I am so professional, do I still need a brainstorm?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Product One Two Three” (ID: spm0123) , author : Qiwen Tianxiang.
Brainstorming should be a familiar method for Internet practitioners. The goal is to brainstorm ideas to the greatest extent possible. In my limited observations, pure user product teams will use this method more, but many businesses that belong to the “Internet +” category will use this method less or use the wrong method. why? Because the traditional business behind the Internet + (such as finance) itself has many years of established processes, rules, and specifications, many people who have been immersed in it for a long time will have varying degrees of empiricalism and stereotypes. The “wonderful thinking” of “out of common sense” is ridiculous (unfortunately, I also occasionally make this kind of problem everyday)
01 Why brainstorm?
It is true that for a highly regulated business such as finance, it is subject to a lot of clear rules and latent rules. For cases where the background of brainstorming is unclear, many suggestions from brainstorming may be The thunder pool that can’t be tested, so the revenue will not be as large as that of pure Internet business (such as eating, drinking, and playing). Nevertheless, in my team, I still try to discuss with you in this form as much as possible, and even the daily business discussions will include the development team, because brainstorming can create a team equality, trust, and transparency. An atmosphere of communication that creates a tacit understanding of teamwork.
As many people do n’t understand the difference between KPI and OKR, KPI was photographed from the top. OKR was largely discussed by the team members, because “ups and downs are the same”. Many times we are distressed by the team ’s understanding. The low level of communication and misery is precisely because the upstream and downstream of the collaboration chain just blindly expect the other party to accept their own ideas or tasks, and ignore the efforts to reach consensus.
And brainstorming is the initial beginning of a requirement or project. At this starting point, everyone in the collaboration chain is brought in and everyone participates in the discussion. Due to the psychological law of “commitment and consistency”, it can be essentially a follow-up. The project promotes a very good communication foundation.
In fact, in my experience, the tacit understanding of the entire team is established through such “brainstorming”. In addition, through this process, the research and development team can continue to align with the products and operations in the business recognition. Knowledge, especially some information about business models, development ideas, and business common sense.
So in summary, in addition to the value of creative ideas, brainstorming has the following benefits:
1. Build team tacitness
2. Laying the foundation for the smooth development of the project
3. Latch all team members’ perception of the business
02 What to do with brainstorming?
The first systematic approach to “brainstorming” was an internal training at NetEase many years ago. At that time, the training started with a documentary about IDEO. IDEO is the world’s top design consulting company. It can be said that ” One of the representative companies of “Innovative Design” designed the first mouse for Apple in 1982. In 1999, ABC’s famous evening show “Night Line” decided to make a special show, so that viewers can see how innovation happened. They contacted IDEO and presented them with a challenge: redesigning shopping carts that people use every day in five days.
In the end, IDEO went through a three-step process: user-centric demanding insight, deep and diverse creative inspiration, and fast and low-cost iterating. task. The deep and diverse creative inspiration is the brainstorming session.
At the time I first entered the Internet industry, although I knew some of the methods used in the documentary, I intuitively saw a group of people who were so coherent and flexible in applying these methods freely and creatively and quickly solved life A product design problem that can be seen is frankly shocking to myself, just like the impact of seeing a classmate performing a well-known military boxing during college, the original “formulation” is in the master You can interpret a completely different taste in your hands!
All the theoretical methods are focused on “learning to apply”. The following is not a big and comprehensive introduction to the method, mainly to share your own experience and experience in practice.
The whole brainstorming is divided into two stages:
Divergence-Convergence
A moderator is appointed throughout the meeting, who will announce the topics discussed and maintain meeting rules.
The divergence stage is when everyone opens their minds and sets no limits. There are two important principles:
-
Do not deny
-
Relaxed atmosphere
Non-negation is to encourage everyone to express their opinions, and no more outrageous ideas can be issued. In fact, the more experienced students in the team should pay special attention to this, because their professionalism, the negation is in their opinion. When there are many unreliable opinionsThe climate change will become a kind of conditioned reflection, where you need to take the initiative to restrain yourself, or to maintain order by the host.
Keeping the atmosphere relaxed and happy is also for everyone to think better. You can even buy some snacks and discuss while eating and drinking (when Netease did this process) This can be determined by the actual situation of each team. If the team atmosphere is serious, this form can be used to forcefully create a relaxed atmosphere.
During the divergence stage, in my practical experience, in order to avoid some classmates’ ideas being wonderful and inhibiting the ideas of other classmates, they will not take public speaking, but will send everyone a note paper, and at the same time Limit the minimum number of ideas, and let everyone fill in the time limit.
This way you can “persecute” everyone to contribute their ideas without pressure.
After all the students fill in the form, the host will collect and summarize it. Each student will take turns telling the ideas behind their ideas. The host will list them on the whiteboard. The same or similar ideas can be merged. Discuss freely based on each idea.
