The ideation process, in my opinion, was definitely one of the most productive session(s) that we have had so far as a group. I really enjoyed the approach we took and believe that it helped us generate creative ideas that we might not have thought of otherwise. Our group did a really nice job at piggybacking off of each other’s ideas and every possibility was on the table at the start. In particular, I found the “anti-idea” method exceptionally helpful. After hashing out around 30 possible solutions for each problem we are trying to address, I felt that we hit somewhat of a wall. However, the anti-idea stage helped us get over that hump and look at the issue from a different angle. By taking extreme situations that are the opposite of what a user expects, you have the potential to flip the negative concept into an innovative solution.
For example, our group was looking to combat the mental health issues associated with Facebook. As a joke, for an anti-idea I suggested “encourage cyber-bullying”. Obviously, this is not a solution that we were considering, but it got the ball rolling on ways that we can actively combat cyber-bullying. I found that joking around and keeping the vibe positive helped us remain focused and think creatively. The bottom-line is that for an idea to be truly disruptive and innovative, it needs to be creative, and I thought that these steps got us thinking in the right direction.
We were able to meet a second time outside of class to continue working on the ideation phase. By the end of the meeting, we were focusing on choosing a solution to focus on out of our two “How Might We” categories. I found this discussion particularly interesting. We had a difficult time deciding which of the two solutions we should continue on with. Two of our main considerations were 1) How disruptive is the potential productive/service? 2) How well does it address our company’s core shortcomings?
Eventually, we began looking into how the two solutions could coexist, as one is a physical product and the other a software advancement. During this conversation, I noticed that one of the bigger challenges was not jumping to a solution. As a result, we did our best to fully discuss the idea before moving on. When you make rushed assumptions, they compound quickly, which in the long-run is highly detrimental to the overall process of a group. I look forward to seeing how this idea generates over time and what our prototype eventually turns out to be. I am positive that what we have come up with now will not be what we end up with.