Every team wants to be more creative but why are so many brainstorms a waste of time and how do we make them better? In this episode, we will show you how to frame the problem you are trying to solve using ‘how might we’ statements and then walk you through the 7 rules you need to run a better brainstorming session.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-18-brainstorming-the-7-rules-to-running-a-better-brainstorming/
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Every team wants to be more creative but why are so many brainstorms a waste of time and how do we make them better? In this episode, we will show you how to frame the problem you are trying to solve using ‘how might we’ statements and then walk you through the 7 rules you need to run a better brainstorming session.
SHOW NOTES:
http://thecrazy1.com/episode-18-brainstorming-the-7-rules-to-running-a-better-brainstorming/
FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
What is going on everybody? And welcome to the 18th episode of The Crazy One podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And that's right, the show hit the big one, eight. We're legal, we're emancipated, we are out on our own, we may not be old enough to drink, dammit, we're still gonna have some fun. So for those of you who don't know, this is the show, we talk about design, leadership, creativity, and a lot of stuff that matter to creative people. Today, I really want to focus on something that I've get a lot of questions around. I've gotten a lot of emails around. And it's a lot of people asking me, how can I make my company more creative? How can I make my team more creative? How can we have better ideas? And it sounds like a really simple question, but I think there's a bit more of an art to it than most people might think. So the first thing that I'll say is that if you haven't listened to Episode 11, where I talk about how to put a strategy together, you need to go back and do that for starters, because the best ideation the best brainstorming in the world isn't going to do you any good. If you aren't solving the right problem, if you don't have really the thing that the need set up for you, because if not, the brainstorms will yield a lot of ideas and aren't going to go anywhere, they're going to change things. And that that's really where that foundation is. So for starters, go listen to that, and then come back and listen to this show. But for those who have already listened to it, we're going to roll on. And we are just going to talk about that ideation and brainstorming really just the basic process of generating, developing and selecting ideas. This show is going to be a bit more travel sized, a bit more bite sized. And some of the other ones have been because this is a subject that has just some basic rules that we're going to go into. But we want to talk about, how do you run a better brainstorm? And how do you have better ideas? And so that's really what we're going to focus on is we're really going to look at two big areas. The first one is now that we have the strategy, we understand what the problem is, how do we frame the opportunity, because that's really such a key thing. I think honestly, it may be one of the hardest things is to frame the opportunity the right way so that you set up the brainstorm to be successful. Because if you don't set it up the right way, if you don't pose it the right way, maybe you lead the witness, maybe your ideas aren't as big as they should be. Maybe you're not really getting the team to its full potential. And then from there, we're going to look at what are the seven basic rules that I use to run any brainstorm, these are the ones that I found narrowed down worked on over a long time. And I think these are the seven that if you stick to these, these will lead you to better ideas. So let's start with looking at how do we frame the opportunity? Because I think that that's really, it's the starting point. So often, this is probably the most overlooked and also one of the most challenging areas because it's really about getting a strategy. And a strategy will help narrow you in, it'll help focus you it'll start to give you a starting point. But from there, what you need to do is you need to be able To set up the opportunities so that you can come out and diverged, you can have a lot of different ideas, you can really go big and to do a ton of thinking. And I think that the challenge here, and I think that one of the places where a lot of companies really fall down is that a lot of people, and especially a lot of people in sight of your clients inside of a corporate setting. They really like to know what the answer is. And we've talked about this before about to be successful, to be creative. You have to really go into something like this with a problem to be solved, not a solution to be vetted. Well, the challenge is going to be for a lot of people not having that answer. They're not comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's really hard for them. And that this divergence, this wanting to go back out and explore things. Well, it almost feels like maybe you're going backwards for them or you're getting further away from the answer. But the reality is it's the essence of creativity is this cycle this convergence and divergence of Being able to narrow in on a certain set of opportunities, and then go wide again to really go and explore those. And it's that sort of undulation that really is the essence of creativity. And I think that this is where you come in, if you're going to run a brainstorm, and when you need to really come