Category Archives: BookNotes

Brainsteering

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Part of the “BookNotes” series – highlights from interesting books I’ve recently read

Brainsteering: A Better Approach to Breakthrough Ideas, by Kevin Coyne and Shawn Coyne

Brainsteering – taking all the creative energy normally associated with brainstorming and steering it in a more productive direction

2 Secrets to Brainsteering:

  1. If you ask the right questions, answers and good ideas will follow
  2. The right process for generating breakthrough ideas looks very different from what you’ve been taught

4 Criteria for the Right Question

  1. Forces you to take a perspective you haven’t taken before
  2. Limits the conceptual space you can explore
  3. Must still provide lots of highly attractive possibilities
  4. Just plain succeeds

5 Patterns of Right Questions

  1. Identifying unsolved customer questions
  2. “De-averaging” users and activities
  3. Exporing unexpected successes
  4. Imagining perfection
  5. Discovering unexpected headroom

Brainsteering Workshop

  • Understand the criteria that will be used to make decisions about the workshop ideas
  • Select the right questions
  • Choose the right people
  • Separate the group into small subgroups
  • Match the question to the subgroup
  • Isolate the idea crushers into one group (the Boss, the Bigmouth, the subject matter Expert)
  • Orient the participants
  • Conduct each ideation session according to a strict formula

An Idea Everyone Will Like

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There’s no such thing as a truly original idea.
I don’t know who said it first, but it’s something I really believe! I’ve found a fascinating book by creativity expert David Kord Murray that takes that saying to the outer limits.
Over the last month I’ve been working on a project related to innovation and design in ChurchWorld, and this line of thought resonated a lot with me.
Borrowing Brilliance will challenge you as it examines the evolution of a creative idea. It also offers practical advice, taking the reader step-by-step through Murry’s unique thought process. Here are the six steps:
  1. Defining – define the problem you’re trying to solve
  2. Borrowing – Borrow ideas from places with a similar problem
  3. Combining – Connect and combine these borrowed ideas
  4. Incubating – Allow the combinations to incubate into a solution
  5. Judging – Identify the strength and weakness of the solution
  6. Enhancing – Eliminate the weak points while enhancing the strong ones

Read a quick summary of the six steps here. You can also get more information at this website. But don’t stop there – by all means pick up a copy of the book and explore it deeper – and you will find yourself looking at creativity in a whole new light.

Got a challenge staring you in the face, and looking for a solution. Why not follow the steps above by “borrowing some brilliance” and formulate your own unique solution?