Better brainstorming in the idea economy

Better Brainstorming in the Idea Economy: A New Study On Creative Collaboration By Gary Kopervas Chief Creative Strategist Director of Ideation Backe Digital-Brand-Marketing A recent survey around creative collaboration suggests that managing a group’s expectations, attitudes and energy in brainstorming sessions can lead to improved productivity and increased morale within the organization. © 2009 Backe Digital-Brand-Marketing. All Rights Reserved. 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary.........................................................................3 Creative Collaboration Online Survey .............................................5 Results of online questionnaire .................................................5 Responses to open-ended questions .........................................8 FIVE F’s of High-Performance Brainstorming: Focus, Flow, Freshness, Follow-Through, Frequency..................... 13 Summary/Contact Information ...................................................... 18 3 Creative Collaboration Report Executive Summary With the explosive growth of digital channels, the need for innovation and an expectation of companies to do more with less, business professionals are under pressure to produce better ideas faster. There’s an urgent need for internal teams to be more collaborative in the way they work, and leverage available resources within the company. Better Brainstorming in Today’s Idea Economy is a report that reveals some of the most common obstacles to productive collaboration within organizations, and provides actionable insights that can help you make the most of your company’s collective brainpower: 1. Being “good” at brainstorming is no longer good enough. Most brainstorming sessions don’t fail, they simply underachieve. To generate truly breakthrough creative ideas, teams must become more disciplined in the way they brainstorm, and expect more from each collaboration. 2. A professional facilitator can dramatically improve the results of any brainstorming session. An experienced facilitator can direct brainstorming sessions that produce a higher rate of return. 3. The more structured the brainstorming session itself, the more fluid and unstructured the thinking, the fresher the ideas. Effective planning, consumer insight gathering and robust creative stimulus will dramatically increase your chances of success, and help you develop a culture of creativity within your organization. (See the Five F’s of High-Performance Brainstorming, pg. 13) 4. Having to “do more with less” can be an albatross or a golden opportunity. The choice is yours. Now is the time to find new ways to work better. We hope this helps. 4 QUICK, WHO PAINTED THE SISTINE CHAPEL? If you said Michelangelo you’re right. Sort of. While Michelangelo is immortalized as the mastermind behind this famous work of art, he wasn’t the only artist responsible for the finished painting. Historical experts claim that 14 different artists had a hand (and brush) in the final product. Which makes it one of the single greatest momentous acts of collaboration ever. Now more than ever, ideas that can change the game and change a company’s fortunes aren’t the work of a lone genius, toiling away all by himself in a laboratory somewhere. It’s more likely the result of a multi-disciplined group of talented and driven individuals working in harmony towards a single goal. The successful work of companies like IDEO, Procter & Gamble, GE and Toyota are getting business professionals to rethink the way big ideas happen. Today, it’s not a question of whether you collaborate. It’s more a question of how well you collaborate. With the explosive growth of new technologies and expanding channels of communication and interaction, the need for a constant flow of new ideas is great, and growing. Companies that are expected to do more with less rely on the creativity and steady productivity of work teams. Therefore, teams must find ways to work better together to come up with ideas quickly in order to innovate and grow their business. About the Survey The following survey was conducted by Gary Kopervas, Chief Creative Strategist and Director of Ideation on behalf of Backe Digital-Brand-Marketing and the Philadelphia Ad Club. The purpose of the survey was to help shape an interactive workshop to be delivered to members of the Philadelphia Advertising Club in December of 2008. A total of 140 people participated in the survey, which polled respondents with questions ranging from perceived effectiveness of current brainstorming practices, perceived obstacles to success, and areas that people would like to improve upon. Respondents included senior managers, agency presidents, creative leaders, business strategists and account directors from companies in the pharmaceutical, technology, consumer products, innovation, marketing and advertising sectors. Companies included in the survey were from the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Pacific Northwest regions as well as London, England. To help ground our findings, we reached out to several online creative communities and posed several questions as topics for their conversation. Bloggers in this community consisted of published authors, inventors, business consultants and professional facilitators. 