Tag: toolset

3 Activities to Help Your Team: Generate, Develop and Judge Ideas

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There are hundreds of different activities you can use for generating and developing ideas. I thought I would share a trio that works well together. They each require a specific type of thinking or mindset to be successful. The three activities are good representative examples of Divergent, Emergent and Convergent thinking.[1]

I have picked these three because they flow well together, and although they work well on their own, they complement each other well.

1. Crazy 8s

Time: 5mins / Skills: Idea generation / Mindset: Divergent or Open thinking / Resources: 8 Post-it notes per person, felt tip pens / Group: Ideal for small-medium sized groups, you will need a timekeeper. Independent work.

Generate eight different ideas in 5 minutes.[2]

Sounds easy enough, but this is a challenging little task. For each round, participants have 40 seconds to draw an idea on a post-it note. When the first round is done, the timer is immediately reset, and the second round begins for eight rounds in total, 5 minutes.

The most challenging part for most participants is that you can only draw the idea – stick to the no words rule. It means they have to generate an idea and then communicate that. It is worth spending some time being clear about the mindset of divergence and openness. All too often, we are our own worst filters, and people find this hard to shake.

2. Idea Pairs

Time: 15–20mins / Skills: Idea development / Mindset: Emergent or Exploratory thinking / Resources: Post-it notes, felt tip pens / Group: Ideal for small-medium sized groups that are comfortable working in pairs.

Combine ideas and discuss in a pair how they could work together.

I like the simplicity of this next step, and it flows seamlessly from the intensity of Crazy 8s[3]. Once you have finished the first step task (Crazy 8s), each participant will have many ideas; hopefully, they will have eight post-it notes in front of them, so long as they didn’t bail halfway through.

Ask the group to get themselves into pairs to discuss some idea combinations. Each person in the team picks one of their ideas at random and combines it with the arbitrary choice of their partner. Placing the two post-it notes side by side. Through discussion, the combination is explored, and new ideas are noted; this should increase the pool of ideas around the table.

I find this simple step is a great way to collide ideas that might have remained in isolation. It also helps participants talk through their thoughts, developing them further. An Exploratory or Emergent mindset is needed here, which emphasises the need for developing, pushing and prodding ideas in new directions.

3. Impact Vs Effort Matrix

Time: 20–30mins / Skills: Idea filtering / Mindset: Convergent or Closed thinking / Resources: Post-it notes, felt tip pens, whiteboard or large flip chart paper (tabletop also works fine) / Group: Small to medium group size for discussion.

Judge each idea created against a High/Low measure for Effort to implement and the impact it could have.

I always enjoy using this little matrix[4] to judge a smaller handful of ideas. You might have anything from 30–50 ideas from the group, depending on the group size. You might ask the whole team to pick 2–4 of their ideas to bring into this round; perhaps the pairs from the previous activity will discuss what to keep and what to cut. Once you have done that first filter, you can decide what High/Low for Effort and Impact is.

Draw up a four-quadrant matrix on a whiteboard or use some masking tape to do the same on those furry display boards! Label the axes accordingly:

  • HIGH EFFORT
  • LOW EFFORT
  • HIGH IMPACT
  • LOW IMPACT

Now, all you have to do as a team is discuss each idea and place it, measuring/judging the effort needed and its potential impact. This process is always a great way to converge into a small pocket of ideas that fit your requirements. You should pin up the post notes and shuffle them around as you chat about their potential.

From doing this many times, I would say that it is useful, as more ideas are added to the matrix, to compare ideas directly: “Will this be harder to implement than this one?” etc. Another tip would be to consider the trajectory of the ideas over time. Efforts to implement and impact may reduce or increase – mark up the future course and discuss what this means.

This is an effective task to help the group understand what is practical under the constraints you have as a team. It pushes you to make comparisons between ideas and prioritise and rank them in interesting ways. When you are in this state, you narrow your options and are thinking in a more Convergent manner.

Well, I hope those three little tasks prove helpful to you and your teams/students in the future. They flow well together and require barely any unique resources. They also fit within an hour if someone is cracking the whip and facilitating well – typical of the ideation phase. The critical thing for each step is to explicitly flag the mindset or thinking state needed to be successful. They are great examples of the three different thinking states: Divergent, Emergent and Convergent.