into this, and I think that to be the catalyst for this, you need to feel optimistic. You need to make it exploratory and experimental. You need to be the person that's really going to push and drive and help push the team and motivate them to really get there. Because I think that for everybody else, it's going to be hard, it's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to be uncertain, because they're going to have to risk something, they're going to have to put an idea out there that maybe people won't like, and that's really challenging. And I think for some people, it's really daunting where it's just easier to be quiet. Or it's easier to whenever somebody says an idea to try to make it safe and small and cut it down and to take away its power. It's awkward. Because maybe that idea might do something different. That idea might challenge things a bit. And maybe people aren't actually really into having that happen. So with that said, How do you frame the opportunity? How do you take the strategy and really start to translate it into something people can start to work with? One of the best ways that I've ever learned, I learned from IDEO. And it's the way that they do it whenever they do design thinking. And they call them how might we statements? Because I how might we statement is just what it sounds like, how might we do something? And that it's a question that you can brainstorm around. And it's meant to be an open ended question. It's meant to be something that can generate a lot of different ideas. But let's just for a second, let's just look at those three words and think about what's in those three words. Because I think if you think about how, how That a solution actually exists. And this is something that I'm a big believer in, because I think that for every problem, especially if it's one that requires a creative solution, there's always an answer out there. It's just do we have the skill, the imagination, the hard work, the whatever it's going to be that we're going to need to go find it? that yes, sometimes it's easy. Sometimes you get a spark of inspiration. It comes in a big rush, and you can get there quickly. But sometimes, it's really blue collar. Sometimes it's really a grind. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be able to get there. But in all these cases, that how assumes that a solution is out there. I think next comes the word might. And might is very important, because might is really saying that what we're doing is free from judgment. That might is possibility and that then the last word we implies that we're going to do it together. And so again, I think that these are three very simple words, but they were very, very deliberately chosen for what They mean, and so that what you want to do is you want to take your strategy, and you want to look at that. And the best way that I usually know to do it, is to do it on post it notes. And to sit down with your strategy and start to craft, how might we statements? How might we solve a particular business goal? How might we solve this problem? And it depends on what your problem is. It can be very broad, or it can be very specific. Because what you want to do with how might we statements is to really think about how do I craft a statement that whenever I write it, the real test of it's going to be just off the top of my head? Can I think of four or five ideas that might work for this really, really quickly? Because what you want to avoid are the extremes. If you're going to how might we statement that is too specific. If you're going to how might we statement that honestly has some piece of the answer that you want in it, you're not gonna be able to drive a brainstorm often because the problem is it's centered around a single idea. So you're gonna have a really hard time Finding Any other ideas? Well, if you go too far the other way, if it's too broad, if it's too generic, well, then that's probably equally bad. Because if it's too big, then it's hard for me to form ideas against it. Because I don't have enough constraints. There's not enough parameters there for me to be able to kind of push against and to be creative against. So it's finding the sweet spot somewhere between the two of those with a How might we statement that I really think is what brings it home is it looks for the opportunity to say, how might we explore a particular area of opportunity? How might we think about the core problem differently? How might we go about solving this in a different way? And that's what I said is if you can phrase it, and think about it in that way, where it's a bit in that middle ground, and you can do a whole bunch of them, but I think that that's really the best starting point because it poses a question and it frames the strategy in a way that you can start to work against because I think that's most of the time where I see the place for strategy. struggles isn't that translation point isn't going from the research and the insights and things like that to into a formative statement that then a bunch of creative people can then start to work an idea against. So I think that how might we statements the ability to do that, or the best way to do it. And honestly, I think that the best way to get good at them is to practice. It's still something that I struggle with sometimes. But it really is seeing whenever you run a brainstorm, if it's too small and specific, you see it sputter, and then maybe you have to back up and do a new one. If it's too big, people are just going to kind of wander around, and they're not really going to start generating really good