As we’re keeping it practical this week, I thought it might be worth looking at a couple of tools that are useful when you’re working through the Double Diamond process. One approach you might not have come across before – the Charrette. The other is probably very familiar – traditional brainstorming. Something we all know how to do, right? Well maybe…
Charrette
A Charrette is a collaborative design idea approach that is fast moving and allows everyone to join in whatever their role. It has four stages:
1. Prepare: this involves asking two things:
- How might we?
- How have others?
It is often helpful to approach the session on the basis of a ‘How might we?’ question. This could be ‘How might we prepare for reopening?’ or ‘How might we relaunch our programme?’ Ask people to prepare for the session by looking for examples of how others have addressed the same, or similar questions.
2. Start: finalise your ‘how might we?’ question and discuss the ‘How have others?’ examples you have found. What ideas do they give you about what works well? What doesn’t work? Spend no more than 15 minutes on this discussion.
3. Sketch: rather than ask people to draw I tend to suggest they illustrate, as it sometimes helps alleviate stress about being able to draw. Try and put people at their ease, if you can draw a line, circle or square you are more than capable of sketching ideas. At the moment given social distancing you will probably have to sketch individually and use online platforms to share. If you want to work as a group, you can try something like Sketchtogether. Work quickly and encourage people not to self-censor. Spend no more than fifteen minutes generating lots of sketches.
4.Share and select: take it in turns to share what you have produced and explain your ideas. Take time to discuss and constructively review each of the ideas. Sometimes a consensus will emerge around the ideas people prefer, sometimes it’s helpful to use voting to see if there is an order of preference. The preferred ideas are then taken on for development.
I used this approach to think about where I might take Small Change® next, you can see the drawings don’t have to be perfect! If I’m completely honest I probably went into the process thinking an online course was my next step, now I am looking at a Small Change® Journal and a set of cards that can be used with groups. You never know what might emerge!
Brainstorming
We’ve all been there. The brainstorming starts and the first couple of ideas you put forward get roundly critiqued or dismissed. Any enthusiasm you had for the session evapourates and you have little motivation for contributing anything else. Or, it is clear from the way the discussion is being guided that preferred ideas had already been identified before the brainstorming and this is just a way to get them endorsed.
These are common experiences I hear about from different groups. Brainstorming (created in the 1940s!) has become such an old friend that we take it for granted and often don’t do it well. With all the idea generation needed at the moment I thought it might be worth just reminding ourselves of how to do brainstorming well.
Some ground rules:
- No judgements during idea generation. I often describe this as the no ‘yes, but…’ rule! It’s also known as squelching!
- Think freely
- The more ideas the better
- Use others’ ideas as launchpads
- Involve different perspectives, be mindful of too much consensus
- Encourage big thinking
The process is straightforward, but it helps to be clear about how you will approach it as a group:
- Prepare
- Be clear about the issue you want to address
- Guide the discussion
- Start quietly. I often like to give people the opportunity to write down as many ideas as they can think of on their own to start with. You can either do this in the session or ask people to come prepared
- Generate ideas quickly and set a target – 3 ideas every five minutes, or fill the flipchart sheet etc
- This is the time to support the group, make sure everyone contributes and be conscious of ideas that get a lot of consensus quickly
- You can physically reorder the ideas if they are on post-its or on an online document. Or use voting
- Agree next steps. Make sure the effort that has gone into the meeting is recognised by taking the preferred ideas forward. Agree how they will be actioned, who will be responsible and the timeline you will work to
If you don’t have a team or group available at the moment you can brainstorm on your own. There are a few techniques you can use to help you develop wide ranging ideas as an individual:
- Word association: choose a random noun and start from there
- Use a prompt: it could be a favourite quote, a paragraph or page from a book
- Use a photo prompt: a personal photo, or something from your work; a favourite project, production, workshop etc
- Set some constraints: think in terms of creative constraints; if you have to create a new project in the next three months think about what you’d do if you only have a week
- Go boundary free: imagine you had all of some of the resources you need (it could be people, time or money), what would you do then?
Once you have generated some possibilities you can also test them with other people before you decide which ones to look at in more detail.
I know brainstorming is very familiar and thank you if you are still reading by this point! I thought it was worth revisiting to see if we can make it more effective and enjoyable.
Related Posts
Putting the Double Diamond into practice
How do we manage expectations of boards and others…
If there are other tools or approaches, you’d like us to look at in more detail, feel free to let us know.
Dawn & Susan