Ideation

The ideation phase has been my favorite phase so far! We had the chance to create really wild ideas around some of our how might we statements. I liked that this step of the process allowed us to work individually, coming up with our own creative ideas, then come together and collaborate as a group and discuss all the ideas. Being the process champion last class, I had the opportunity to lead our team for this assignment. We chose the statement how might we increase customer loyalty through transparent sustainability. We first came up with really great ideas on the yellow sticky notes then more wild ones on the pink sticky notes. The thing that worked best about the ideation was the diverge and converge aspect where we first come up with all our ideas and create them then we decide which ideas seem like they might work out and we choose those. The most challenging part of ideation for me was coming up with creative ideas because I wanted them to be original and out of the box but still feasible and doable. For example, one of our pink sticky notes said give tours of factories to any customer. However, once we started thinking about it we weren’t sure if that was the best idea, if it would bring germs into factories especially since Johnson and Johnson sell pharmaceutical products and have to follow strict protocols. We thought of an alternative creative idea such as giving virtual tours of the factories on the Johnson and Johnson website. My top five lessons learned from this activity was 1. As a group, we function more productively on our own. Coming up with a creative idea is possible by one person but to come up with all those ideas in the short time frame on my own would have been near impossible. I was happy to have a team to collaborate with. 2. We should suspend judgement in the ideation phase. No one should criticize or discuss ideas that way the ideas just keep flowing without interruption. 3. Go for quantity because the more ideas the better. 4. After you brainstorm discuss the ideas as a team in a constructive way that is respectful yet honest because you don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings or be rude but you want to have the best ideas possible. 5. Lastly think about the ideas you chose are your best ones and plan as a team to meet outside of class to get the ball rolling on those ideas.