5 CAVEAT The survey is qualitative in nature. It claims no statistical or quantitative significance. By that, we mean its findings are not meant to be projected in any way. It is intended to be used as a guide, not gospel. Simply put, this report is meant to take the pulse of working professionals around the subject of creative collaboration and their use of brainstorming as an internal practice. It also is meant to identify the most common challenges as well as help shed light on possible ways to improve brainstorming, and help you get the most out of your work groups. The following responses are up-front, unfiltered and illuminating. THE CREATIVE COLLABORATION SURVEY 1. How would you describe the level of creative collaboration at your company? Poor 5% Could use Improvement Good Excellent 0% 10% 31% 38% 26% 20% 30% 40% By and large, most people are pleased with the output of their brainstorming sessions. That said, nearly a third of respondents feel that they could use some improvement when it comes to their creative output. In our consulting work, we believe that brainstorming sessions don’t “fail,” they underachieve. Frankly, most people settle for results that are often expected and do not break new ground. The goal is to expect more from a brainstorming session and find new tools, techniques and approaches to help you SUCCEED more frequently. 6 2. Typically, how often do teams in your company brainstorm together per year? None More than 5 times 4-5 times 3. How many people usually participate in a typical brainstorming session? More than 10 people 2% 77% 4% 6% 18% 40% 36% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 7-10 people 4-6 people 2-3 people 1-3 17% times 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% A great start! 77% of respondents say that they brainstorm more than five times a year. Truth is, if you’re not brainstorming or collaborating at least once a week on a regular basis, you can’t expect to get good at it. Nor can you expect to develop a culture where innovative thinking can flourish organically. While structured brainstorming is a good idea, we recommend that collaboration is something that should occur spontaneously between two or more people any time. Or as we advise our clients, creativity and collaboration shouldn’t be a prescribed tactic; it should be a habit, something that happens whenever the need arises. Groups of no more than six people sounds about right, and is what we normally recommend to our clients. While in brainstorming the “more the merrier” may be true, individual groups need to be carefully managed to assure everyone gets to play and contributes in an equitable way. To that end, you need to make sure there is diversity among group members that make up small groups of six or less people. So there isn’t “magic” to the number of people, per se, but there is a need to make sure there is a diverse mix of types of people (brand, R&D, sales, PR, technology, advertising). In meetings of 100 people, for example, we recommend that individual groups are no larger than six people. We once conducted a three-day session in Boston with 250 people from a large global architectural firm. We had six coaches sprinkled throughout two ballrooms who were responsible for facilitating multiple groups working on several different topics. 7 4. On a scale from 1-5, 1 being not productive at all, and 5 being extremely productive, how would you rate the output of brainstorming sessions conducted by your company? Excellent 5 Great 4 Good 3 Fair 2 Poor 1 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 5. Do you ever use outside facilitators to lead brainstorming sessions? No Yes 0% 79% 21% 20% 40% 60% 80% 17% 37% 36% 10% We typically find that companies are generally pleased with their brainstorming whenever they do it. We notice that most people feel confident about the quality of their collaboration, yet only 17% go as far as to say the output is “excellent.” This clearly suggests that there is room for improvement. As the pressure to deliver more in shorter time frames builds, companies need to stretch their abilities. Management guru Peter Drucker maintains in the book Zag by Marty Neumeier, that the biggest shift in business today is from “ownership” to “partnership,” and from “individual tasks” to “collaboration.” He suggests that the successful company is not the one with the most brains, but the one with the most brains acting in concert. WOW. We find this very interesting for a number of reasons. Nearly 80% of respondents told us they did NOT use outside facilitators in their creative collaborations which is good and bad. It’s good that groups are self-driven and facilitate on their own. It’s bad in that there is evidence that shows groups facilitated by a professional facilitator often achieve consistently higher results. A facilitator is a neutral party that can drive the group and not be afraid of politics or the corporate pecking order. A professional facilitator has one objective (and no agenda): to create the right ideas, right now, and help the group succeed. 