Develop Idea
Let’s start from the raw Idea and think like a designer. Adopt design thinking[i] to identify and develop your idea.
Ideation is the 3rd element of 5 steps design thinking approach including Discovery, Interpretation, Ideation, Experimentation and Evolution.
As an idea designer, there are 3 key aspects to check about an idea before we can proceed
- Is the idea desirable from human point of view?
- Is the idea feasible technologically?
- Is the idea viable economically?
Do remember, ideation is not about innovation. The problem we are trying to solve using our idea can be big or small, complex or simple, global or local. It doesn’t matter.
We need to adopt the right way to develop the idea as a solution as that’s the key learning for us in the context of this exercise. How to start? Note down the keywords you find yourself passionate about. The idea will emerge from there.
Ideation starts with brainstorming using a group of diverse thinkers who can contribute to the discussion. Thus, its good to form a group and start ideation.
To have an effective brainstorming, here are the few rules to follow –
- Collect All Ideas from each participant without being judgmental. Defer prompt judgments and interruptions. Most of the time, speaker takes time to form the correct sentence using right words in alignment with his intention. Allow him time. Being judgmental blocks the flow of ideas and hampers the creativity. Listen and note down the ideas on a board / paper etc.
- Capture Everything. Encourage wild ideas even if they appear irrelevant. The relevance may appear meaningful suddenly at a later stage. But it’s important to allow the brains to get creative and start throwing fresh ideas.
- Build on the ideas of others. That’s the right way to collaborate. The brainstorming has a purpose to combine the brains towards a common purpose of success.
- Maintain the focus on the topic. If there is distraction, bring it back softly.
- Allow one conversation to build at a time so that each idea gets expressed in totality and there is fresh room in the brain to receive new idea.
- Go Hybrid. Use visualization. Draw the ideas. Use connections like mind-map and be creative in expressing the ideas.
- Allow as many ideas to appear as possible. Go for quantity.
The brainstorming session should have a coordinator and all the rules should be explained by him to the participants before starting the session.
At the end of the brainstorming, we need to select a few final ideas. For this, we can use two types of approaches –
- Cluster the similar set of ideas and then select
- Ask participants to vote for the ideas. They can select more than one idea giving their priorities.
After the selection of a few ideas, we should give final shape to the ideas by applying the 3 sets of initial questions – desirability, feasibility, viability. This should give the final shape to our idea(s) which appears meaningful now to bring our next set of action – converting the idea into business plan.
In case you are reading this book as an individual and not part of a group workshop, we suggest you still make a small group of friends and conduct above workshop with them. It helps to get fresh insights and you’ll be surprised how our mind outperforms our own expectations when challenged in a conducive environment.
Once an idea is finalized and a team claims the ownership, it’s also right time to get a mentor assigned to the team.
If the workshop is being conducted within a college, it would be ideal to get one faculty as internal mentor and one real entrepreneur as external mentor.
Give a title to your idea. Not too big. Something like a business title.
Doesn’t matter if it’s not unique. But title matters. That’s going to be the name plate of your business house soon!
[i]https://designthinking.ideo.com/ –
On Design Thinking