It’s time to solve the problems! For this assignment you’ll work with your teammates to generate numerous solutions to your defined problems, which will culminate in an informal presentation to the class next week. You’ll present your team’s Top 5 Ideas to the class- the goal of this informal presentation is to solicit feedback & receive input from the class.
The generation of an extremely broad set of concepts is crucial to the creation of innovative products. Accordingly, one must develop the ability to put aside initial ideas and continue with ideation until a sufficient set of ideas is generated. Some of your best ideas will come long after you thought you ran out of ideas. Remember, with initial concept generation there is no such thing as an idea that is too silly or too far out there… any creative idea can be the spark that leads to another idea or a design concept!
Visualization is a key aspect to the design process. This includes visually communicating your ideas and concepts. Visualizing the concepts and creating sketches, drawings, or computer models will help you (and your teammates) really understand what your idea is. Artistic drawing skills are not required here—just visual communication of ideas!
Step 1 : Team Concept Generation
First, review your problem statements to make sure everyone on your team understands them. Then, tackle one problem statement at a time to brainstorm solutions as a group. Before you jump in, set aggressive goals for:
- Creativity and thinking outside the box (encourage wild ideas!)
- Diversity of ideas (come up with distinct, unique solutions– not just variations on a theme!)
- Fluency of ideas (go for quantity of ideas!)
- Visual communication (draw out ideas to visualize solutions and improve communication!)
As you are working, try to follow IDEO’s 7 Rules for Effective Brainstorming:
- Defer judgement (i.e., there are NO bad ideas in brainstorming!)
- Encourage wild ideas
- Build on the ideas of others
- Stay focused on the topic
- One conversation at a time
- Be visual
- Go for quantity
You can carry out your visual communication of ideas on a whiteboard, paper, or digital device. Whichever method you use in your team, it is crucial to document your ideas as you come up with them so that you can turn them in for the assignment. Take clear photos of your whiteboard as it evolves and before you erase it; save versions of any digital files; scan all paper sketches.
Step 2: Individual Concept Generation
Spend at least a few hours away from your project before you continue with individual concept generation.
This part of the assignment is simple: Each person on your team should work individually to come up with 3 additional concepts that build on your team brainstorming. Document your concepts in the same visual manner as listed above.
Step 3: Select Your Top 5 Ideas
As a team, choose your top 5 ideas that offer the best solutions. You can define what makes some ideas the “best” solutions, but you might consider factors such as innovation, usability, market opportunity, etc.
Put together a short, informal powerpoint-style presentation that showcases your Top 5 Ideas. The goal of this presenation is to solicit feedback and input from the class in order to elevate each team’s ideas.
The guidelines for the presentation are as follows:
- You have 5 minutes to showcase your 5 ideas
- Include a title/intro slide
- Showcase one idea per slide, but use no more than two slides for a given idea
- Include the related problem statement for the idea on the slide
- The ‘idea’ slides should be predominantly composed of images; minimal words should be used other than a title and the problem statement on each slide
- Try to keep a reasonable file size (e.g., compress images in powerpoint)
- Turn your finished presenation into a PDF before submitting to carmen
Your team will share this informal presentation in class on Thursday 11/2/17. It is not necessary that every person on your team speak during the presentation; you can designate a couple presenters to give the whole presentation if you prefer.