Yes, And is a simple and powerful tool for building on initial ideas generated in the previous activities. It aims to encourage participants to assess their ideas, providing feedback in order to build on them rather than finding fault. When...
Idea Remix is a way to see if there are potentially powerful solutions that could emerge from combining your existing ideas together. The aim is to make combinations out of the ideas you have generated using different techniques, either matching...
The SCAMPER methodology is a very powerful, systematic approach to thinking through ideas. Using either an analogous solution or an idea you have developed so far as your starting point, work through the following seven questions:Substitute:...
The aim of the 6:8:5 game is for each participant to come up with 6-8 ideas in 5 minutes. This is a great starting point, and you can adapt the number of ideas and the timeframe to create more or less pressure and competition for participants to...
How Might We? is another simple exercise that can help generate initial ideas. In this game you are looking at the problems identified in your design criteria and asking the question. ‘How might we…….?’, identifying a specific design...
Lotus Blossom is another tool that can be used as a structured and visual way of finding inspiration from other innovations or solutions. The tool encourages you to map out the design criteria you developed in the Search stage, and to identify...
Mission Impossible is a game that asks participants to think about how they would address the challenge without any of the usual constraints: What if you only had 24 hrs to develop a solution? How could you develop a solution that is...
Flip It is a game where you deliberately seek to turn your assumptions, constraints and issues around a problem into opportunities and possibilities. This can be particularly useful for helping participants and collaborators who may be naysayers;...
Before beginning the ideation processs you should agree on ‘ground rules’ with your participants to create a safe and supporting environment. IDEO’s Design Kit provides some good advice on setting the right tone ahead of brainstorming...
Object Brainstorming is a non-threatening, abstract and contextually adaptable warm-up exercise, using tangible objects to help externalise the thought process involved in ideation. It involves bringing one or more functional objects to a...