Day 16 - Ideation!
Coming up with ideas to solve user problems...
Hello learners!
Welcome to the 16th lesson of the series 30 Days of PM by Crework! Till now, whatever we did was a part of the problem space, over the second half of this series we will be focusing on the solution space. Pretty sure a lot of you were waiting for this part.
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Ideas Ideas Ideas!!!
Ideation is the third phase of the Design Thinking process, and, as the name suggests, is all about generating ideas and solutions.
The aim of an ideation session is to create a large number of ideas that the team can filter through and cut down to the best, most innovative, and practical solution.
It’s not about coming up with the ‘right’ idea, it’s about generating the broadest range of possibilities.
The most important component of ideation is that there is no judgement in the space and that everyone is striving to achieve the end goal as a team, not to win the right answer individually. In this space, team members are encouraged to push their ideas and imagination far and wide.
The best exercise for ideation
Define your point of view:
First, you have to define your point of view. You can't create a strong product or service unless you've worked through who the user is, what their needs are and what you know about them.
Draw out a diagram to generate these insights to fuel your brainstorm session.
A good rule of thumb is to generate your answers to each stage as so: [User . . . (descriptive)] needs [Need . . . (verb)] because [Insight . . . (compelling)]
Always make sure that your point of view:
Is narrow enough to follow.
Frames the most important aspect for the user
Is valid, insightful, actionable, unique, narrow, meaningful, and exciting.
Rephrase the problem as a “How Might We…”
This is where we take the problem and reword it so our challenge becomes a chance for positive thinking and generating ideas that can not only fix the problem but take the product or service that much further.
How to generate How Might We statements:
Begin with your point of view on the problem you are facing. This could be something like “Catering is too expensive for the events”
Rephrase the problem into a How Might We…
“How Might We.. save costs on catering for our events”
Then ask the team to brainstorm on ways to resolve the problem
Active solutions could be things like “By asking the participants to do a potluck”, “By finding a new catering company”, “By having a company cooking day”, “By not catering the event at all and implementing a lunch hour”
This way you can get so many positive solutions and really open up the possibilities.
There are multiple other methods of ideation you can read about from the source in the reference section below. But irrespective of the method you choose, the goal remains the same. To collaborate with your team and come up with as many ideas as possible to explore the best possible solution for the problem.
Day 16 - Completed ✅
Congratulations on completing the sixteenth lesson of the series. 🥳
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