Step 6. Idea

Generation

Step 6: Idea Generation

Why is it important?

This is the most visible step as all the workshop attendees come together. You need to ensure that you are maximizing the return on this investment by making the idea generation stage as fruitful as possible.

The insights need to be injected in an inspiring way to generate solution oriented ideas that enhance business relevance and increase the probability of product success.

It will provide the basis for the concept development by which the success of this front-end innovation project will be assessed.

At the end of this step you will have:

A large number of insight driven ideas, each with a clearly defined benefit.

They will all be captured electronically, in the same format, in a PowerPoint presentation ready for the screening process.

Practical Advise for Structuring Your WorkshopPre-workshop:

1. The attendees will all have been involved in the alignment and leverage stage, and some will have also helped with insighting so they will be aware of the objective of the workshop.

2. Share the insights you will be using with the full team ahead of time, so they can start to think about them.

Creating the right environment:1. You will need a main room for groups sessions and smaller break out rooms

for the idea generation – ideally near each other.

2. Round tables are best as they encourage discussion, with small groups (3-5 people)

3. Make the rooms colourful with relevant & inspiring images on the walls (finished products, target consumers, or customer adverts), have samples of inspiring products, and have some toys on the table to reinforce this is not a typical day in the office…a stress ball, rubber chicken, or slinky!

4. Use music to welcome attendees and have 1 song you use consistently to signal the end of breaks… it’s a subtle prompt to keep things moving.

Practical Advise for Structuring Your Workshop Timing: 1 ½-2 days are best, day 1 for idea generation, and ½-1 day for initial idea

screening (which will be addressed in the next step).

Example Agenda –Idea Generation (day 1)

1. The business unit director (or senior manager) starts with an upbeat/ positive welcome to attendees reinforcing the importance of the day.

2. The core team leader reminds attendees of the objective and the process that will be followed.

3. The facilitators will then share the insights that will be used (including the way that they were created/ selected)

4. You should then have a creativity exercise (see appendix)

5. Speed Ideation – for each insight have everyone individually write down as many new product ideas as they can in ~5minutes on post-it notes that will be used later as inspiration.

6. Explain the template to be used in the idea generation rounds and then break up into small groups & start the idea generation rounds (more details to follow)

7. After 2 rounds you may want to add an Ad-Break (see appendix) to reenergize the group

8. Wrap Up day one…a group dinner is recommended

CET CETSTART END DURATION TOPIC WHERE LED BY Preparation RequiredDay 1

8:00 8:30 0:30 Coffee & Arrival Main Room

Order Coffee/ snacks Room layout - round tables, adverts on walls, product

samplesMusic

Toys for break-out tables

8:30 8:45 0:15 Welcome Main RoomDivision Director Brief Manager to be upbeat, positive

Print copies of attendee agenda

8:45 9:15 0:30Kick-off & IntroductionAttendee introductions & expectationsObjective for the workshop & process

Main Room

Core team Lead Prepare presentationProjector & Screen

Name tent cards/ marker pensTeam location reference sheet (Draw on flipchart)

Team hats (optional)

9:15 10:30 1:15

Exploration of the inspiration Conclusions from the 'homework' & ideation platformsCreativity joltSpeed ideationExplain template

Main RoomFacilitators (internal

or external)

Prepare presentation and insight platforms Prepare creativity exercise, e.g.Playdoh models

Post-it notes/ pensHandout with ideation instructions

10:30 10:45 0:15 Break

10:45 11:45 1:00 ROUND 1: Idea Generation1 insight per group

Break-Out groups Facilitators

5 different rooms/ private areas where work can be leftCreate & print template for filling out

Flip Charts x 7 ( 1 per group plus 2 for presenters)Select brainstorming stimulus, e.g. what solutions/needs do

we already meet

11:45 12:00 0:15 Break

12:00 12:45 0:45ROUND 2: Idea Generation1 insight per group

Main Room FirstThen Break-Out Groups

Facilitators Prepare brainstorming stimulus:

Choose favourite idea to date12:45 13:45 1:00 Lunch

13:45 14:45 1:00 Ad Break!Main Room First

Then Break-Out GroupsFacilitators

Teams have 30 minutes to develop a 3 minute advert/pitch for their favourite idea/concept & present it to the group.

14:45 15:45 1:00ROUND 3: Idea Generation1 insight per group

Main Room FirstThen Break-Out Groups

Facilitators Prepare brainstorming stimulus: e.g. Personnas

15:45 16:00 0:15 Break

16:00 16:45 0:45ROUND 4: Idea Generation1 insight per group

Main Room FirstThen Break-Out Groups

Facilitators Prepare brainstorming stimulus: e.g. Situations

16:45 17:00 0:15 Wrap-Up Day 1

Main Room

Facilitators

Close day & set scene for day 2 Thank for effort; explain dinner plans/ taxi sharing/ maps

etc.Team Dinner Encouraged.

