This workshop helps your team convert a bunch of ideas into useful themes so that you know where to focus next and what actions to take.
Good for startups and bigger companies who are looking for a helpful process that everyone can participate in.
It's easy to follow, enjoyable for the team and helps provide a shared understanding to the team and those you communicate with.
Variations of this workshop are used the world over. Enjoy
2. Step 1: Brainstorm – 30 mns
I want a
Piggy
bank I
can’t
break
An easy
social site
Manage
Elderly
care
A device for
communites
to turn plastic
bottles into
household
items
Idiot-proof
Apartment
veg
grower
device
- Brainstorm
- Read aloud when posting
an item
- Facilitator: anybody
3. Step 2: Group into themes
Group the items per natural themes (e.g.
Services, retail, B2b etc)
Home use
B to B
4. Step 3: Vote & Rank
3 votes per team member (can spread
votes)
Theme 1
Theme 2
XXXXXX Services
XXX
X
XXXXX
12
3
4
5XXXXXX
6. Step 5 – Set actions
Pick one item from each theme that is
Awesome
Mystery (don’t quite understand)
Scares you
Decide on set of actions for the coming
sprint:
Create Lean
Canvas for ideas
1,3,5, 8,10
WHO John & Beth
WHEN Thursday
Get hardware
estimates for idea
5 and 1
Research doctoral
papers on subject
relating to theme 1
7. Next step: follow up
Keep a wiki page for the team on this
workshop
Describe the themes
List out the ideas and tie to themes
Track the Actions
Suggested collaboration tools: Evernote or
Confluence wik for docs. Asana.com for assigning
and tracking tasks
Hinweis der Redaktion
We tend to generate lots of ideas but then have difficultly proceeding from the many good to one great. This workshop is a away to group ideas into common themes and then develop ideas within themes. This will help you focus on the most import
Have the team in a room together
Describe what you’re about to do:
Stage 1: Brainstorm
Each write a one line idea on post-it notes. No criticism. No restrictions. Crazy is fine (every good product has a fun aspect)
After a person writes one idea, they stick it on the wall and describes the idea in ONE sentence. People may ask a question but it should be super brief.
Do this for a fixed-time. 30 minutes should be more than enough.
When you’re done, the wall should have plenty of post-its
Stage 2: Find common themes
The team all go to the wall now and together start grouping post-its that share some commonality. These ‘services’ or ‘hardware’. It doesn’t matter what they share, just find a way to group them. You’ll discuss what the themes are in this. Name the themes
Now vote on each theme. Each person has 3 votes. They can put all their votes on one theme or spread them.
Spend 30 minutes talking about themes, starting with he ones with the highest votes. The point here is that you’ll find overlap from one idea to another.
Stage 3: Take the ideas to the next step
Pick one idea or combinations from each theme that is
Awesome
Mysterious - could be great but team don’t quite understand
Scares you.
Create a set of actions for these ones you’ve picked.
Do lean canvas for each
Do more research (for example)
Build a demo (for example)
Make sure the jobs to do are split up by WHO and WHEN DUE. Don’t lose the power gained in the workshop.