The ideation process proved to be one of my favorite steps of the design thinking process thus far. Coming into class on Tuesday, I was certain that this step would stress me out – years of traditional schooling has definitely stifled my creativity a little bit and fear of the unknown is a huge driving factor in my decision making process. However, I gained so much out of this experience and learned some critical lessons:
- Just because you have a good idea, it might not be your best idea in the end. Like the HBR article we read for class discussed, your first idea is rarely going to be the most innovative or well-thought out idea. Not only did I experience this personally as I put sticky notes up on the board (my first few ideas were very conventional), but I think my team learned this as well. After our class session on Tuesday and meeting outside of class to vote on the ideas, we narrowed it down to one final idea. We decided to pick a different problem statement to brainstorm for on Thursday, but I think we all subconsciously assumed we would go with the solution from Tuesday’s class in the end. The quantity of ideas from our Thursday brainstorm wasn’t as hefty, but after dissecting our options, we actually realized that our second session left us with a much better and more relevant solution. I definitely realized that remaining open to new ideas and not getting stuck on any one solution too soon is important.
- Teamwork is essential to this step. My team and I have gotten along great this semester and have really played off one another’s strengths and weaknesses, but ideation was by far the biggest team-focused step. The final idea we’ve chosen to prototype was actually a combo of various team members’ ideas – we were initially having trouble choosing one solid idea on Thursday and just seemed to be staring at our brainstorm board. But then Lauren said “Guys, what about a monthly subscription?” – and after that, the ideas flowed together perfectly! I also think that because our team dynamic is so open and lighthearted, we were all four able to overcome the fear of being judged that we talked about in class. I knew that no matter what I put on the board, my team wouldn’t tear me down for it (and in fact, we had a lot of fun laughing about the more wild ideas!). At the end of the day, four brains were better than one and I could see a piece of each of us in our final idea!
- Remembering your prior research is important. At one point during our brainstorming session, we asked Professor Luchs if one of our ideas seemed too unrelated to our topic. He advised us to remember “research” and “revenue”. We decided to only keep an idea in the end if it fit the “3 R’s” or could be altered to fit them – backed up by research, could generate revenue, and was related specifically to our chosen problem statement. By doing this, our decision process was much easier. Even if an idea seemed cool, we had to remember that we were trying to solve a customer’s need, not just come up with an interesting idea.
Overall, I really enjoyed the ideation stage and feel confident that the idea we are going to prototype on Tuesday has a lot of potential!