my ideation model, you can see that I take ideation seriously – serious play, perhaps. Let me outline a dozen or more variations on the main theme to help organize divergent thinking. My goal is not to provide a definitive manual on each technique, but to give a menu of sorts from which to select or combine techniques in the context of the general model I presented.

Brainstorming: maybe the classic form of ideation, a group creativity technique generally an open session where ideas are offered up by participants and recorded for later consideration. Sometimes a question or problem is offered at the opening to frame and guide the session.

Role playing: a small group technique where participants assume a role different than the one they have in the usual context or setting. The group seeks to create a story or narrative through their interactions. Role play can be a revealing divergence technique both for the individuals involved as well as the problem that exists in the context in which it is performed.

Storytelling: sharing stories, narratives, or experiences using in words, sound, images, or motion for the purpose of entertainment, perspective shifting, exploring culture or values, or, in this case creativity. Inspiration associated with the stories can aid the creative process or give insight to problems by framing them in personal or group narratives. A debrief can be helpful as an additional ideation technique.

Storyboarding: a specific kind of storytelling where images or pictures are graphically organized to follow the narrative of a story or experience. They are sometimes accompanied by words. As a creative technique, it can be useful to develop storyboards for future events, experiences that do not currently exist, or potential alterations or alternative to current practice.

Collaboration: a very broad approach or set of techniques to put people together in teams with a common goal to create something new. These kinds of exercises can be done face to face, online using synchronous technologies, or over time using asynchronous means for communication.

Critiquing: using a structured approach to analyze a proposed idea, solution, or theory. While most ideation sessions should be free of judgment or critical thinking, a critiquing exercise can help to uncover flaws or weaknesses in more full developed ideas or later stage prototypes.

Empathy research: exploring how we understand each other's emotion, feelings, and the sharing of these. Research can be a long, structured process or more ad hoc and short-term. The key here is to add the emotional dimension to ideation and the creative process.

Theming and bundling: a broad collection of techniques to extract big ideas from a collection of smaller ones or to cluster or bundle similar ideas together to recognize patterns. The resulting themes or bundles can be structured or mapped relative to one another to help understand or uncover some of the large forces at play in a group dynamic or particular problem.

Sketching: quickly creating drawings of ideas, concepts, items, models, solutions – anything from the creative process. Often this is done alone using paper, but the technique can be extended to use various technologies or done in small groups as a collaborative, creative exercise.

Prototyping: creating a more fully built out model of an early idea or concept. The resulting prototype is usually constructed to undergo some kind of testing and improvement based on the results. I will dedicate substantial thought and detail to the prototyping process in a future article.

Positive turbulence: a concept developed by my colleague and mentor Stan Gryskiewicz to describe an approach or broad collection of techniques intended to create turbulence in a system with the intent to cause positive change over time. In ideation sessions, positive turbulence can be used to unseat current thinking, disrupt normal behavior, or challenge typical results.

Creative problem solving: a specific idea generation methodology originally developed by Osborn and Parnes and later evolved and taught broadly. The process starts with a specific problem, follows specific steps, and results in implementation.

Mind mapping: creating a visual diagram to represent the collection of ideas as well as their relationships to each other. Often a central idea, concept, or problem is drawn at the center of the maps and key themes or major ideas branch off from there. Successive branches represent connected but less central ideas. Maps can include words, images, or codes as well as colors and shapes to designate relationships in ideas.

Brainwriting: a idea generation technique that mixes together individual time with group time spent in writing down and building on ideas. One approach is to start with individuals writing down ideas and passing papers to the left or right in a small group to have another build on the original idea. This can be done in several rounds to generate a lot of ideas and builds in a short amount of time. The technique can help mixed groups of introverts and extroverts have balanced input.

Worst idea technique: taking a current problem or situation and offering up answers to “What is the worst thing we could do?” and collecting responses. Initially fun and often ridiculous, the process can reveal subtle insights to the mental frames and cultural models that limit current thinking. A second stage is the process can be to select several of the worst ideas and extend them in storytelling to uncover more insights.

Business modeling: a technique that seeks to build intentional abstract models to explore and explain how value can be created through focused effort. While there are countless variations and a long history of this technique, a favor the more recent approach by Osterwalder that uses a business model canvas to explore both revenue and expenditure sides of the value propositions that organizations offer to customers.