8 THE FOLLOWING ARE RESPONSES TO TWO OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS: One question takes a closer look at the obstacles people have to deal with when brainstorming and asks respondents to list three of the greatest obstacles to success. The other question asks respondents to explain one area they’d want to get better at. The answers were honest, unfiltered and hopefully useful to you and your team in building practical and profitable business ideas. 1. In your opinion, what are three of the greatest obstacles to running a successful brainstorming session? 1: Negativity. No structure. Nothing happens to the things we create. 8: 9: 2: Lack of perceived equality of opinion, i.e., perfunctory deference to senior leadership; Systemic failure to go wide enough and deep enough in the organization (or even outside the organization, e.g., customers and prospects) to source ideas; and Legacy encumbrances — e.g., familiar ties to conventional approaches — that prevent teams from getting beyond ideas to insights that help answer the question, “What’s next?” Personal attachment to idea. Limited global influence. Not understanding the concept of free/unfiltered brainstorming, i.e., bring ideas to be discussed. Lack of creative thinking on our part. Lack of a proper facilitator. Diverse groups on the same page, i.e., marketing types vs. tech/dev types. Negative people. Biased session leaders. Bad briefs. Getting the proper instruction on how to facilitate a productive brainstorm. Inspiring creativity in the group. Getting people to free their minds from deadlines/daily grind. 13: 10: 11: Stubborn creative director. Allowing enough time. Thinking outside the box. Cost effective ideas. Overbearing Bosses. Lack of Interest. Lack of Confidence. Having a topic to brainstorm about. Making everyone feel their input is really valuable. It is always said that all ideas are good ones but I don’t think everyone believes it and don’t give their best thinking. Getting people to care after the free lunch has been served. The fourth item I offer is that people don’t think anything happens afterwards — the ideas never get implemented and so who cares what comes from the session, it is just lip service. Some participants bring own agenda. Some participants not open to think out of the box. Too much emphasis/weight given to client suggestions. Too much history with client that gets in the way of proposing something a bit risky. Risk averse account managers. Scheduling, egos, costs. 3: 12: 4: 5: 6: 7: 9 14: In no particular order: inclination to develop on a popular idea and abandon BS (brainstorming): prematurely, too many players, not here, but at previous orgs…an environment that doesn’t encourage “out-of-the-box” ideas…those zingers that seem really crazy at first and then formulate into originality. Kick off — getting it flowing. Creating an environment where people are comfortable throwing out ANY idea. Making sure it doesn’t run too long — keeping it on point. Fear of sounding foolish. Too many people. Facilitator preparedness. Not enough homework in advance, too little focus, transition to next steps. People not being prepared when they come to the session when they are specifically asked to read background material in advance. People not wanting to contribute ideas for fear they may have a bad idea or be judged by the group on it. Lack of focus, getting off-topic, running way after the meeting “end” time. Having too many or the wrong people in the room; lack of preparation for the meeting; relying too heavily on traditional brainstorming techniques rather than more creative techniques that put people at ease and stimulate creativity. Some people not understanding the strategy behind the brand, so there is a long learning curve. We invite Account Executives into the BS session, and sometimes they complicate things. They mean well, but they are so close to the client, they don’t know how to pull back and things get complicated…they don’t know how to see the forest through the trees. The entire group understanding what breakthrough creative is…sometimes it’s truly a fine line between breakthrough creative and something being hokey. Negativity (closed minded approach). Decision-makers influence lower level staff ideas and verbalizing those ideas. Fear — fear of “being wrong” or “saying something stupid” and also the idea that this type of session involves stepping outside your normal way of thinking and acting within your team relationship. 22: 23: Right participants. Right preparation. Right interaction dynamics (energy, no bad ideas, no one dominates, etc.) Settling on an idea as THE idea too early in the process. Dismissing ideas too early in the process. Having too many people in the room. Pulling people out of their comfort zones. Getting individuals to look at a project from a new perspective rather than relying on what has been done already or what they already know something about. Thinking past the potential parameters of a project. I think it is important to think big and bold initially and brainstorming sessions are where that should take place compiling information from a good session. A good brainstorming session usually provides a good amount of ideas and directions that may or may not be connected. Finding better ways to collect all the good ideas from a brainstorming session and provide this information in an intuitive