Understand the aims of Ideation stage: generating a wide range of ideas without initial judgment or filtering. Learn tips and techniques to facilitate free-flowing brainstorming sessions in this lesson.
What is the Ideation Phase?
Ideation is a creative process where you generate, develop, and communicate new ideas. It's a phase in the Design Thinking process where open-mindedness and free thinking are encouraged to generate a wide array of innovative solutions.
Principles of Ideation
Ideation operates on several key principles:
- Encourage quantity: The focus should be on generating as many ideas as possible.
- Welcome wild ideas: No idea is considered too outlandish or wild during ideation. The wildest ideas often lead to the most innovative solutions.
- Defer judgment: Ideas should not be judged or critiqued during the initial ideation stage.
- Encourage visual representation: Visualizing ideas can help others understand them quickly and stimulate further ideas.
Importance of Participation
Ideation benefits immensely from the diversity of the participants involved. The more varied the participants, the richer the collection of ideas generated.
Note
Homework: Set a challenge that requires a creative solution. Spend 15 minutes brainstorming ideas, keeping in mind the principles and techniques learned during this lesson.The next lesson Critique and Evaluation in Design Thinking helps to understand when and how to introduce critical thinking and evaluation into the process, without inhibiting creativity.