How to use the Disney Method

The Disney Method is a parallel thinking technique which has some similarities with the Six Hats. It is particularly useful as a group analysis tool for an issue and it leads to idea generation and idea review.  The team adopts four different thinking modes as outsiders, dreamers, realisers and critics.

Initially the group thinks as [...]

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Brush up your Brainstorming

I am in the process of making some tutorials on brainstorming.  Here are the first two:

Introduction to Brainstorming – the Principles

Two Advanced Methods – SCAMPER and Random Word

Each consists of slides and audio.  They will quickly help you to brush up your skills and to learn some highly effective tools to make your [...]

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Ideas Jam – How it works

We ran the Ideas Jam meeting yesterday and it went well. It was an intensive idea generation session. There were 18 participants from various companies who each brought a challenge from their business – e.g. How can we communicate our new strategy to thousands of people? The morning worked like this:

After an initial ice-breaker [...]

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Intensive Bottled Creativity

The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will be an Ideas Jam on the morning of July 13th in central London.  It will be fun, challenging, interactive, intensive and creative.  You will learn new ideation methods, meet interesting people and work with them to develop radical ideas.  It is open to members and non-members.  [...]

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Come to an Ideas Jam on July 13 in London

Author: Franek, Wikimedia Commons

The next meeting of the BQF Innovation Unit will consist of an Ideas Jam to be held in central London on the morning of Tuesday July 13.

This is a highly interactive workshop style meeting in which people generate creative ideas for challenges which have been brought to the meeting.

[...]

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Run Creative Ideas Events

If there is an important issue that needs some creative ideas then set a specific challenge for it and run an ideas event. A regular brainstorm or ideation meeting is fine but why not add some excitement with a different approach?

Here are the sorts of events you could run:

• A lunchtime brainstorm with [...]

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Is Brainstorming a Waste of Time?

Mark McGuiness on his blog, Lateral Action, asks the question, ‘Is brainstorming a waste of time?’  He produces a number of serious critics who hate brainstorms and claim that there is little evidence that they work.   The main criticisms are:

Not enough good ideas Lack of critical filters Inhibition Freeloading Taking turns Group think

He then [...]

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Brainstorming – which approach works best?

There is an interesting post on some research on Brainstorming here on the Innovation Tools site.  Josh Hyatt of the Sloan Management Review discusses some research by Karan Girotra, a professor at INSEAD, and Christian Terwiesh and Karl T. Ulrich, both professors at the University of Pennsylvania.

Two types of groups generated ideas. One followed [...]

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