way so ideas do not get lost is something I have seen teams struggle with. For a busy environment where you may not be revisiting session results immediately this can be crucial. Skepticism, negative attitudes, and cynical participants. Participants understanding how to work on ideas, using them as springboards to thinking; rather than judging ideas and discussing viability — folks tend to react very concretely, rather than abstractly. Getting people “into it” and comfortable vocalizing ideas. Getting absorbed in the “how to” details of ideas…or lost in the mechanics of client/market reaction. Multiple participants (avoid single domination); too conservative of ideas (don’t go far enough so you have a place to retreat to find the really good idea); not right people in the room (small minded or people adverse to change are not the best brainstormers — on the flip side, good brainstormers are often not the best executors of ideas). Getting people to commit their time. Keeping everyone on track. Wasting time. In a corporate environment: Group think. Politics. Territoriality Not understanding the problem. Not knowing the objectives. “Protecting the idea”. 24: 15: 16: 17: 18: 25: 26: 19: 27: 20: 28: 29: 30: 21: 10 44: Being too results or constraints-focused. Lack of time (or effort to get outside stimulus) that enables ideas to ferment and lead you to the next thing. Lack of facilitation that pushes you to transform the ideas into real actions. Understanding the scope of the assignment. How does the brainstorming session relate to the marketing strategy? Ensure that the results of the brainstorming session can be delivered on. People afraid of being embarrassed by ideas. Thinking differently, creatively not strategic. Top of mind thinking. Getting the right people involved. Fear of expressing opinions. Apathy. Time management, coming to the table with ideas and working to marry several together. Time restraints, i.e., no time for brainstorming, just start designing. Availability of all creative personnel, i.e., no one wants to spend the time. Positive attitudes, some people don’t find it worthwhile. The academic programs do not celebrate collaboration. As a result, it’s rarely done and when it is attempted, it’s with a few individuals vs. the overall support of the different programs or colleges. Egos get in the way that provoke fear that someone else will have more voice in the process. Lack of University leadership that supports collaboration. Not having clear objectives (i.e., what does success look like coming out of this session?). Not having the right people in the room (for ideation or for alignment). Not doing the right level of pre-work or having the right amount or kind of stimulus. Not enough information/research/insight on-hand; too many note-takers, not enough idea generators. 31: Getting people to leave pre-conceived notions at the door. Suspending disbelief. Having something actionable at the end. Lack of knowledge by facilitator in brainstorming techniques. At our company, too many people are involved and nothing ever comes of the suggestions. It also very rarely happens and the people involved aren’t always fully representational of the company. Focus, close-minded people and budget restraints. Clearly define set of objectives. Good moderation (one person). Follow-up. A culture that rewards individual idea ownership. A lack of understanding and awareness of the benefits of co-creation. The belief that idea generation can only happen in formalized/organized settings, which then leads to the belief that “we have no time for this.” Too-quick judgement. Egos. Habits. Follow-through on the ideas generated. 32: 33: 45: 34: 35: 46: 47: 36: 48: 49: 37: 38: 39: 50: Not having a plan or pre-written agenda. Not providing a totally open environment where any idea is worth hearing. Not having a good discussion leader. Getting everyone on the “same page”. Converging to actionable ideas. Follow-up after session. Finding the time everyone is available. Getting over the initial “okay, let’s have a brainstorming session” hurdle. Thinking I can do it myself. Having a high level executive in the meeting which influences ideas of group. People being afraid to voice out-of-the-box opinions. The need for a good facilitator to capitalize on good ideas yet keep the meeting going forward. Too narrow thinking. Not having a good process to follow. Not enough ideas. 52: 40: 51: 41: 42: 43: 11 2. If there were one thing you’ d wish you and your employees/team could learn about running successful and productive brainstorm sessions, what would it be? 1: 2: 3: How do the extremely successful places do it? How to engage participants. Allowing ideas to flow and not immediately dismiss something because it’s wrong but it might lead to something else that’s brilliant. Different ways to attack the problem. How to initiate and focus it to get great output. Everyone has a valid opinion and that can be expressed even if it appears to be at odds with the person/persons at the top. Not be afraid to just say any tangential thought, you never know where that might lead. How to tap each other’s strengths vs. showing off individually how good my (the single person) ideas are. To come excited and knowing that there is no such thing as a “bad idea.” How to move to the goal. A methodology for maximizing BS efficiency. How to create structure to a session that encourages unstructured thinking. How to create the input at the front end that will allow us to manage the time effectively. Stop trying to think up the perfect response — become more fluid in your participation. How to weave in brainstorming as a discipline continually in the working life, not as isolated sessions a few times a year. How to use a variety of creative techniques to stimulate different parts of people’s brains and to get the best from different types of ideators. How to structure the outcomes and prioritize. How to build on an idea. Someone plants the seed and others sow it and grow it. Don’t criticize ideas. 