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Workshop - Find Ideas

How to organise a workshop to find ideas and concepts for new projects? We will discuss the methods used in Innovation and how to adapt them to technical projects.

The workshop is based on the method LDJ – lightning decision jam

The workshop is separated in 2 parts:

  1. Bringing out the issues with employees with the most heterogeneous skills possible.
  2. Searching for project ideas and solutions with a limited group of employers, whose competences are related to the problematic.

Agenda

Agenda to send to the client

In 2 parts:

In 1 part:

Facilitator guide

Here is a guide to help the workshop facilitator

Part 1 - Find problematics

How to find the problems that the employers and the company are facing. Just ask the question, problems come up very easily in the industry. Sometimes employees have been looking for a solution that could improve their daily life for many years.

Example of Result:

Once a list of problems is established, it is important to prioritize the problems. Depending on the priority of the company (importance of the problem, potential gain), and the importance to SPL (technical innovation, in-house expertise). Then we can choose 2-3 problems to look for ideas and related solutions in small groups during the second workshop.

Part 2 - Find ideas and projects

The goal of the brainstorming is to find ideas related to the problematics. Once a good number of ideas have been generated, they will be prioritized to obtain a few already elaborated concepts. The second step of the workshop can be carried out with the engineering team and a limited group of employers, whose competences are related to the problematics.

Example of result:

LDJ – Lightning Decision Jam

This method is very effective in quickly identifying issues and coming up with ideas to address them. The Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) is an exercice from Google Design Sprint.

This method is separated into two parts, the first for finding problems (step 1 to 5) and the second (step 6 to 10) for finding ideas related to the problems. If you want to find technical innovations for a client, it is more efficient to research only the client's problems in a workshop. Then look for related ideas with the SPL engineering team and experienced employees in another workshop.

Printable Templates

Editable templates

Online Template

To prepare

  • Post-its
  • Markers (different color pen, can be used to distinguish the actors ideas)
  • Template printed on A0 papers
  • A timer (your phone timer will do the job)
  • Questions : Prepare leads to stimulate debate and ideation (which areas of activity need to be improved?, which task is the most difficult?, which task takes the longest?)

7 brainstorming rules

Here are some essential rules to ensure that the workshop runs smoothly.