Clicks & Notes

Some notes on good ways to generate ideas…

UIWEB.COM - How to run a brainstorming meeting:

• Have a specific purpose
• Know what you want, and what you plan to do with it
• Know how to facilitate
• Put the focus on the list
• Comfort is key
• Establish the ground rules
• Postpone criticism

(via Ed Taekema - Road Warrior Collaboration)

Innovation Weblog - Springboard thinking:

“springboarding is turbocharged brainstorming.”

Springboards can include:

• Redefinitions of the task headline
• Wishes
• Starting ideas
• Challenges to constraints on the problem
• Random thoughts
• Feelings or gut level reactions
• Apparently conflicting points of view

(via Fast Company Now)

mezzoblue - Getting Unstuck: Four tips for getting yourself out of a design jam:

• Don’t look at another designer’s work if at all possible.
• Throw a whole bunch of ideas on a canvas and see what sticks.
• Plan, or improvise. Either way, do your DD (’DD’ is due diligence – things that must happen before a design begins, such as gathering materials like existing branding, project objectives, content, and anything else available)
• If it’s not working, throw it out.

And where there’s a right way, there’s a wrong way…

Fast Company Now - Ways to Murder an Idea, including:

• See it coming and quickly change the subject.
• Ignore it.
• Feign interest but do nothing about it.
• Laugh it off.
• Praise it to death. By the time you have expounded its merits for five minutes everyone else will hate it.
• Say, “Oh, we’ve tried that before"–even if it’s not true.
• Come up with a competitive idea.
• Stall it with any of the following: “We’re not ready for it yet, but in the fullness of time…” – “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, but right now…” – “Let’s wait until the new organization has settled down…”

InnovationTools - Six great ways to ruin a brainstorming session

• Having no clear objectives
• Too homogenous of a group
• Letting the boss act as facilitator
• Allowing early criticism
• Settling for a few ideas
• No closure or follow through

Lastly, Dave Pollard has two very lengthy posts on the Creative Problem-Solving Process and where people get their ideas from.