24: 22: 23: 20: That uncovering great ideas very often takes more time than they’re allowed. People need to understand that 2-hour brainstorming sessions aren’t going to yield the winning idea, but are merely a place to jumpstart the thinking process. How to provide an environment that allows participants to speak openly and share their thoughts regardless of their perceived knowledge of the subject to process being discussed. No idea is a bad one, especially in a brainstorming sessions. Keep it small in number, focused on direction and then do it again and compare sessions. Relax, have fun, don’t say “why it won’t work”…but add on thoughts and change the ideas…or just move on without judging. Best practice would be good — and that brainstorming does not have to be an “event” with lunch and facilitators and all day commitment. It can happen with 2 or 3 people on a walk. How to follow a proven process. How to keep everyone focused and on track. Get rid of corpspeak and corporate power plays. (That’s two things!) That all these great ideas have to be affordable and possible to execute, and that they have to work in the real world. How to keep them open-minded and far-reaching while dialing them back to actionable ideas at the end. How to know when an idea is operational. How to keep free-flowing thought process while also staying focused on the main issue. To let down their guard and understand that it is an open exercise…there are no good or bad ideas and all ideas are considered. Be sure that you follow-up and take action on key learnings (share with team). 21: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 10: 11: 12: 13: 14: 15: 25: 26: 27: 28: 29: 30: 31: 32: 16: 17: 18: 19: 33: 12 34: Learn how to be open to new ideas. Be committed to widen one’s world in unexpected ways. Productive brainstorming is a direct product of a healthy consumption of “brainfood” in one’s non-brainstorming timeframe. Reading, travel, engaging strangers (who all have interesting and unexpected stories to tell), listening to new music, going to plays…simply paying attention to the wondrous world around us. If we stay awake and resist self-absorption, we will be able to feed our brains and have the courage to eschew the dreaded “fear of failure”. Every idea helps. Even bad ones. Silence is the real killer. Tools to use to get the most ideas and then refine those ideas into workable ones to deliver to our clients. Stay focused on the objective. Guidelines and Best Practices — so brainstorming sessions are not a ‘free for all’ — but without compromising the objective of the session. Take an idea and/or direction and make it better. Coming up with a plan of action based on the results. How to be confident enough to jump in quickly and share ideas and thoughts from which the group could build even better ones. More clarity, better direction. How to get participants more motivated to do the brainstorming and getting management to realize it’s a necessary and worthwhile process. To not play it safe. 50: 45: Taking enough time out of the day/week to really think about the product and how it’s incorporated into target’s everyday life. Tips for more successful sessions or cutting to the chase in a short timeframe. I would like to instill the sense of trust and equality where the group has mutual respect initiating the process. Without it, there can’t be true collaboration. In the realm of consumer product marketing making sure the consumer has a voice is key. Not just once the ideas are pulled together, but before you even start the ideation. Everyone in the room should be grounded in the consumers’ habits and practices as well as the key trial barrier that the team is looking to address with the session itself. Great ideas that don’t address trial barriers will not work in the market. The iPod became the iPod not just because it “looks” cool, but because it addresses the trial barriers of: a) I don’t know what an MP3 player is and why I need one (Apple told you that it gives you 10,000 songs in your pocket) and b) I don’t know how to use it (Apple made it easy, via design, and showed you how, via consumer communication). Lesson is…know your consumer and why he/she is not buying the product and ideate based on those trial barriers and the relevant benefits that will address them. Listen — make everyone feel safe and comfortable contributing and that any ideas are of value because it may be a trigger for someone else in the group to see solutions and possibilities. Keep the energy in the room! 46: 47: 35: 36: 37: 38: 48: 39: 40: 41: 49: 42: 43: 44: 13 PRESENTING THE FIVE F’S oF HIGH-PERFoRMANCE BRAINSToRMING Now that you’ve had a chance to check in with the observations and opinions of other business people, the question is: What does it mean? How do these insights into the challenges of collaboration translate into workable solutions you could put into play right away? To that end, we’ve formulated what we’re describing as a blueprint for better brainstorming. The Five F’s of High-Performance Brainstorming incorporates the results of our research as well as our experience as strategic idea consultants. Have a look and see how they might be able to pump up your group’s productivity. 