Discovery Diaries: Ideation [As a PM]

Part Two

This is part two of the ‘Discovery Diaries’ series. You can find ‘Part 1’ — here.

Naturally, after gathering all your raw data and making some sense of it you want to start ideating on some ideas which could solve your recently discovered problems otherwise known as the ‘Ideation’ stage (PMs secretly love this stage).

The goal is to create ideas which solve a problem but also that can be incorporated into a design or prototype. These designs would then be developed to a point that can be evaluated by users, but not developed enough to be considered finished.

Creating these ideas and prototypes should be done with a variety of members from across the business. A diverse set of minds should likely increase the likelihood of innovation.

It’s most likely that various stakeholders from the business can bring in new data from their relevant teams and add valuable information to the conversation and ideation phase.

Intro

A great way to start these workshops would be to give everyone in the room an introduction and some context before jumping into anything else.

The what

What data or research have we collated and what are the problems we're facing?

The why

Why are we focusing on this problem?

The outcome

What is the outcome of this workshop?

Key Insights

After giving an intro and walking through your research, it may be a good idea to highlight some of the key insights you found in your data gathering or research. The alternative would be to ask your attendees to come up with their own insights based on the data you’ve provided.

As suggested in ‘Part 1' you may prioritise these problems early on in order to focus on more important challenges.

This will give you purpose in your workshop and allow all attendees to focus on solving for these user needs or problems.

Action: Add ‘ key insights’ post-it notes at the top of the board

How might we …. (HMWs)

Once you’ve collated all key insights you can then start to formulate your hypothesis or HMW statements which will allow you to frame the problem in question. This is a great way to allow you to start tackling problems.

Goal: To generate ‘How might we’ statements to frame our challenge (based on user needs or problems)

Activity (5 mins): Write down as many HMW statements as you can on post-it notes. Get everyone to vote with a dot on the best HMW at the end.

Example: “How might we — Increase engagement on our landing page”

There’s no limit on how many HMW questions you should produce. The more you have, the better. If you find yourself with too many, ask yourself whether there is any overlap between them and see if you can combine some into one broader HMW.

Using this simple technique can set your team up for success in framing the challenge on the right problems.

Ideas

Goal: To generate ideas to solve your chosen problems or HMW statements.

Activity (20 mins): Grab a number of post-it notes and write down as many ideas as you can to solve our chosen user problem (use the HMW). Vote on the best idea at the end with a dot.

Example: “‘How might we — Increase engagement on our landing page’ = Build a pricing calculator which users can play around with when they land”

This should be very unstructured and almost like a freestyle rap (but silent). Write down as many ideas as you can and just get stuck in. No idea is bad, so think of as many bad ideas as you can.

Wireframe

Goal: To translate your idea into a tangible product/journey

Activity (20 mins): Create the journey of your chosen idea using basic elements and write down the user story below. Vote on the best idea at the end with a dot.

Example: “‘How might we — Increase engagement on our landing page’ = Build a pricing calculator which users can play around with when they land = Designs a simple ‘Cost-Saving Calculator’ on the landing page”

This is a fantastic exercise to bring ideas to life. It can be difficult, especially in 20 mins but it does promote innovation and creativity.

What's next?

You can then repeat these workshops across the business with multiple stakeholders and then start to cluster your findings, similarities or themes.

The next stage would be to choose an idea and validate it.

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