Fiona Stevenson and Shelli Baltman, The Idea Suite’s Presidents and Co-Founders, share what they’ve learned about virtual ideation during the pandemic, and explore how you can make it work for your team.
Congratulations! If you’ve successfully transitioned from office-based working to a work-from-home model, you’re already an absolute champion! Many of us talk about pandemic fatigue as if it’s simply a matter of navigating PPE and social distancing, while forgetting that the monumental task of completely transforming your working habits is a huge accomplishment in and of itself. Give yourself a proverbial pat on the back for the way that you’ve seamlessly flexed into an entirely new working model!
But, even for those who’ve adjusted to – and may now even (mostly) prefer – working from home, creative collaboration can still be one of the most challenging things to deal with in the virtual space. Even the best digital tools – from Zoom to Microsoft Teams – come with some built-in limitations when it comes to replicating what once happened in a boardroom or creative workshop space.
Having pivoted our in-person ideation approach at The Idea Suite to an entirely virtual one in the early days of the pandemic, we’re here to let you know that virtual ideation is not only possible, but in some ways is proving to be even better than the traditional in-person methodology. Now, of course, we’re not going to throw out the tried and tested experiential creativity just yet! We are very much looking forward to the day when we can get back in a workshop room with our clients, enjoying simple acts that now seem like luxuries – like lunching together and physically writing down the ideas we come up with on pieces of actual paper.
Since we don’t yet know when that day will come, though, we thought it would be worth sharing a few of the surprising benefits of the virtual ideation experience that we’ve discovered alongside our clients over the past several months:
It’s time for introverts to shine
While the energy and fun of in-person ideation really cannot be beat, it is inherently geared toward more extroverted thinkers who enjoy coming up with ideas spontaneously and in groups. In translating the in-person experience of a full-day ideation workshop into a virtual model, though, we’ve been able to add personal working time between sessions. This allows more introverted thinkers to take their time and land their thinking as individuals, before sharing ideas with the group for feedback and building – helping to elicit some truly fantastic ideas that may not have emerged in a conventional session.
When it comes to ideas, more is more
Most of our clients are over-achievers at heart, and when challenged, tend to over-deliver. Because the virtual experience provides more personal working time between sessions, the sheer breadth and number of ideas our client teams have been generating through the virtual ideation process has been astounding – and significantly higher than in person. This has accordingly given us an even larger pool of ideas from which to select those with the highest potential, which is a wonderful problem to have!
Short creative bursts beat a full-day session
From our experience, most people have a limited capacity for online meetings – life, and eye strain, tend to get in the way – so we’ve evolved the traditional full-day workshop into a series of shorter two to three hour long online sessions, typically scheduled in the morning. This allows us to get the best out of everyone’s brains – and avoid the post-lunch energy drain or fatigue that come near the end of the day. It also allows us to further separate the divergent idea generation process from the convergent idea selection process – tapping into different sides of our client’s magnificent minds on different days.
However, although the virtual approach clearly offers a number of substantial benefits, there are also some important things to keep in mind in order to ensure a successful virtual ideation process:
Know your tools
Although there are some truly fantastic virtual meeting platforms and digital whiteboards now available to all of us, it’s important not to let them give you a false sense of security. Your management of the tools is everything, or they risk becoming distractions vs. enablers, sucking the energy out of the creative process. It is essential to ensure that whoever is running your session is intimately familiar with the technology, can troubleshoot in the moment, and is prepared with a plan B (and ideally C) if and when glitches arise on the day.
Be prepared for preparation
It’s important to remember that translating a full-day workshop into three shorter, virtually conducted, ideation sessions is not a straight ‘lift and shift’. There is substantially more prep work involved in building an engaging and seamless virtual process, so it’s vital to ensure that your planning allows for this extra time before and between each session. Additionally, don’t forget that ideas are usually only 50-60% ‘baked’ after ideation, so, as would be true for in-person ideation, you’ll need to leave space after your sessions to flesh out your ideas into something truly compelling (and executable)!
Skilled facilitators are vital
The key role played by the individual or team facilitating an ideation is made even more evident in a virtual world, as the demands of the role are higher than in person – particularly when it comes to keeping up a team’s energy and engagement when laptops, emails and social media are at every participant’s disposal. Whether you’re working with external partners, or internal team members who are skilled in this area, it’s essential to ensure that every breakout is facilitated by someone who can both land the ideas accurately and intuitively, and keep everyone engaged and coming up with great ideas. Plus, if it’s at all possible, make sure your facilitator is not the same person running the tech – if something does go wrong, you’ll be glad to have the extra set of hands!
Don’t change too many variables at once
Just as it’s rarely a good idea to have a child, buy a house, and change your career all at once – when it comes to virtual ideation you can dramatically improve your odds of success by controlling as many variables as possible. In forming ideation groups, be intentional about matching personalities, while also balancing functional expertise, to ensure productive collaboration. Try to use creative techniques tried and tested within your company culture rather than experimenting with exciting yet unfamiliar new tools or approaches that could fall flat – better to keep your team focused on coming up with great ideas than learning a whole new way of doing things. And, crucially, don’t sacrifice inspiration! Giving your team a head start by integrating stimulus into your ideation process is even more important in the virtual world.
We’ve been thrilled to experience first-hand that virtual ideation is a truly viable online alternative to the traditional, in-person approach. Which is fortunate, really, since in a year where received wisdom, standard practice and old business models all seem to be changing day-by-day, there’s never been a more important time to be able to come up with a truly great idea.
After a year of surviving every challenge, crisis and catastrophe that the pandemic could throw at you, then, rest assured that leveraging the creative genius of your team remotely doesn’t have to be one of them!
Happy virtual ideating!
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