Develop and share incomplete or rough ideas to refine and evolve them into fully formed concepts.
Quickly develop a set of incomplete or rough ideas to later refine and evolve into fully formed concepts.
Sometimes we need time constraints or deadlines to get us thinking quickly, or otherwise we end up wasting valuable time thinking aimlessly.
This exercise can be used to come up with eight new ideas, or eight variations on the same idea. Set a timer for ten minutes, and aim to fill all eight panels within that time.
Don’t focus too much on making these things works of art – you’re just looking at generating quick ideas. It doesn’t matter how good or bad your sketches look. You can either use sketches or write ideas out
quickly. Sketching is a great way to force yourself to think differently, especially if it’s not something you usually do.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad your sketches look. The time constraint is important, so you don’t focus too much on making these things works of art – you’re just looking at generating quick ideas in this instance. It’s also to put you under some thinking pressure to get your mind working fast.
This exercise can be used to come up with eight new ideas, or eight variations on the same idea.
You'll get a set of rough and ready ideas that you can either share with team members or take to the next stage of development later.
Try and generate some energy in the room before giving people 10 minutes to create some fast ideas. Emphasise that this is a rough-and-ready exercise, and we're looking for quantity over quality, although quality would also be great!
Get people on board with the idea that it's useful to give ourselves a time constraint or deadline to come up with new ideas quickly.
Explain that it can be incredibly useful to get ideas out of our heads and into the room so that they can be shared and developed.
You can also explain that this exercise helps us create original ideas without taking the time to self-edit or screen out ideas before giving them time to develop fully.
If you don't have the worksheet, you can simply grab a piece of paper, fold it in half three times over, open it up again, so you have eight panels.
Set a timer and countdown to zero to create a sense of energy and excitement, and then leave people for 10 minutes to generate ideas. If you notice that people have filled out their worksheets, give them another one.
Likewise, if you notice that people have stopped whilst they still have empty boxes, encourage them to just write without thinking too much. Some people will find this easier than others, so be encouraging.
As a final step, you can invite people to form pairs and compare ideas with each other. After this, give people the option to share some ideas with the group. Note patterns or interesting themes. Resist the idea to evaluate the ideas or call out some for being more creative than others. This is for the group to do.
You can either use this when you have limited time to create ideas, or you can create a false deadline to inject energy and generate an initial set of ideas for further development.
Using this tool with a skilled facilitator means that discussions are focused, time is used efficiently, and the group moves toward consensus, making the session productive and impactful.
