5 people, trying to come up with 99 business ideas in one evening:
99 ideas.
Process:
Initially the 99 ideas seemed overwhelming although we appreciated the fact that all kind of ideas were very much welcomed. We spent some time understanding how to choose a pragmatic way of structuring them and also what kind of parameters we should measure them against. As soon as that was decided (user, how we solve the problem A –> B, difference from competition, and how to make money from it) it went swiftly, more swiftly that what I had anticipated – kudos to the team.
- Everyone came up with as many ideas as they could, in 15/20 min.
- Everyone came up with a new idea close to one of a previous listed ideas, every 1 min for 8 min i.e. around 8 new ideas per person.
- Then we divided the ideas up between us and completed the parameters set in the beginning.
- We chose our favourite ideas and then discussed those in more detail.
Even though it was a bit cumbersome to decide for a method on how to proceed in the beginning, this learning group continue to impress me – with their way of thinking, acting, cooperating and explaining to each other. After all, it is 99 ideas (+) made by a group of people that is still in the initial phase of collaborating together and learning our different ways of methods.
All in all a very interesting exercise.
Reflective script:
To use a well known metaphor; the challenges preparing such a marathon and running the marathon is indeed vastly different (although it felt more like a 100m sprint). How you run, your strategy of distributing you energy, where/when you decide to drink/eat is very much dependent on the preparation, even though it may make its launch during the actual run i.e. the decisions you make before you start, are crucial for the outcome. Even tough this might be obvious to most of us, there are always possibilities for improvement, and last-minute changes might change the outcome drastically, although the change itself is marginal.
For biathlon athlete they can practice as much as they want prior a competition, but if they doesn’t evaluate the wind on that very day, accurately, they will miss on most targets. We had a similar opportunity with starting in word and then realizing that we could and should use excel to make the whole list more convenient for our self and any potential reader.
In hindsight; spend more time on deciding which methods that will be most suitable for the task at hand, prior starting the “quantity work”, here generating ideas. Did not make up my mind entirely whether we would benefit from having defined roles, as I would be afraid that group members would have been afraid to suggest and out their opinions exceeding their predefined role. Though, there are also clear advantages with defining roles e.g. streamlining the process to a bigger extent. One could possibly achieve best of both worlds if (as I feel this learning group is very much doing) when creating a healthy and fun(!) environment where no suggestion nor idea is considered wrong, and every group member are allowed to adjust and adapt the process as we go along. Believe this can be applied to almost any process – to constantly look in hindsight (with a positive attitude) evaluate and reflect upon things you have implemented / trying to implement / removed etc. Certainly something that is important to reflect upon!