TOOL WALL OF IDEAS

Asking “what if?” is a powerful way to fill a wall with great ideas. Feel free to use these trigger questions, or create your own! Ask them of your team at a fast pace, challenging each person to create lots of ideas.

GENERATE

generate ideas

± 30 MIN

pressure cooker

solo

but all together

Images

ASK TRIGGER QUESTIONS

The purpose of this tool is to fill up an entire wall with the ideas generated by a team in a short amount of time. This technique uses trigger questions to get the creative juices flowing.

The wall of ideas requires preparation. First, decide on a list of trigger questions that you’re going to ask the team in rapid succession (one every 30 seconds or so). Use the ones above to get you started, taking out the ones that don’t apply to your business. Use your existing Business Model Canvas as fodder for creating new questions. If, for instance, you sell a product today through retailers, what would happen if you sold it directly to customers through an online channel? What would that look like? You get the picture.

As the trigger questions are asked, each person will simply write whatever comes to mind on a sticky note using a permanent marker. By the end of this exercise there should be a pile of at least as many sticky notes as there are questions in front of each participant.

CLUSTER YOUR IDEAS

Once the questions run out, have everyone affix their sticky notes to the wall, one at a time, calling out the idea, so everyone is clear about what’s been added. Don’t worry about organization at first.

Next, organize the ideas into a maximum of five high-level clusters. You can define the clusters beforehand, or you can use affinity mapping and let them emerge.

When you’re done clustering, record your result. Photos make it easy to do that. Send them around to the team, and don’t forget to keep them informed of future progress!