Innovation Tip: WALK AROUND IT

Here is a technique you can use when you are in a conference room as part of a team looking for innovative ideas on a specific challenge.

1. Each team member is given an A3 sheet of paper.
2. Each person then illustrates the challenge with a drawing, sketch or diagramme – or any other pictorial representation. Colour felt tip pens would be good.
3. They must add no more than 4 key words to reflect their view of the challenge.
4. All the A3 sheets are posted on the walls of the room.
5. All team members “walk around” the room and view all the pictures.
6. Team members return to the table and individually write down ideas that they have thought of that were stimulated by one of the pictures. This listing should include a few wild ideas.
7. The raw ideas lists are attached to relevant pictures.
8. Everyone walks around again reviewing the ideas lists, looking for potential combinations and improvements to the ideas.
9. The team now discusses all the ideas and develops a list of good ideas.

The “Walk around it” technique should take no longer than 15 to 20 mins, depending on the size of the team.
The technique exploits several of the key factors in generating innovative ideas:

• It is a visual tool
• It uses both individual and group thinking
• It views the challenge from different perspectives.
• It encourages combinations of ideas
• It gives the freedom for individual input.

It does not matter whether you can draw well or not. In fact the non-artistic types often come up with the most provocative pictures, as their drawings can be interpreted in many different ways.