Ideation workshop

Method

A collaborative workshop to help groups of people work with research insights. The aim is to draw out a broad range of potential solutions.

Purpose

  • To bring stakeholders together to explore potential solutions.
  • To ‘go wide’ on the potential solutions.
  • To understand what constraints exist around solutions.

What you get

  • A set of solution ideas for further synthesis and validation.

Strengths

  • Effective for getting a diverse group across the implications of research findings.
  • Easy way of documenting a set of ideas from a diverse group.
  • Effective way of eliciting solution constraints (based on collective feedback of ideas).

Weaknesses

  • Participants need to understand the project context and prior project. activities. The workshop risks being ineffective if they do not.
  • Success depends on participant mindsets. The need to be able to put aside ‘realities’ of implementation for blue-sky thinking.

Tips

Ideation workshops rarely uncover workable or viable solutions in and of themselves. At their best, they are ways of documenting many ideas. You can combine, refine and test these later.

Toolkits and resources

Updated