Making Chapter in Innovating for People: Handbook of Human-centered Design Methods. Pittsburgh, PA: LUMA Institute, LLC 2012. Print
- Thumbnail Sketching
- Series of small drawings that explore new ideas
- Purposes:
- Generate quick ideas
- Promote divergent thinking
- Encourage sharing of ideas
- Make iterative improvements
- Preparation Steps:
- Identify exploration topic.
- Assemble team and drawing materials.
- Implementation Steps:
- Ask each team member to work independently
- Each person focuses on one aspect of the topic and draws pictures of possibilities.
- Then each person focuses on another aspect and draws more possibilities.
- Group discusses sketches
- Pick a subset to refine with additional sketching
- Helpful Tips:
- Encourage visual thinking
- Not perfect drawings
- Limit sketching round times
- Refrain from editing early
- Sample Process
- Purpose: Explore large number of ideas and develop options to get quick feedback
- Steps:
- Thumbnail Sketching (Making)
- Rough & Ready Prototyping (Making)
- Critique (Looking)
- School Applications
- Teachers can use this technique to brainstorm project ideas and scaffolding ideas
- Students can use this technique to brainstorm product ideas
- Creative Matrix
- Brainstorm new ideas at intersection of distinct categories
- Format:
- Use columns for categories related to people (personas, market segments, problem statements)
- Use rows as categories for enabling solutions (technologies, environments, policies, etc)
- Purposes:
- Generate large number of ideas
- Promote divergent thinking
- Develop new and usual ideas
- Preparation steps:
- Identify design challenge in need of new ideas
- Set up grid poster (max 5×5)
- Label columns – related to people
- Label rows – related to solutions
- Form teams
- Implementation steps:
- Instruct teams to ideate on the grid
- One idea per sticky note
- Limit time – 15-20 minutes
- Helpful hints:
- Draw pictures of ideas
- Fill every cell of grid
- Reward quantity
- Sample process:
- Purpose: Define a challenge and develop many quick ideas
- Steps:
- Statement starters (Understanding)
- Creative Matrix (Making)
- Visualize the Vote (Understanding)
- Cover Story Mock-Up (Making)
- School Applications:
- Teachers can use this technique to facilitate an activity that has students brainstorm many strategies for building positive classroom environments
- Teachers can use this technique to develop many project ideas that go with different course topics
- Students can use this technique to develop many product ideas that go with a problem statement
- Round Robin
- Ideas evolve as they are passed from person to person
- Purposes:
- Get input from all team members
- Diminish overbearing opinions
- Generate new and unusual idea
- Preparation steps:
- Identify design challenge in need of new ideas
- Created workshops (1 per person) folded into 4 parts
- Implementation steps:
- Instruct each person to write down challenge
- Each person draws an unconventional solution
- Then pass paper to the left
- Write one reason why idea will fail
- Pass paper to the left
- Draft resolution to the critique
- Helpful tips:
- Limit time – 2-3 minute rounds
- Encourage wild ideas
- Invite discussion of new ideas
- Sample process:
- Purpose: refocus problem, develop fresh ideas and decide which ideas to develop
- Steps:
- Problem Tree Analysis (Understanding)
- Round Robin (Making)
- Visualize the Voce (Understanding)
- Concept Poster (Making)
- School applications:
- Students can use this technique to generate product ideas to a design challenge
- Grade level teachers can use this technique to develop grade level policies that support students
- Alternative Worlds
- Using perspectives to help generate fresh ideas
- Purposes:
- See things from a fresh perspective
- Leverage success from other domains
- Generate new ideas
- Preparation steps:
- Identify topic
- Recruit diverse team
- Create list of analogous topics
- Think about representative organizations
- Select few alternative worlds to explore
- Implementation steps:
- Orient team to key characteristics of each world
- Ask, how would _______ solve this problem?
- Seek various ideas inspired by each world
- Helpful tips:
- Choose a world different from yours
- Try to interview someone from alternative world
- Sample process:
- Purpose: Generating new ideas from alternative perspectives and visually conveying new concepts
- Steps:
- Alternative Worlds (Making)
- Thumbnail Sketching (Making)
- Concept Poster (Making)
- School applications:
- Students can use this technique to brainstorm products from the perspectives of real companies
- Teachers can use this technique to design management strategies from the perspectives of real companies known for supporting innovation in their employees
Brainstorming occurs in a lot of PBL projects. Knowing several brainstorming techniques will allow PBL teachers to facilitate brainstorming in ways that feel fresh and that hopefully help students generate a lot of creative ideas.
Preparation Steps
- For teacher use:
- Decide problems that need new solutions (examples: project problem statements, grading policies, management policies, etc)
- Select brainstorming method(s) that will can help generate the most useful solutions
- For student use:
- Identify points in projects where brainstorming will be a useful activity
- Design resources to help guide students through selected brainstorming activities. See above.
Early Implementation Steps
- For teacher use:
- Implement selected strategies for brainstorming.
- Follow up with more design steps. See above for ideas.
- For student use:
- Scaffold activities aimed at brainstorming new ideas.
- Follow-up with more design activities. See hyperlinks above for ideas.
Advanced Implementation Steps
- For teacher use (understanding students):
- Share new brainstormed ideas with students and check to see if they if any of the ideas appear useful and feasible to them.
- Used brainstormed solutions to develop better projects, strategies, policies, etc.
- For student use (understanding stakeholders for project):
- Have students reflect on brainstorming strategies – how did it work? what assumptions were challenged? what new things were learned? what new ideas were inspired? how can this approach be used in other settings?