Rapid Ideation Technique
The Rapid Ideation technique sets a time limit for team members to contribute as many ideas or solutions as possible. The goal is to maximize productivity and results.
This technique works well for a few different types of workers—for teams who dislike meetings, or who tend to get sidetracked, rapid ideation is a great way to approach the brainstorming stage of project execution.
Research shows that teams who share funny or embarrassing stories about themselves reported 26% more ideas shared across 15% more categories over teams who kept meetings more formal. Having the space to let down certain social barriers reduces overthinking and produces a greater flow of ideas.
Follow these 4 steps for an effective ideation session
- Before inviting participants to generate ideas, take 10 minutes to discuss your target audience. Who are they? What do they want? What do they need? Clearly state what the challenge, problem or opportunity your team needs to address for the audience. Write this down where the entire team can see. Briefly role-play as a group to put yourself in their shoes and start addressing the realities of the situation.
- Next, spend 20 minutes discussing the scope of the project. What are the budget and time parameters your project is dealing with? How can these parameters potentially shift? Think of best- and worse-case scenarios to set the framework for your discussion.
- Take the next 10 minutes to have each team member write down their ideas. Everyone in your group should participate and encourage them to write/sketch their idea to help articulate their points. After the team has exhausted their ideas, each team member should post the written ideas on a wall or board visible to all. Spend the next 20 minutes for each team member to give a brief overview of their ideas and then use the next 40 minutes to brainstorm ideas/concepts that address your project’s needs.
- The final step to this process is testing. Spend 20 minutes examining the ideas and filter out the ones that don’t necessarily address your project. Then, act out the best ones from the viewpoint of your audience — how would your audience interact with your idea? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Sketch out a user-flow to refer to as necessary.
Tip: Consider using team voting or affinity mapping to help summarize and prioritize ideas.
