What is it?

A simple workshop to help your team find breakthrough ideas that skyrocket team and business results.

Why is it useful?

• It’s easy to understand and run.
• It’s easy to find big ideas that are simple to implement.
• You’ll be confident you’re working on the best ideas rather than popular ones.
• You’ll get everyone’s agreement and support along the way.

Objective

To find breakthrough ideas that skyrocket team and business results.

Process

Step 1: Brainstorm

• Brainstorm a long list of ideas. The more the merrier. You can never have too many ideas and it's important everyone contributes.
• If you need some fun and innovative ways that beat just sitting around a meeting table talking, take a look at the Creative Problem Solving processes in the WorkshopBank Tools & Activities Library.
• Or for a simpler, more traditional approach, try the first part of the Brainstorming process (also in the WorkshopBank Tools & Activities Library).

Step 2: Sort

• Draw a 2x2 matrix and label the axes with Common Ideas & Original Ideas along the bottom and Easy to Implement & Hard to Implement along the side.
• Label the quadrants and explain the terms Now, Wow! and How?
• Give each person 5 sticky dots of each colour (red, blue and yellow). Ask them to approach the ideas board and stick their dots on the ideas.
  • Blue Now ideas: common ideas that are easy to implement. These are our “low-hanging fruit.”
  • Yellow How? ideas: original ideas that are hard to implement. These are potential breakthrough ideas in terms of impact but are too hard to implement right now given our current situation.
  • Red Wow! ideas: original ideas that are easy to implement. These are our breakthrough ideas that we should be doing ASAP as they might well have a huge impact on our KPIs.

Step 3: Prioritize

• First discard any ideas with no dots. Count the total number of dots on each idea (this gives you a priority) and note the dominant colour on each.
  • In the case of a tie between blue and red, the idea is blue (Now).
  • In the case of a tie between red and yellow, the idea is red (Wow).
  • In the case of a tie between blue and yellow, the idea is blue (Now).
• You now have:
  • A prioritised list of low-hanging fruit ideas you should start working on first (the Blue Now ideas).
  • A prioritised list of big, innovative breakthrough ideas that can potentially transform your results in a truly exciting way (the Red Wow! ideas).

Secret Sauce

• Easy → Hard to implement is not just about whether we have the technology, budget, or resources to get the idea done. It’s also about whether we have the political will. Are there forces in play that might scupper the idea before it makes it into action?
• Each person can only put 1 dot on an idea (i.e. no stacking), and they have to decide themselves (in silence and without discussion) what colour the dot should be.
• Keep an eye on the Yellow How? ideas to see if any are likely to be more possible in the future, especially those that were only just categorised as Yellow during the dot voting stage.