What makes some product ideas better than others? Why do product development teams often settle for mediocre solutions?
In Continuous Discovery Habits, Teresa Torres reveals the key to generating exceptional product solutions through strategic product brainstorming techniques. By alternating between individual and group ideation sessions, teams can maximize their creative potential and develop stronger solutions to customer problems.
Keep reading to discover how product brainstorming can transform your team’s approach to problem-solving and lead to breakthrough innovations.
Product Brainstorming
Torres points out that product development teams often already have a few ideas compiled for solving issues they’ve noted. However, these tend to be the first or second solutions they’ve thought of, and research shows that our first ideas are rarely our best ones. Instead, it’s important to generate many ideas in order to stimulate the creative process and come up with the best solution.
Torres argues in favor of switching between product brainstorming as individuals and as a group. Research shows that individuals tend to come up with more ideas—and more creative ones—than people working in groups. However, individuals can sometimes get stuck, which slows progress. By brainstorming individually first, then coming together and sharing ideas as a group, product development teams can achieve optimal productivity and creativity in coming up with solutions.
(Shortform note: In Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson expounds on how good ideas develop. He explains that ideas don’t magically appear out of nothing; rather, they build on existing knowledge and ideas, which can help explain why the more ideas you come up with, the better each new idea will be. These earlier ideas act as platforms on top of which you can develop higher-level ideas, resulting in higher-quality solutions the more time you spend ideating.)
To put this process into action, alternate between individual and group brainstorming until you have at least 15 ideas. Then, take multiple group votes, gradually eliminating the least popular solutions, until you’re down to three.
(Shortform note: Another benefit of switching between individual and group brainstorming is that it can help equally distribute the cognitive load the process requires. Research shows that, in group settings, the majority of the work is often done by just a few individuals, with other group members participating little or not at all. Certain groups may be more prone to this unequal distribution than others; women, for example, often do more work in group settings and get less credit than men. By expecting team members to come to the group session having already generated ideas individually, teams can reduce this discrepancy and create a collaborative setting that’s both more equitable and more productive.)