1. FoCuS Always setting clear objectives for what you want to accomplish is pretty basic stuff, but you’d be surprised how many people blow right past this phase and just dive in with both brain hemispheres. Brainstorming without a focus is like heaving bowling balls without a clear picture of the alley or the pins. See, it’s not about just heaving balls as rapid fire as you can, it’s about aiming them at a target. Take the time to think through the important stuff up-front and the right ideas are more apt to appear when the real work begins. Action Steps: • Write down the problem or challenge on a large piece of paper and tape it to the front of the room for participants to see. Instruct people to continually refer to the problem as a way to stay on track. An idea might be a good one, but if it doesn’t help us solve our problem, it’s not an idea we want right now. • Share background material with the group to prime the pump. If there are some basic pieces of information you could share or websites you might direct someone to, your team will be better prepared to hit the ground running. In sessions we do with clients, we often get to review consumer insight reports and past sessions’ output in order to be up to date and aware of what’s been done or what we don’t want to do. • Identify what’s “in bounds” and “out of bounds” early on in the session. A great practice that helps the room focus without losing its sense of possibilities. 14 • Give the group a homework assignment prior to the session. Homework helps the group focus their thinking, attention and senses on the subject of your session. It gives your group a chance to warm up their brains and develop some early thinking on the subject which may come in handy at the session. • Ban cell phones and Blackberrys from the room. Admittedly, we’re all busy and have people trying to reach us, but collaboration time is important and needs to be treated that way. Also, nothing shakes up a group’s focus like a cell phone call or someone tapping away on their Blackberry. • Get your group to cross the bridge. Crossing the bridge is an expression that my friend, Peter Lloyd, introduced me to. Essentially, it suggests that you get the group to make a clean break with their typical environment. Insist that your collaboration goes on in some neutral or even provocative setting. The point being you shouldn’t expect to generate new ideas sitting everyone down in the same old chairs in the same old boardroom. A different surrounding encourages greater focus on the task at hand, and says we are here to do this! 2. FloW There’s got to be a method to the madness or you’re going to go nowhere fast. As we read in the survey, “There needs to be structured design to the session to promote more unstructured thinking.” Pretty smart stuff. Another winner was this: “There needs to be a way to deconstruct barriers of communication and creativity while constructing clear paths for people to explore.” Action Steps: • Be dynamic, not static. See that there’s a fluidity to your session. Mix people up, keep them moving, ask them to stand, part or all of the time during ideation. Ideally, the mindset for brainstormers is a state where they feel “comfortably disoriented.” • Invite the troublemakers. Make sure you pay attention to invite a diversity of people into the room. Cast your session with a mix of people from a variety of disciplines including creative, account, IT, usability, media and PR. Don’t avoid that person who bucks the status quo or says things just to stir things up. Invite this person and tell him/her to bring a friend. The last thing you want are homogenous “insiders” who are unlikely to come up with different or breakthrough ideas. • Think “mini-brainstorm” instead of one long marathon brainstorm. We typically break our time up into several mini-brainstorm sessions, each focused on a different aspect of the problem. This allows you to attack several problems, answer several different questions and in the process better manage the energy of the collective group. It’s been said that high-energy brainstormers tend to follow a series of steep “power curves”, in which momentum builds slowly, then intensely, then starts to plateau. The best facilitators can nurture an emerging conversation with a light touch in the first phase and know enough to let ideas flow during the steep part of the ideation curve. It’s when energy fades on a line of discussion that the facilitator really earns his or her keep. Try building on an idea. Encourage another push or introduce a small variation. Or take a