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What You Should Include to Make an Ideation Session a Success

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By: Jay Gronlund

Now that you’ve laid the ground work and have the right direction and people (see first three parts), you must carefully craft the ideal setting and ingredients to get the most from your ideation session. Here are the most critical elements that will improve your chances for creating superior ideas, even the “Big Idea”.

The Actual Ideation Session – By the time the real 1-2 day session starts, the participants should be eager to express their thoughts and preliminary ideas. Inevitably there will be some who view a 1-2 day session as a waste of their valuable time. This is why a convincing, relevant preparation and the shrewd choice of participants are so important. The session should be designed so that the participants have fun, too. Certain games and other “energizers” are always undervalued in ideation sessions. Research has shown that humor and laughter can release endorphins, which help people relax, improve their recall and yield better results. While every ideation session will be different depending on its goals, there are several common elements that should be considered:

• Professional Facilitator – Some companies are reluctant to spend money for an outside expert in these “cost-control” times, but it is critical to have a neutral and empowered professional to facilitate (but not manage) the session.  Good ideas don’t come from deep analysis, but from an environment and approach that breeds openness, curiosity, novelty, fun and risk taking. An experienced facilitator will have the tools and techniques to keep people generating ideas, even when they think they’ve run dry.
• Key Components for Ideation Session – Generally the ideal number of participants should be around 8-14, comprising a mix of creativity styles and varying expertise. Having the CEO present can be risky, but if so, he/she should take a back seat or supportive role to the brainstorming efforts, generally adding a constructive perspective or insight wherever appropriate. If possible, the session should be held away from the main office in a well-lit, comfortable room (sunshine is best) with whiteboards or flipcharts and post-it notes, including 1-2 support personnel to record the ideas and help organize the notes on the walls, and most important, plenty of relevant props – e.g. competitive products, benchmark analogies, examples of customer feedback or perceptions, novel packages from other industries, etc.
• The Anatomy of a Typical Ideation Session – There are many formats for an ideation session, depending on the purpose and who will attend. When the participants have to travel, a session should be designed to last at least two days, usually with individual meetings before and after.  My most recent ideation session started on a Monday afternoon with a discussion of the problem/opportunity brief, the objectives and some mind-opening case studies and analogies to stimulate their creative energy. Then a full day of ideation on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning devoted to a summarization with refinements of some ideas, prioritization and a follow-up game plan (conducted jointly with senior management).
  
  Another approach might involve a series of shorter ideation sessions over several days or weeks. For example, 2-3 hours to generate an abundant collection of initial ideas (100+), subsequently organize and cluster the ideas by type (e.g. new product or package, marketing, service oriented, strategic positioning, etc.), and then let these preliminary ideas incubate in the participants’ subconscious for a while to digest and expand upon. An ideation workbook with these ideas defined in clusters should be circulated for review and additional embellishments. After a few days, conduct another “upgrade” ideation session over a half day, to further refine, expand upon and then narrow down the list to around 65-75 good ideas, for example. This should be followed by further scrutiny, cutting and prioritization in more upgrade sessions, ideally reducing the list to around 15 solid ideas.
  
  Within any ideation framework, there are 7 other factors to consider:

• Building on Momentum from Preparation – An obvious starting point is to discuss the fresh perceptions and ideas that each participant brings to the ideation session.
• Make Ideation Ongoing – Smart companies recognize that the real value of organizing these ideations is to make their internal culture more innovative, i.e. to add creativity to everyone’s mandate (Google employees must allocate 20% of their time for creating new ideas).
• Ideation for Different Goals – Traditionally most ideation sessions are focused on new products, but more companies are using this for strategic purposes – e.g. different business models, new growth initiatives, re-positioning their corporate or product brands, etc.
• Customer Perspective – Any ideation should be shaped around current and future perceptions from their customer, making sure that all ideas would be relevant for them and competitively distinct. The use of smart market research, past or future, can be a critical building block for ideation.
• Think Long Term/Future – Another useful focal point is to ask what the company or product portfolio should ideally look like in 3-5 years. Within a framework of category and competitive threats, trend building exercises are invaluable for identifying new ideas and growth opportunities, especially when the group is split up into teams. 
• Other Exercises – There is a host of various techniques to keep the creative juices flowing, each encouraging “out-of-the-box” thinking. Assuming some of the participants will ultimately lead the implementation, simulation exercises that involve role playing or case studies can be very effective (customized training can be combined with these endeavors, too).
• Building on Each Idea – Usually the “seed” of an idea is created at first, but to make sure each can be developed to offer real value, key positioning dimensions should be added – e.g. for which customer and his/her needs, the relevant benefit or promise of added value, and the key features that would make this promise credible.

Next: Completing the Ideation Process –The Challenge of Execution
Previous: Who Should Participate in an Ideation Session – Importance of Diversity

Part 1: The Ideation Process: What it is, Why Important and Management Commitment
Part 2: 4 Examples of Key Tasks to Prepare for a Successful Ideation Session
Part 3: Who Should Participate in an Ideation Session – Importance of Diversity
Part 4: What You Should Include to Make an Ideation Session a Success
Part 5: Completing the Ideation Process –The Challenge of Execution