A couple of days ago, I facilitated a strategic planning session for a small ASP
startup here in Indiana, USA. The company’s CEO was seeking to re-think nearly every aspect of his company from a marketing perspective — offering, positioning, messaging, communication channels, etc. — and wanted to start the process with a 3-hour session involving his salespeople and half of his company’s board of directors. Although I sensed that he would have liked to see the session produce a complete re-do of his company’s marketing approach, we agreed to simply try to make the most of the time allotted and “see what happens.”

The day after the session, the CEO forwarded his comments via e-mail:

We definitely derived some value [from the session]. Of course, everyone would have liked to walk away with a break-thru, but we did start some good discussions that have continued through the course of [the day after the session]. In fact, I would say that I feel better about the session [one day later] than I did [at the end of the session]. Through email follow-up, some common themes are taking shape that are actionable.

In my experience, this is typical next-day response following most creative thinking sessions and planning sessions. I suspect that things will continue to “take shape” for the CEO in the coming days.

Most participants enter such sessions with the expectation of identifying one or more “breakthrough” ideas during the course of the discussion. The output from a typical session can include a list or two of business issues, flow charts, new questions posed, new ideas uncovered. Unfortunately, many people leave the typical session feeling at least a little disappointed at the lack of world-changing ideas generated during the discussions.

The real value of any we-need-new-ideas session often emerges after the session. While people “sleep on it” and proceed with their lives in the days that follow, their brains digest the content from the session — the lists, the flowcharts, the new questions, the ideas, even the emotions which arose during the event. Then “it” happens to one or more of the participants — usually at an unexpected moment, and sometimes triggered by a separate, unrelated stimulus from their life: a minor or major “Aha” moment when a totally new approach, a refinement of an existing idea, or some re-combination of previous ideas pops into one’s head. Such moments can occur multiple times, for days — even weeks — after the session.

Bear in mind that breakthrough ideas still aren’t easy to come by. There are no guarantees that any single idea-generating session will produce a home-run concept. It’s like baseball: more at-bats means more opportunities to hit a homer.

To summarize, here’s a few pointers on deriving value from idea generation sessions:
1. Plant plenty of seeds for new ideas in the minds of participants by conducting frequent idea-generation sessions.
2. Give those new seeds time to germinate.
3. Watch for ideas to “blossom” at unexpected times and in unexpected places.

Edit:
Kathy Sierra’s latest post provides more food for thought on idea generation and assessment:
When only the glib win, we all lose