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DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS134

G Stage Seven: ‘go back for seconds’ – present the selected ideas back
to the original group and seek additional ideas based on this list.
Not only will the original team have had a chance to sleep on the
initial exercise, which may itself have suggested further ideas,
reviewing the selected list may also prompt further refinements

G Stage Eight: carry the final list of possible ideas through to the
evaluation process, which we will discuss in the next chapter.

If working in a group, Tom Kelley, IDEO’s managing director, also
suggests some additional rules for effective brainstorming:104

G Ensure that the session is entirely status-free
G Encourage spontaneity rather than allocate every participant specific

air-time
G Do not restrict the group just to the recognised experts – in order to

encourage insight and thinking outside the box, include free-
thinkers who do not suffer from the mental stuckness which we
discussed earlier. Remember that one of the troubles with experts is
that they always know why things cannot be done
G Always schedule brainstorms in-house – brainstorming at external
venues can encourage the perception that innovation and creativity
are not your normal stock-in-trade
G Do not get bogged down in excessive note-taking – encourage all
participants to engage in real time, without prompts and without
keeping the score themselves, so that everybody is poised to
contribute all the time.

one of the troubles with experts is that they
always know why things cannot be done

mind-mapping Mind-mapping represents a good technique for

tapping into your intuitive, holistic right brain in order to develop
creative ideas for products and services. Originally developed by