Headlining: telling a story or presenting a concept in a way that reverses the normal pattern of communication. For example, rather than explain how an idea was formed in your mind, this method produces the headline first, a few words that best represent the idea, then followed by the story of the idea’s genesis. A fun group technique is to generate a newspaper like story the builds out a preferred idea or solution when can be captured or presented to a larger group.

Image collaging: taking a broad set of seemingly disparate or unconnected images or pictures and arranging them in some way to make meaning or tell a story. As a creativity tool, this technique can explore and expose hidden connections or patterns that can be revealing.

User experience/journeys: placing oneself in the mind or perspective of the user or consumer of a product or service rather than mind of the creator or seller. This is a more complicated generative process that involves multiple steps, tools, and collections of techniques.

Impromptu video: creating a video with little preparation or planning and reflecting on the process and results. This is fun technique that combines elements of role play, storyboarding, prototyping, and collaboration to explore possibilities and generate insights.

Wish technique: a technique that allows individuals or groups to offer up ideas, solutions, or wishes without regard to limitations of any kind. Wishes tend to be personalized and help bring forward empathic dimensions in the creative process.

Whiteboarding: a simple technique like sketching where ideas and images are quickly drawn and redrawn as a way to offer and build on ideas and potential solutions. Whiteboards can be used as an alternative media to paper.

Forced analogies: a problem based ideation technique where the original problem is compared to something else that has little or nothing in common or by comparing elements of a problem or situation to something different and out of the context of the problem. Often the technique further explores the attributes of the analogies in order to gain new insights about the original problem.

Rapid prototyping: a special kind of prototyping where models are built and testing in rapid succession and notes are taken about the journey to gain insight about problems and solutions. New technologies (for example 3D printing) are making previously costly or impossible methods accessible to broader situations and applications.

In conclusion. Alone or connected to a larger innovation or planning process, ideation and divergence is an exciting and stimulating process. It has benefits on its own, such as team building, collaboration, and perspective shifting. But combined with serious efforts for innovation and future direction setting, it can be the engine for progress and significant change. I encourage you to explore the ideas I offered in this article and reach out to me to ask questions or share your experiences.

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Robert Brodnick, Ph.D. Founder, Brodnick Consulting Group robert@brodnick.consulting 530.798.4082

A Simple Ideation Model

A Simple Ideation Model

Why ideate? You should consider ideation any time you are stuck, have a sticky problem, are looking to the future, considering change, are presented with a dilemma from your environment, or even when you start a new project or are working with a new group of people. Leading ideation sessions is one the most enjoyable facilitation experiences for me. It’s a space where typical rules don't apply. You can bend the laws of physics and economics. And participants have the freedom to leave behind their trained modes of judgement and critical thinking. It’s a high energy space. The best part is the real, usable outcomes are generated quickly. People are always surprised by the volume of ideas. At the same time, good ideation requires a skilled facilitator. To help with this, I have developed a simple model for ideation and divergent thinking. I will present the model and go into details about each step in the process.

Once you’ve decided to organize and conduct an ideation session, it is important to consider how participants can enter a state free of judgment and full of creativity. Much depends on the setting and the facilitator. The process cycles between states of stimulating thinking, capturing what is offered, and building on ideas. Eventually, the energy of the group wanes and idea generation slows down – a perfect time for a new stimulus. When the group has covered the ground the can or when the generation process hits its target, it’s time to wind down the process and prepare for what comes after ideation. Here is more on each step in the process.

Step 1: prepare. I take what might be considered excessive care in preparing for ideation sessions. While impromptu divergence can be magical, more often than not, doing significant pre-work leads to better sessions. It’s important to select a facilitator trained in ideation or at least with significant experience and to give that individual the opportunity for early input in preparation. Two facilitators are best, especially when the group size increases. Next think about the participants - who should be there? And sometimes who shouldn’t be there. Some groups ideate better without the senior leader. Most ideate better in diverse groups and when outsiders are present. Logistics are important too like where the session will be held, what time of day, and what the environment will be like. I prefer rooms unlike most meeting rooms with open space and free walls and windows. Also for consideration are the materials needed (easel, paper, white board, pens, technology, etc.)? It’s hard to ideate with a room full of people looking at their laptops or phone checking email. I like to develop a planning document that I call a facilitation guide for these and most other kinds of facilitations. The document helps organize thinking and gives the clients and facilitators a platform for review and revision well ahead of time. A key part of the preparation is to identify the session’s desired outcomes.

