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