Only by observation of your market, client, technology, and the perceived constraints of a problem by looking at people in real-life situations… can Meeting Industry professionals and Meeting Industry organizations find out what makes them tick, what confuses them, what they like, what they hate, and where they have unmet needs.

Visualizing the satisfaction of unmet needs can be thought of as predicting the future. This is where the brainstorming-intensive phase of the process kicks in. Although commonly used in organizations, IDEO offers a few simple guidelines for “the perfect brainstorm.”

• Start with a well-honed statement, a simple question or a well-articulated description of the problem.

• Their second secret is to have playful rules. This is not the time to critique or debate ideas because that will sap energy quickly.

• Numbering the ideas in a brainstorm can motivate the participants during the session and provides a great way to jump back and forth without losing track. You might begin by saying, “Let’s get a hundred ideas before we leave the room.”

• You should also understand the power of spatial memory. Write the flow of ideas down in a medium visible to the whole group. IDEO uses Sharpie markers and old-fashioned butcher shop paper. Cover every wall and flat surface with paper before the session ends.

• Watch for chances to “build” and “jump.” Momentum usually builds slowly, then intensifies and starts to plateau. Once a plateau is reached, build on a good idea by giving a gentle push in that direction or jump back to an earlier path you skipped too quickly. You might even move forward to a completely new approach just to keep the energy up.

• Begin a brainstorm with some form of warm-up. IDEO begins with a fast-paced word game to clear the mind or they might spend half an hour in a store filled with the products that they are competing with.

• IDEO brainstorming often “gets physical.” And you can too by bringing in competitive products, solutions from other fields, as well as promising technologies that could be applied to the problem. Have materials like blocks, foam core, and tubing on hand to build crude models of a concept.

• Body-storming occurs when group members act out current behavior and usage patterns to see how they might be altered.

Once you have completed brainstorming, evaluate and refine the prototypes and don’t get attached to the first few because they’ll change.

No idea is so good that it can’t be improved, nor, as we learned earlier, is any business so good that it can’t stand some additional innovation leading to even better outcomes. Sue Siddall, managing director of IDEO’s London office challenges businesses to ask, “What are we giving consumers beyond the product or service we are selling? What is our higher purpose?”

Questions for discussion:

How can we better understand and fill the needs of our customers, clients and prospects by observing them using our or our competitor’s products and services in real life situations?

What brainstorming techniques can we immediately implement and how can we involve customers, suppliers and strategic partners in the process?

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