Step 2: stimulate. There are a few times that the facilitator needs to stimulate activity and thinking. First to get the ball rolling and second, downstream in the sessions when idea generation slows down. Often, you can start the session with a simple question, but facilitators need techniques at their disposal to get new ideas flowing when the first wave of ideas wanes. Another approach is to include outsiders in the session. These turbulators are placed there intentionally to stimulate participants and, optimally, receive some coaching before the session to help them in their role. I like to introduce other things along the way to bring more ideas forward; artifacts on hand to further stimulate the flow of ideas like handouts, data, video, pop up speakers, etc. Also, I’ve found that most groups slow down if stuck in a single process. Facilitators can stimulate thinking by switching techniques midstream – whole group, small group, individual, writing, sticky notes, etc. Finally, subtle or stark changes in the environment or setting work well – standing up, moving outside, changing seats or groups, or bursting into song. Think about these ahead of time or launch into them spontaneously; it’s important to consider what other elements of surprise can you bring to the session?

Step 3: offer. The two core actions of ideation are offer and capture. Offers are what participants say and do in the session. This tends to flow naturally in small groups, but you should consider how participants will know when to share ideas and will only one individual be asked to speak at a time. Some basic ground rules help set this process in motion. There are a lot of alternatives to shouting out ideas though, so consider when offers can be written down, drawn, shaped out of clay, or given in nearly any form of expression. Offers can be stories, experiences, models, or simple ways to phrase or rephrase things. Keeping the ideas flowing and building is crucial, so during preparation consider how many facilitators will be necessary and which facilitator will take the lead in directing the offers and the flow of the session. Facilitators also have other roles like cutting off deep discussion, overly critical responses, and other distracting comments or by getting the session back to ideation if it turns into something else. Finally, there are two general kinds of offers, fresh ideas or builds, new twists on the last idea (more on that later). You may want to capture them differently. Now, about capturing...

Step 4: capture. The second core action is generally the role of the facilitator(s), capturing the ideas and their context. In most of my sessions I capture ideas using markers and paper, it’s simple, visual, and cost effective. But there are a variety of media that can be used to capture ideas from electronic, to photo and video, to collections of artifacts created during the session. In planning the session, it’s good to consider the media to be used and what level of detail will be captured. Or, if the session should have secondary media like audio or video recording, transcription, note takers, etc. Capture can be chaotic and when the session size grows above a dozen or more, typically more facilitators will be needed to record ideas. Some very large sessions may need 4 or 5 individuals helping harvest ideas. As capture occurs, it’s important to visually present the ideas throughout the session for later reference and further stimulation. A helpful tip is to think ahead about what you can do during capture to make your life easier when synthesizing outcomes after the session ends.

Step 5: build. Not every offer is a good idea – but, even bad ideas can lead to great ideas later. The facilitation team should think ahead about how to create an environment where builds are encouraged. In any part of a session, participants may say “this connects to what Jim said” or “this builds on my first idea” so facilitators should encourage participants to say when an idea is a build or model that behavior early in the session. Builds may also be captured differently, either in or along with the original idea stream or using some kind of note or format to remember them later. On the broader scale, progressive ideation is a powerful technique where you take the results of early ideas and intentionally build on them to create better ideas later in the session or in separate ideation sessions at a later time. Facilitators should consider how to use the design of the sessions to layer builds across time to help refine ideas.

Step 6: conclude. All good things must come to an end. Sometimes it can be difficult to turn off the idea fountain when you are either out of time or have passed the goal of the session. You should think ahead about how to know when you have enough ideas. Also, you must ensure that everything was captured and recorded – it can be difficult to reconstruct notes later. The lead facilitator usually signals the close of the session and may make the final thank you comments, but a key leader among the participants may also close the session. Before leaving the room, it’s good form to let the participants know what will be done with the outcomes and what feedback will be given later. Will a summary be available and how do you plan to synthesize the results? In the days that follow two determinations should be made – to what degree was the problem statement addressed and will follow up sessions be needed.

Advanced considerations. A few more thoughts on the model. It is very helpful to set ground rules in the process. I introduce these at the beginning of the session, even with experienced participants. These helpful suggestions can serve to launch ideas, reduce confusion, and aid capture. Here is an incomplete list:

• understand the objectives
• go for quantity
• withhold criticism
• stay focused on the topic or the problem
• one conversation at a time
• be visual
• welcome unusual ideas
• combine and improve ideas
• question anything you don’t understand

• defer judgement
• encourage wild ideas
• build on the ideas of others
• headline your thoughts

Finally, while steps always appear linear and sequential, please give yourself the flexibility to move around freely. Cycle forward and backward in the model as necessary. You can also apply the model over the long term by linking multiple sessions together with different groups or by advancing the thinking. This allows you to take the output for one session and feed it as input to a following session.