jump, either back to an earlier path you skipped by too quickly or forward to a completely new approach. Whatever you do, try to get into the next power curve and keep the energy up. – The Art of Innovation, IDEO 15 • Incorporate strategic stimulus into the agenda. Stimulus is anything that moves a person from the usual mindset in which they live to someplace new and unexpected. This can take the form of a different venue or space to create in. It can also be the use of proven creative exercises that keep the group offguard and thinking in multiple directions. There are several excellent books with hundreds of exercises to look to. • Establish some ground rules for engagement. While we don’t suggest the implementation of hard and fast rules, we do recommend establishing a clear set of playful rules that help people get the most out of the session. Here are a few we have found to be successful: -Make it up -Make it real -Make it fun for the people next to you -Don’t be perfect, be prolific -Everyone thinks, everyone writes -Tell me, don’t sell me • Stretch your muscles. This, also from the Art of Innovation. It is worthwhile to “burn” some time at the beginning of the brainstorm driving some form of group “warm-up” when either of the following is true: 1) When the group has not worked together before 2) When most of the group doesn’t brainstorm frequently 3) When the group seems distracted by pressing but unrelated issues. 3. FRESHNESS “We do all this brainstorming and we still wind up with the same old ideas.” This is how many respondents describe their experience of those brainstorming sessions that never seem to go somewhere new and different. Those sessions where people do a lot of looking around the room with blank looks on their faces. How many times have you been in a brainstorming session that produces ideas that look and feel familiar? We call this Idea Déjà Vu. It’s the tendency to replay and reconstitute ideas that you walk in the room with. To get to truly breakthrough ideas you have to create an environment where new and different can emerge. Action Steps: • leverage critical insights into the consumer, the problem and the competition. Recently we had the opportunity to work with a global spirits company in developing new product ideas for vodka. As a way to prime the pump, all participants had access to extensive trend reports and voice of consumer documents. In other words, we had up-to-date glimpses into the minds of the people we were trying to influence and were able to use these insights as “bull’s eyes” to create around. Using actionable insights in the collaboration process assures what you are doing has relevance to your audience and reflects the realities of the marketplace. 16 • use proven creative exercises or “brain wedgies” to get your group to new territory fast. Leading innovation guru, Marco Marsan of Marco Polo Explorers International, calls it a “brain wedgie.” Playing on the timeless schoolyard prank of yanking on the back of someone’s underwear to create a momentary feeling of discomfort, brain wedgies do the same to habitual, patterned thinking. A brain wedgie disrupts conventional wisdom or connects new and exciting mental “dots” which lead to new solutions. Use games, exercises or expert guest speakers to move a group’s thinking into directions it wouldn’t normally go if left to its own devices. We have found in our work that creativity is something which needs to be instigated and not gently coaxed out of a group. We believe that with every creative idea is an act of disciplined disruption. Use creative exercises to help stir things up. 4. FolloW-THRouGH Here’s the deal. One of the most frustrating things about getting in a room with a group of people and brainstorming ideas is the prospect that nothing will come of the ideas you come up with. The greatest fear is that all your hard work gets dumped somewhere like a rival member on the Sopranos—never to be seen again. People need to know that the brainstorming session is important and the work matters. Here are a couple things you can do. Action Steps: • Have someone capture everything said in the session on a laptop. Think of those people in a courtroom capturing everything that is said. In our work, we call it an Idea Deck. It’s the equivalent of a “minutes of the meeting.” • once the ideas are compiled into a document, share it with the group. It’s important that session attendees get to review the output and build on it if possible. • organize, prioritize, then digitize. At some point, a smaller core group might want to work together to organize the ideas in a way that you can prioritize each idea. Once you do, make sure to digitize everything into a file that can be shared and stored for the future. • Not all brainstorm sessions are about finding NEW ideas. Brainstorming sessions can also be conducted to refine existing ideas. In our practice, we often conduct Labs, which are highly focused sessions that optimize existing ideas. It’s more a finishing process of half-baked ideas than blue-sky sessions. Keeping records of ideas from session to session makes it easier to implement this process. 