創意研討會

What is Ideation? What is an Ideation Workshop?

In both the consumer and B2B marketplace, the goal of ideation (or the ideation process) is not just to generate ideas. Instead, it should focus on how to best satisfy any unmet needs of your customers.  An ideation workshop involves a creative process to address this challenge. In many respects, it is similar to what is often called a brainstorming session. Ideally, it leads to the development of improved or previously unimagined new products or line extensions. Market research can be used as a preliminary step to learn what consumers need or desire to do easier, faster, cheaper, or more effectively. Personal interviews, focus groups, online or telephone surveys are just a few methods that can help to uncover some of these needs. The gist of the questions would revolve around “what else would you like…?” 

How do you conduct an ideation workshop?

One of the earliest tasks is to find a qualified moderator – almost always a professional from outside your company who has experience running such exercises. Next, in order to obtain the broadest possible feedback, between 8 and 12 members from inside your organization should be invited to participate. They should possess a diversity of traits or characteristics, e.g. gender, age group, management level, job function. In the workshop, all individuals and their ideas should be treated equally, without judgment or bias. Participants may not know each other, and except for their first names, need no further identification.

• There are several commonly used personality “tests” that help to place people into certain categories. Myers-Briggs, for example, asks a set of questions after which people are assigned to one of 16 personality types, some of whom may be more introverted, extroverted, intuitive, analytical, or creative.

可以製定規則或約束來迫使人們以新的和不同的方式思考。例如：

• 由於短缺或價格上漲，如果您無法使用某些成分或材料來生產產品怎麼辦？
• 如何才能以一半的時間或一半的成本完成一項任務？
• 其他行業的公司將如何解決這個問題？

會議主持人通常會在會議室提供某些可用的物品：

• 不同顏色和尺寸的便利貼
• 活動掛圖
• 白板
• 不同顏色的標記
• 玩具、物品或遊戲可減輕緊張、營造有趣的氛圍並激發創意思維

What should be the outcome of an ideation workshop?

At some point, usually with an hour to 90 minutes, many ideas will have emerged, and the pace of new ones will diminish. It should be possible to group them, discuss them, and then evaluate and rank them according to internally agreed-upon criteria (e.g. solves a common user problem, is feasible, and can be produced within a reasonable time or cost limit).

由於目標是滿足未滿足的客戶需求和願望，因此應該追求多少種選擇實際上是沒有限制的。但從實際角度來看，在所需資源和潛在投資回報方面，也許只有少數幾個值得進一步探討。

最終，將產生為客戶解決問題的創新新產品或服務的絕妙創意。