cohesive ideas. But when you learn how to find that sweet spot, that's when it really starts getting dialed in and really starts working. So that's going to be the starting point. And I'll link to some articles in the show notes that go into a bit more depth about those, how might we statements, they're always just a little bit hard without a tangible example. So if anybody wants to email me or send me any examples of a strategy that you have, we can work through some of those things. How might we statements, I'll be happy to share them in a future show. But from there, we have the How might we statement we have the thing that we want to start brainstorming against when it comes time to actually do the brainstorm. So how can you have a better brainstorm? How can you do a better job with that? So these are the seven rules that I've come up with the seven things that I think if you follow these will make your team more creative and will lead you to better brainstorms. The first one, and this one can be tough, especially if you're on an internal team, especially if you've been there for any amount of time, is to defer judgment. And by deferring judgment, what we're saying is that just inherently, there are no bad ideas. This is a brainstorm Anything is possible, let it all flow, because the reality is there's going to be plenty of time to judge the ideas later. So let's do that later. Let's just see where it goes. Because the thing that might happen is that that bad idea that somebody had, well, maybe that sparks a good idea Somebody else. But it's also for the fact that you don't want judgment, you don't want people to feel like they're being judged, because creativity means that I'm risking something. And if I'm risking something, I need to feel like it's a safe space. If I start getting judged, I start getting teased. If people start rolling their eyes, well, then all of a sudden, I'm not going to share as much, I'm not going to share as big, because I feel like I'm being judged. And I just don't want to be as open to that because nobody likes that nobody likes to be made fun of or looked down at or done anything like that. So that's just where to start set that ground rule going in. And if you see people doing it, call them out. Stop it. And really make sure that that isn't going on whenever you're running this brainstorm because I do think this is a bit of that push and pull is the person who's going to lead that brainstorm. You have to be the lightning rod, the lighthouse, the thing that's going to show them the way but you also have to be a little bit of the police to make sure that they're following the rules because people sometimes can just devolve back into bad habits. The next one, and this is one that I think I'd have to push on quite a bit is to encourage the wild and the crazy ideas. Because it's the it's the wild ideas, it's the crazy ideas that often create the real innovation. And because the thing is that I always think about this is that no matter what ideas are going to get pulled back, they're going to be made a little bit safer, a little bit smaller, just because maybe we can't swing for the fence quite as much, maybe tech can't quite deliver on the product that we come up with, there's going to be some of that natural shrinkage. I guess that's going to happen. So if that's going to happen, well, why don't we start further out? Why don't we start with something bigger so that whenever it contracts, its contracting to something that's still significantly bigger than what we would have started with, we would have done something safer. And this is the hard part is to push and encourage to really swing for the fences to do something that is wild and it's thinking to do something that isn't just the same because you You're not going to solve tomorrow's problems with yesterday's thinking. And I see this happen a lot where people will start to let the realities creep in, they'll start to let the past creep in, they'll start to let a bunch of other things, start to inhibit them or start to edit them, as opposed to just really saying, Okay, look, what do we really want to do? What's the best idea that we can find? Because the reality is, is that even if you can't build it all at once, maybe you can build it over time? Well, if that's the case, why not still drive for the best idea, let it come down to earth later, go big, go crazy, and really try to push to try to find something innovative. So I think that is something you have to really try to do. And a lot of cases, this is where I have to be the first one to jump off the cliff. Say something crazy, say something big, really try to push the thinking on this stuff, and really kind of make sure that it's getting where we need to go. The other thing is that creativity can be a bit like a snowball. It may start small, but as it starts rolling down the hill, it can pick up speed and it can get bigger and Bigger as more snow latches on to it, creativity is very similar. And I think whenever you're running a brainstorm, one of the things to pay attention to, and one of the things to try to make sure happens is that people are building on top of other people's ideas, that it's not just a bunch of people with their own agendas who want to say just what their ideas are. But it's that you work as a team. And this is really thinking in terms of and instead of, but because that's the key difference is if somebody else has an idea, and I come in and say, Well, yeah, I really like that. And we can do, the idea gets bigger we build on it, as opposed to if I say an idea, and I come and go, Yeah, but but is