17 5. FREquENCy Seriously, if you want your people to be more creative, you need to get them to be creative more often. As good as any brainstorming session might be, one thing is for sure. It ends. Creative collaboration shouldn’t always be an “event” with a flashy offsite venue, guest speakers and a catered lunch. It can and should occur between people walking down the hall or waiting for an elevator. The key is to give your teams the tools and techniques they need to cultivate a more collaborative and inventive environment where people and ideas can mix. Action Steps: • Collaboration has to be a habit, not a tactic. Find reasons to bring your people together regularly to hash out new ideas and to explore. Simply put, don’t make brainstorming such a production where people are prone to say, “Oh, I don’t have the time.” Collaboration needs to become part of your company’s DNA. It needs to be woven into your modus operandi. It needs to be tied to your business strategy. Positioning brainstorming as a special event unnecessarily raises the stakes and puts added pressure on the group to “pay off” on all the time and effort put into this brainstorming thing. • Do something about your physical space. Paint a wall black with blackboard paint and leave out a multi-colored box of chalk. Invest heavily in Post-Its and Sharpie pens. Rearrange your working environment to be more conducive to free flow of thinking. Working with P&G several years ago, we conducted two days of brainstorming at The Gym, a creative facility on the outskirts of Cincinnati. It’s a large facility with moveable furniture which allows work groups to reconfigure the furniture and work area any way they wish. • use every available tool, every opportunity: think on-site, off-site, online. There are more ways than ever to collaborate as a team. You can brainstorm on-site, using available staff, workspace and proven techniques. You can arrange off-site brainstorming sessions as part of a broader strategic growth initiative. We have seen clients use quarterly off-sites involving core team members as well as sessions involving the entire company. The most dynamic, untapped resource is online collaboration. From Web Ex to Go to Meeting, there are tools and software that allow team members to interact with each other from remote locations across town and across the globe. Recently, we conducted a “namestorming” session for a manufacturing client based in West Chester, Pennsylvania. For three hours we brainstormed potential names for a new high-density miniature motor. We were able to build ideas via input from people in the room and members of the product team located in Switzerland and India. Conducted using Web Ex, the session allowed us to collaborate in real-time from three different, and distant locations. • Create an office intranet to house your pipeline of new ideas. As your company becomes more adept at brainstorming and conducts sessions more frequently, it’s probably a good idea to create an intranet where all ideas from every session can be viewed. The concept of Idea Management is very real for companies and provides an opportunity to develop an inventory of concepts that may be useful further down the road. The key is to treat your creative collaborations seriously and value the output enough to want to keep track of everything digitally, making it easier for team members to share ideas. Having fun exploring potential new ideas is critical to the success of your group. 18 WELCOME TO THE TIP oF THE ICEBERG We have found through our experience that brainstorming is a lot like karaoke. Most people believe that it’s something that comes naturally to us and that most of us are pretty good at it (thank you very much!). That may be true but we all should regularly do things to edit our game and get better. Especially in this economy. We hope this document helps you and your team, but by no means are we suggesting that it is exhaustive and is all you need to know on the topic. On the contrary, it is the tip of the iceberg of a profoundly important topic, and is meant to merely continue the conversation. You’ve seen the report. Now schedule the workshop. My brain is going wild...it never wants to be boring, ordinary or routine again!!! What I used to think was brainstorming was, in reality, only a light drizzle. Your session was informative, interactive, seriously provocative, and all around fun. Thank you so much for a fantastic session. -Kim Richmond, St. Joseph’s University To discuss the finer points of this study or to schedule a workshop for the purposes of training or strategic idea development, contact us today. Gary Kopervas: gkopervas@backemarketing.com or gkopervas@aol.com tel. 609.280.3962 Gary’s tremendous insight into the subject of creativity allows him to present a complex subject in a very easy-to-understand manner. His program is delivered with researched knowledge combined with quick wit and humor. Gary and his highoctane program can jumpstart any meeting or conference. -Al Dudreck, Executive Director, MAGNET Global Network Great presentation... As an independent qualitative researcher, I’ve never seen brainstorming presented better. -Thomas R. Lutz, INTELLIGENT HORIZONS, INC. We invite you to share any or all of this report but we strongly request that you attribute the material to us. Gary Kopervas, Backe Digital-Brand-Marketing. All Rights Reserved. © 2009.