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.