discouraging wild ideas, but is coming in and putting judgment on things. And so I think that it really is something where you need to be able to kind of think through this stuff and to think how can we be additive? How can we build on it and try to make it into something bigger? And that's a trick that you have to teach people right? Because if you don't love the idea, if you think that it's weak, come in and add to it, don't come in and tear it down. And that is something that just it's a simple mindset change. But it can make a huge, huge difference, to just say, look, come in, build on it, try to make it better try to work on it, as opposed to just disregarding it and going and doing something different. So from there, the next big one, and this this can also be a bit of a challenge is to make sure that the team or the group stays focused on the topic. Because the thing is that as you start to go through a brainstorm, as you start to go through something creative, the topic can tend to wander, it can go into adjacent areas, it can suddenly go out of scope, it can start to become something different. And so I think this is one of those things where you need to be the person that's coming in and putting some guardrails on it, you need to be the person that's coming in and making sure that it's staying on target that it is really kind of moving towards solving the problem that was in the stream. And not at the end of the day coming up with a really interesting idea. But it's an idea that solving a different problem than the one you were tasked with. So a simple thing, but make sure you're actually solving the problem, you're given. Another big one. And I see this a lot. And this is probably the one where you're going to have to police or monitor the team the most. But the reality is that when you're doing a brainstorm, you have to make sure that there's only one conversation at a time. And that this is a hard one, people get excited, especially if you have a group of more than four or five people. It happens very naturally, because one person has an idea. They're up there, they're writing, somebody else has a side idea. They mentioned it to the person next to them, all of a sudden two conversations are happening. Well, the problem is that not everybody's hearing those conversations, not everybody's capturing those conversations, not everybody's able to add and build on those conversations. So it's one of those places where you have to make sure that there's just one conversation at a time. And if it starts to diverge, to just stop everybody, let the one conversation finish to its conclusion, then let the second conversation finish to its conclusion, then start up again, it's just a single conversation, because that's the thing is I don't want to come in and be able to kind of put those people down, I don't want to lose one of those lines of thought. It's just I want to let each of them come to their conclusion. So then we can start up as a team, again, having one single conversation, because that divergence, you can lose good ideas, you lose the team, you lose the power of that thinking, and that's can become a really big problem. The next thing that I found, and this may be just because I'm a designer, but that being said, I don't think that brainstorming and creativity are limited to people who only can draw. But I think that the key thing here is to be visual. And because what I want to do is I want to try to engage the logical and the creative side. of the brain. Because so often the logical side of the brain is the one that's working on solving the problem. With the creative side, the visual side, can also wants to be involved in this. And this is where I found that so often, a quick sketch can help make an idea more understandable, it can make it more relatable, and that it just puts it into a different context for people. Because that's the other problem. And we've talked about this. In other shows, we talked about it when we did this to the show on presentation skills. Not everybody can see it. Not everybody can take whatever it is that you're saying and visualize it in their head. This is a problem that clients have. It's a problem that creative people have. It's a problem that everybody has that not everybody is wired that way. But whenever I do a sketch, whenever I put something on paper, however crude, however simple it might be, it gives it some form, it gives it some shape. And so I think that this really can help is to be visual with some of these things. That being said, though, think about how visual, you're going to be To make sure that it is nothing more than a quick sketch, we don't want to start prototyping. We don't want to start designing. And so that's something you have to be very careful of one of the tricks that I often use was that whenever I would run these brainstorms, what I would do is I would come in with the fattest chisel tip Sharpie, I could find a really just big honkin, like just huge Sharpie. And I'd come in with three by five note cards. And the reason why was because the combination of the really big pen with a really small paper physically forced people not to get into too much detail. You can't draw, you know, any detail you can't write in what it says on the button, all you can do are these kind of big gestural sketches. So it's one of those things where I would literally create a physical barrier to them to being able to go into too much detail. And that that would be the only thing we would have available to draw with that if somebody went and got another piece of paper. They got a ballpoint pen, stop