Idea generation findings

During the meeting on Friday 6th June I decided to use 3 methods of idea generation: mind mapping, brainstorming and storytelling.

My findings / opinions about results

Mind mapping

• very good to map what everything needs to be done, where to look at, keep a good overview of some specific area (for example create and constantly keep changing map of interactive media, update every time when new technology, sub area appears)
• takes very long to create and link correctly all sections and subsections if it should make sense
• don't find it useful if instant idea generation is needed
• can be good background to look at while brainstorming as it can have covered many areas which needs to be considered
• I would suggest to have the all main areas which are used for all projects covered by mind maps created in advance and create small sub areas and specific project areas mind maps before brainstorming
• using software is useful because it allows to move, reposition and reconnect the sections, topics and single phrases
  

Brainstorming

• I have participated brainstorms before in the company I was working for and found it very useless
• for that reason I have research deeply the topic to find out as much as possible about that and learn how to run the brainstorming properly and get good results or at least some results
• I have used brainstorming software to make ideas flow quickly (I have many spelling mistakes there... :-)) This was really helpful.
• on the beginning we were keeping quite tightly around possible and realistic uses and technologies, generally around what we were discussing already before. I supported bringing up everything relevant and mainly irrelevant ideas and topics (I have personal experience that irrelevant ideas are the best to use for 'out of the box' ideas) and from that point we had lots of fun and brought huge amount of ideas and topics into the subject.
  
• I will analyze the ideas. The suggestion from my research is to do excellent/interesting/useless selection. We were writing down ideas as a single words, things (technologies, uses etc.) we could use but not full concepts. It worked a bit more like quick mind map of everything which is possible to use. This should be taken now and connected together.
• as the excellent to useless technique could lead into moving away from the main concept of the project, I decided to use different approach. I'll separate the ideas into the most relevant/partly relevant/irrelevant in comparison to the main concept.
• also will try to take all those separated ideas and connect them together into the new sub-concepts or use separately.

Storytelling

• very useful technique to highlight issues the current state has and find out what solutions could/should be used. Also good source of assumptions to take and test.
• I used this technique to create a base for questionares Taz will prepare and use for survey.
• I found it a entertaining way to locate issues and assumptions. It also brings much longer list of them within very short time of generating the stories