How to come up with 100 new ideas in 10 minutes

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Before brainstorming, ask participants to silently write down all of their ideas on separate pieces of paper. You will get unexpected results.

Brainstorming is common and proven, but not the best way to quickly generate new ideas. Leigh Thompson, professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, explains how to get many interesting suggestions from the team using the cross-tagging method.

What is cross-tagging of ideas and how does it work

During the brainstorming session, participants should voice their thoughts in front of others, and during the outline of ideas, everyone writes down their thoughts on separate sheets of paper. Cross-basting ideas is much more effective than brainstorming. However, ideally, they should be combined: first, ideas are outlined, and then brainstorming.

Invite the participants to write down at least 10 ideas in 10 minutes. In this case, you can write down everything that comes to mind, regardless of the usefulness of ideas and other value judgments.

Let's say a group of 10 people participates in sketching ideas. This means that in 10 minutes they will put forward at least 100 proposals. With 100 ideas in front of you, you can brainstorm.

Why This Idea Generation Technique Is Better Than Brainstorming

During long discussions, all the participants get bored at some point, but they will never tell about it. And if someone from the management of the company participates in the brainstorming session, then his ideas will surely receive the support of the majority of subordinates.

In addition, during a brainstorming session, it is rarely possible to discuss more than two or three ideas, since everyone begins to actively think about the first one and dwell on it. The rest of the proposals just hang in the air.

How to cross-tag ideas with maximum impact

To get the most of interesting ideas, tell the participants that not only real, but also obviously impracticable proposals are welcome. Thanks to this, you can later combine boring ideas with very unexpected ones. It's like looking for diamonds in a pile of rocks: the more waste rock you go through, the more likely you are to find something worthwhile.

Ask participants to focus not on quality, but on quantity of ideas. As a result, there will be a lot of ideas, and among them there will be very worthwhile ones.

If you ask participants to write down only good ideas, they probably won't dare to suggest something unusual.

Another way to achieve more variety of ideas is to invite an outsider into the group. In this case, participants will be more willing to put forward non-standard proposals.

It has also been observed that standing people generate ideas faster and better than sitting.

How to get participants to come up with non-standard ideas

One experiment was carried out. Just before starting to collect ideas, the group of participants was asked to talk about the biggest setback that happened to them over the past six months. The second group was asked to share their greatest success in the past six months.

It turned out that those who recalled negative experiences offered more interesting and diverse ideas than those who recalled their moment of triumph.

Who is this technique for?

Do not think that sketching ideas only works well in groups where one person is more creative than the other. Until scientists have found a gene responsible for creative thinking. Most likely, it simply does not exist.

This technique works best where people from various areas of the company are involved in the search for new ideas.

The main thing is that all participants are professionals and love their work.