it, take it away. That's not what we want to do. We want to really, really focus in on Just quick, easy sketches. The last thing, and I think this is really the important thing is that with all of these things, we've talked about the mindset. But I think that the other thing that you need to think about is really setting a big goal, and to go for quantity in the number of ideas that you want to get. Because I think this works for a couple different reasons. I think that setting a number on ideas, gives people a goal to work towards that if you say I want to have 100 different ideas. People initially go, Wow, that's really a lot. But as you get rolling, you'll really start to watch them rack up, you'll set an expectation that look, we really need to go big here, we really need to think here, because the first 20 or 30 will be the obvious ones. Maybe the place where anybody would start it would be the thing that anybody would think about that. It's only once we get past those that we start getting into the interesting ones. Well, but that's why I want to set that number is because I want to make sure that we drive into the interesting area that we don't just go through the easy and the obvious and the things that everybody else would do, before we stop, I want to drive into the interesting I want to drive to the place where it's work where you have to think where you need everybody else to go big to add on to it to do these other things. And that's the part where it gets magical. That's the part where it really starts to work is the part where you start to push and stress and connect dots differently because the obvious dots are gone, the obvious connections are gone. Now we're left with are the parts where it's going to be work. And we're going to have to think, so go for quantity. And the thing is, is that you know, whenever you're doing this, since there is no judgment, you don't need to go and make this like big lengthy case for your idea. Let the ideas flow quickly. Make them about just be able to get in there, add on to it, have what's there, capture it all down, do a sketch and then move on. But go for quantity go for this sort of thing where you can really be able to get out there and have a lot of ideas and like I said, we can come back later we can sort them we can just them, we can bring them down to earth. And we can do a lot of things. But in this case, this is, this is the moment why we do this. It's the moment when anything is possible. It's the moment when we've been given that challenge. And we're taking this opportunity to create something new to create something different and fantastic, something that we will get excited about and be proud about. But it's in this moment when that happens. And that's why you have to be so careful with it. You have to be so guiding in the way that it's done. And you have to have some of these rules so that when you're going through and doing this thinking that it really lives up to its potential, it delivers on what it should and it really is something that is a brainstorm that gives you ideas that are really different. And so those are my seven rules. None of them are rocket science. I don't think I don't think that there was anything if you've done any creative work before that you sat there and said, Wow, I've never had really thought about that. The thing that I find that's different is setting them up as rules, setting them as an expectation. Whenever you start having everybody understand that that's the way that we're going to operate here. That seems to be the thing that's different. So take the time, think through your strategy form some how might we statements and test them out. And let that be the bridge that gets you from the strategy into your brainstorm. And then wherever you go through your brainstorm, really sit down and take the time to remember the fruit of judgment, encourage big, crazy ideas, build on the ideas of others, stay focused on a single topic and do it by having one conversation at a time. Don't be afraid to sketch and be visual, and go for quantity go big set a lot of goals to really get out there and come up with some really great ideas. So with that, like I said, it's gonna be a shorter show than normal. But that's really it. I think those are just my basics for brainstorming. We'll go into a bit more detail later, I'm sure as well. We'll talk more about design thinking and some of those other things. But that's really the intro. Try it out, let me know, is it better? Is it worse? Is it working? Or there's some things that I didn't think about or other things that you've done that you think worked out really well. And then whenever you get those, shoot me an email, you can send it to ask at Stephen Gates calm, it's St. ep HEN. If you want to find out more about how might we statements or anything like that if you want to get the seven rules for brainstorming and writing, head over to my site, it's podcast, Stephen Gates calm and you can get the show notes, just go in, click on episodes, go down to Episode 18. It'll all be in there. As always, the boys and league want me to remind you that all my views are my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. And I say it every time because I mean it every time but thank you for your time. I know time is truly the only luxury that we have. And I'm always incredibly humbled that you want to spend any of it with me. I'm also incredibly humbled, if you get a chance, shoot on over to iTunes, leave a review for the show. It makes a big difference and it definitely gets more people listening. So until next time, stay crazy