Give them a try, and let me know how you get on. Remember that these three tools are three of many, and you should do everything you can to expand the choices you have in your toolset. When you have more options, you can make better combinations of activities such as this trifecta.

  1. It is through these different thinking states that we typically experience a creative process. They often fall in the order written above but just as frequently break that rhythm. You can read a little more about the ebb and flow between divergent and convergent thinking in my previous blog post.  ↩
  2. I first came across the Crazy 8s ideation strategy from Google Ventures and a Jake Knapp blog post which is worth a read – lots of other ideas there too.  ↩
  3. I’d recommend building in some time to debrief after Crazy 8s. It is quite an intense task requiring focus and individual effort. Spend some time asking how people felt and how they found the task – giving the participants some time to chat will help the overall flow.  ↩
  4. The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.  ↩

Toolset, Skillset, Mindset

Design Thinking, FeaturedPublished onUpdated on8 Comments on Toolset, Skillset, Mindset

Over the last few years I have developed three different lenses through which to see any creative inquiry process. When we are facilitating or planning with clients, schools and teachers we explicitly talk about our Toolset, Skillset and our Mindset.

The design thinking process has distinct phases and although we may well be seeking to developing an overarching capacity it has always been helpful to be a little more specific about what this actually means. Sometimes it can seem a little fluffy around the edges. When we link Toolset, Skillset and Mindset to a particular phase of design thinking inquiry it becomes much clearer what is expected. This intentionality is wired into each of the different lenses helping to clarify to those involved what tools are involved, what skills are likely to be required and what mindset is needed.

Below is a good set of definitions which helped me better understand their relevance to my work with design thinking and creative inquiry:

Toolset (How you Get, Have, Use) – Means a set of widely accepted methods, techniques, models, approaches and frameworks that can create value in the chosen field.

Skillset (How you Do, Act, Behave) – Means a number of things like a person’s capabilities and abilities, knowledge and understanding, and motivation and ability to use these capabilities and knowledge. The level of expertise in a particular task determines the efficiency and effectiveness to perform that task.

Mindset (How you See, Perceive, View) – Means a set of beliefs, a way of thinking, a habitual mental attitude that determines somebody’s behaviour and outlook and how s/he will interpret and respond to situations. Without a change in mindset, the world cannot be viewed differently.

[In addition to these you may well consider a Knowledge set, something to activate and use or to continue to add to.]

For example during the Synthesis phase you might see the following explicitly shared with participants or students and dialogue to make the expectations clear:

Toolset: Patterns and grouping of physical artefacts, Hexagonal Thinking, P.O.I.N.T (Problems, Obstacles, Insights, Needs and Themes)

Skillset: Pattern recognition, categorisation, organisation, problem finding, prioritisation

Mindset: Convergent, combinatorial, relational

What we have found is that most people want to have a conversation about the Toolset. It is the most enduring memory of a workshop: the physical, tactile experience of the tools we used. All too often creative processes focus too heavily on simply the tools, moving from one thinking activity to another, from one framework or post-it note task to the next. Ideally we escalate the dialogue to the Skills we need to operate those creative thinking tools. The last step is to engage colleagues in a dialogue about what Mindset is needed or expected in order to be most successful.

You might consider having a conversation about these three elements before a lesson or period of learning with students: what are the tools we are going to use, the skills we will develop or need and the mindset we should take. This offers a much clearer way to talk about learning intentions or success criteria.

The Mindset at each stage of the design thinking process is much more constant and more persistent, whereas the Skillset and the Toolset can always change. We should be drawing from a range of tools to suit the part of the inquiry process – but regardless of the tools we use the Mindset remains relatively constant.

It would also be true to say that out of the three different lenses the Mindset is harder to observe, whereas the tactile Toolset is much more explicit. From Change to Constant, from Extrinsic to Intrinsic, from Toolset to Mindset.

Whereas it is easy to switch out and change a tool during a phase of the process, it is much harder to change a Mindset if it does not currently exist. An example we see most often is a convergent mindset – “I know what the problem is and I know what we should do” – when we are immersing ourselves in the area of development. This Immersion phase requires an open and divergent Mindset. You can change the activity to explore the topic but it is much harder to change the disposition.

Stick around for future posts exploring some of the design thinking inquiry Toolset and the activities we all enjoy. In addition we will explore the Skillset and the Mindset needed to make the most of them.