1. Key Components of an Ideation & Creativity Workshop

A successful ideation workshop follows a structured yet flexible format that facilitates creative thinking, engagement, and the free flow of ideas. The key components of a typical workshop include:

a. Clear Objectives

Workshops must have clear objectives, whether it’s generating ideas for a new product, solving a particular business challenge, or exploring new opportunities. Establishing a clear purpose helps guide the ideation process and focus the participants.

• Example: An objective could be “generate ideas to improve customer engagement for a new app launch.”

b. Diverse Participants

Involving participants with diverse backgrounds, expertise, and perspectives enhances creativity. Bringing people together from different departments, roles, or industries encourages cross-pollination of ideas and prevents groupthink.

c. Creative Environment

The physical or virtual space should be conducive to creativity, with tools like whiteboards, sticky notes, markers, and creative props readily available. Virtual workshops may use collaborative tools like Miro, MURAL, or Google Jamboard to replicate the interactive experience.

d. Facilitator

A facilitator plays a crucial role in keeping the workshop on track, guiding the process, and ensuring everyone participates. They help manage the flow of activities and encourage quieter participants to contribute while ensuring that more dominant voices don’t take over.

e. Structured Process

Workshops typically follow a structured process that moves participants through different phases of thinking, starting from problem definition and moving toward ideation, evaluation, and sometimes prototyping. This process balances creativity with focus and productivity.

2. Popular Ideation Techniques and Activities

There are several techniques and exercises used in creativity workshops to inspire thinking and generate ideas. These activities are often chosen based on the goals of the session and the preferences of the participants.

a. Brainstorming

Brainstorming is one of the most popular ideation techniques, encouraging participants to generate as many ideas as possible in a set time frame without filtering or judging them.

• Key Rules:

  • Defer judgment: No criticism or evaluation of ideas during brainstorming.
  • Encourage wild ideas: Outlandish or far-fetched ideas can spark new thinking.
  • Build on others’ ideas: Participants should feel free to expand or combine ideas.
  • Go for quantity: The more ideas, the better—quantity breeds quality in brainstorming.

• Variants:

  • Silent Brainstorming: Participants write ideas individually, then share them with the group to avoid groupthink.
  • Reverse Brainstorming: Instead of asking how to solve a problem, participants brainstorm ways to create or exacerbate the problem, which can then inspire solutions.

b. SCAMPER

SCAMPER is a creativity technique that involves asking specific questions to stimulate thinking by modifying or reimagining an existing product, service, or process.

• SCAMPER stands for:

  • Substitute: What can be substituted in the current idea?
  • Combine: What ideas or components can be combined?
  • Adapt: How can this idea be adapted to new uses?
  • Modify: What can be modified or magnified?
  • Put to another use: How can this be repurposed?
  • Eliminate: What can be removed or reduced?
  • Reverse: What happens if we reverse or rearrange the order?

• Example: In a SCAMPER session for a retail product, participants may explore how combining features from two successful products could create a new market offering.