Next week I'll review a list of specific techniques for ideation and divergence.

Ideation and Divergence Techniques

Ideation and Divergence Techniques

My recent article titled A Designer’s Approach to Strategy Crafting advocated for a fresh alternative to traditional strategic planning methodologies. The approach includes multiple tools adapted from design thinking tailored to produce strong, viable strategies with inherent buy-in from stakeholders. There are three key activities that deserve more detail than I provided in the article – divergence, convergence, and prototyping. This article takes a deeper dive into ideation and divergence techniques.

Divergence Defined

The word diverge is a verb that means to deviate from a set course or standard. In mathematics it means to increase a group of things indefinitely as more components are added. Divergence is a partner word, a noun that indicates a drawing apart from some central point. The word ideation is a noun, the formation of ideas or concepts. Taken together in the domain of strategy crafting these concepts represent a large body of techniques to help individuals or organizations change course over time and do something new – a key component for innovation. There are many approaches, models, and methodologies for generating ideas – collectively, these processes are in essence ways to diverge from a starting point and create choices.

I focus on four stages in the design process for the purposes of strategy crafting. These four stages provide a sound foundation for a large variety of possible planning tools and experiences. Each phase has a specific set of outcomes and goals and these outputs serve as important inputs to the next stage of the process.

Divergent, or generative, thinking has several characteristics and all of the methods have the outcome of increasing the number of options being considered. During idea generation, individuals and groups work to identify new ideas and solutions and see things differently then they are now.

Early methods. While we can only imagine the origins of idea generation through history (I’m sure some scholar wrote a book or dissertation on this), we do know early methods to codify the creative process appeared in writing in the 1940s and 50s. An early, seminal work was Wake Up Your Mind (1952) by Alex Osborn that introduced a method for creative problem solving with three key steps:

1. Fact-Finding: including problem definition and preparation by gathering pertinent data

2. Idea-Finding: idea production and development as selecting, modifying, and combining initial ideas

3. Solution-Finding: evaluation of tentative solutions and adoption, implementing the final solution

The idea finding process outlined several key components of typical sessions, which included: 12+/- participants – defer judgment – focus on quantity – withhold criticism – welcome unusual ideas – combine and improve ideas. A while back, I found a curious graphic on Wikipedia that depicted the process, shown below.

The creative problem solving process continued to evolve along with collaborators like Sidney Parnes and others in the years that followed. The key engine remained ideation and divergent thinking.

What’s happened lately? In the last twenty years practices and methods for ideation have grown in number, application, and reach. Design and innovation experts have proliferated and you can most likely find someone in your network with basic facilitation skills to develop and lead ideation sessions. In my last article, I reviewed six models for design and innovation and would like to reproduce the summary table below, highlighting the ideation and divergence stages in each.

No matter which design model you use, divergence has similar characteristics. It increases the number of options being considered moving away from current practice, standards, or ways of thinking. Ideation seeks to identify new ideas and sometimes requires repeated or unusual methods to stimulate thinking. One approach is to look to the intersection of disciplines or practices to see what emerges. The process seeks to see things differently than they are now. During ideation, participants are asked to remove judgment and to wish for the moon. And finally, there is usually time and effort dedicated to refining and developing ideas into better ones.

General Model	Ambrose/Harris	IDEO	Ogilvie	Plattner	Brodnick
define the problem	define	discovery	what is?	understand	collaborative design & direction setting
	research	interpretation		observe	discovery, research, & assessment
explore, create, refine			what if?	point of view
	ideate			ideate	divergent thinking, & ideation
		ideation
					convergent thinking, filtering, & selecting
			what wows?
	prototype	experimentation		prototype	prototyping & piloting
implement preferred solution	select
	implement	evolution	what works?	test	implementation, tracking, & adjusting course
	learn

Next week, I will present a simple model for designing and delivering ideation sessions.

Full Article: A Designer's Approach to Strategy Crafting

I would like to share the full article with you in .pdf format. Please let me know if you like the article and I hope you can use the tools I offer. 

You can also find full copies of previous articles on my website. 

Cheers... Rob