Day 1 Example: Detailed Agenda & Checklist for the facilitator

Practical Advise for The Idea Generation Rounds

Assign a separate room to each insight – print out the insight on A3 paper and include visuals to stimulate ideas, also ensure the ‘speed ideation’ post-it notes are in that room.

Focus on a small number of validated insights (min.3, max. 6)

Have small groups of 3 -5 people working together on an insight, spend 45-60 minutes on each.

Round 1: Check everyone understands the idea form that needs to be completed for EVERY idea (see next slide), usually people like to start by clustering the speed ideas together and working on some of those, but teams could also create new ideas.

Round 2+:Rotate people in teams between insights and build on the work completed by the prior group to clarify, add, and enrich, rather than duplicate ideas.

For each round have some new stimulus prepared to help creativity, for examples photos of different consumers (what would they want), or different locations, or think about other markets.

After 2 rounds you may want to add an Ad-Break (see appendix) to reenergize the group

Title: Platform No.

Description:

Consumer Benefit: (Emotional and Functional)E:

F:

Idea No.

X

How will our company (our customers) make this possible?

The idea name: get creative…fun sells!

A description: how would you describe it to your neighbour/mother/friend?

Who is the consumer?What benefit will your idea give them?Remember it should relate back to the issue/need described in the insight.

Reason to believe: what can we (or our customers) add to the idea to make the offered benefit credible?

Example of a completed idea form Most people prefer to use pen &

paper for the idea generation rounds rather than computers, so they can see all the ideas at a glance.

But if you prefer, you could input the information directly into a laptop…but you’d need to keep it in the room or save data on a memory stick so it can be shared between groups.

At the end of the session, if done on paper, you’ll need a small group of volunteers to transfer the information into a PowerPoint format ready for screening (a blank slide is in the appendix).

This will take approximately 1 hour to complete.

Practical Suggestions for Better Workshops Use experienced facilitators.

Use visual aids and creative exercises to help foster creativity and team spirit. Aim to make the workshops fun (see pictures) – it can be combined with a team building exercise!

Attendee tips:

Make sure you have people with knowledge…who want to be there, and who are comfortable with the language of the workshop (e.g. English).

Include plenty of people who have customer & consumer knowledge

Make sure the attendees are cross functional with varying length of service…this was highly appreciated by the attendees.

Including suppliers (e.g. research agencies), customers, or consumers can add a fresh perspective.

Include senior managers, it reinforces the importance of strategic innovation and includes them in setting the future direction of the business. This helps to build buy-in later as well as benefiting from their experience.

Make sure the attendees know what the post-workshop next steps are and keep them informed of progress. The chances are you’ll include some of them again in the future so you want to keep them engaged.

Pictures from the Purac Home & Personal Care workshop,

April 2012

Note: the coloured hats were used to identify teams, add a bit of fun, and reinforce that this was not your typical day at the office.

Creating themes for the teams (or your workshop) can help to foster creativity.

Step 6: Appendix

Title: Blank form to be completed for each idea at the end of day 1…

Insight No.

Description:

Consumer Benefit: E:

F:

Idea No.

How will the company (our customers) make this possible?

Creativity Exercises- Examples

The ‘Play-Doh Exercise’ encourages all parts of the brain to think.

In teams you have 15 minutes to create a sculpture from PlayDoh that communicates the consumer benefit of something we do .For example, Purac had to demonstrate the benefit of ‘hydration’ and ‘anti-microbial’ ingredients.

This is from ‘How to Run a Great Workshop’ by Nikki Highmore Sims, it’s a good book & includes additional ideas, so well worth a read!

Create a consumer.

Given each team a relevant consumer to create, e.g. a busy mum, or a blooming baby-boomer. On a large piece of paper draw around one of your team and then collect different pages of magazines – adverts/ articles – and glue them to the silhouette to show the things that matter to that consumer.

If you have any good examples please let us know so we can keep adding to this list.

Kerrie.medlicott@csmglobal.com

Philip.rijken@csmglobal.com

Ad Break!

After a couple of rounds of idea generation have each team choose their favourite idea to date from any of the insights they’ve worked on so far.

In teams they have 30 minutes to create a 2-3 minute advertisement for their favourite idea Think about your target consumer

Use consumer language

What’s the problem you are solving?

And add some sizzle to really sell the benefit

They then present back to the group.