Then enter the convergence phase.
The convergence stage is to introduce some realistic constraints such as cost, operability, benefits, etc., so that everyone can jointly choose the “optimal solution” that fits the theme. Generally, you can choose between two methods : One is qualitative selection, each person chooses the best * idea that they think, one is quantitative selection, 10 points system, each person gives a quantitative score to each idea.
Specifically, in order to avoid everyone’s “conformity” behavior, everyone will write it on the note paper first, and then it will be summarized by the moderator. After the summary, each student will also take turns telling the basis of their score. The part of the explanation is particularly important because sometimes the answer is not important. What is important is the deduction process behind the answer. This process can often give us a lot of inspiration.
03 An example
The following is a practical case from a few years ago. The background is an upcoming flight delay insurance product. I hope to find a feasible marketing promotion plan through brainstorming. The entire brainstorming is divided into two parts. Part of the object and scene is to find out the channels and methods that can be marketed.
The first part of the format during the divergence phase is: who (marketing object), what (scenario), why (purchase motivation); the second part of the format is: reach method, form, point of interest. All R & D students throughout the process also participated in them, and many good ideas were contributed by them, as follows:
1. User demand scenario
2. Promotion plan
About the author
Qiwen Tianxiang
The product veteran has been responsible for user products at NetEase and a leading domestic financial group, and is currently responsible for the financial sub-business of a mobile Internet giant.
1. Build team tacitness
2. Laying the foundation for the smooth development of the project
3. Latch all team members’ perception of the business
02 What to do with brainstorming?
The first systematic approach to “brainstorming” was an internal training at NetEase many years ago. At that time, the training started with a documentary about IDEO. IDEO is the world’s top design consulting company. It can be said that ” One of the representative companies of “Innovative Design” designed the first mouse for Apple in 1982. In 1999, ABC’s famous evening show “Night Line” decided to make a special show, so that viewers can see how innovation happened. They contacted IDEO and presented them with a challenge: redesigning shopping carts that people use every day in five days.
In the end, IDEO went through a three-step process: user-centric demanding insight, deep and diverse creative inspiration, and fast and low-cost iterating. task. The deep and diverse creative inspiration is the brainstorming session.
At the time I first entered the Internet industry, although I knew some of the methods used in the documentary, I intuitively saw a group of people who were so coherent and flexible in applying these methods freely and creatively and quickly solved life A product design problem that can be seen is frankly shocking to myself, just like the impact of seeing a classmate performing a well-known military boxing during college, the original “formulation” is in the master You can interpret a completely different taste in your hands!
All the theoretical methods are focused on “learning to apply”. The following is not a big and comprehensive introduction to the method, mainly to share your own experience and experience in practice.
The whole brainstorming is divided into two stages:
Divergence-Convergence
A moderator is appointed throughout the meeting, who will announce the topics discussed and maintain meeting rules.
The divergence stage is when everyone opens their minds and sets no limits. There are two important principles:
-
Do not deny
-
Relaxed atmosphere
Non-negation is to encourage everyone to express their opinions, and no more outrageous ideas can be issued. In fact, the more experienced students in the team should pay special attention to this, because their professionalism, the negation is in their opinion. When there are many unreliable opinionsThe climate change will become a kind of conditioned reflection, where you need to take the initiative to restrain yourself, or to maintain order by the host.
Keeping the atmosphere relaxed and happy is also for everyone to think better. You can even buy some snacks and discuss while eating and drinking (when Netease did this process) This can be determined by the actual situation of each team. If the team atmosphere is serious, this form can be used to forcefully create a relaxed atmosphere.
During the divergence stage, in my practical experience, in order to avoid some classmates’ ideas being wonderful and inhibiting the ideas of other classmates, they will not take public speaking, but will send everyone a note paper, and at the same time Limit the minimum number of ideas, and let everyone fill in the time limit.
This way you can “persecute” everyone to contribute their ideas without pressure.
After all the students fill in the form, the host will collect and summarize it. Each student will take turns telling the ideas behind their ideas. The host will list them on the whiteboard. The same or similar ideas can be merged. Discuss freely based on each idea.
Then enter the convergence phase.
The convergence stage is to introduce some realistic constraints such as cost, operability, benefits, etc., so that everyone can jointly choose the “optimal solution” that fits the theme. Generally, you can choose between two methods : One is qualitative selection, each person chooses the best * idea that they think, one is quantitative selection, 10 points system, each person gives a quantitative score to each idea.
Specifically, in order to avoid everyone’s “conformity” behavior, everyone will write it on the note paper first, and then it will be summarized by the moderator. After the summary, each student will also take turns telling the basis of their score. The part of the explanation is particularly important because sometimes the answer is not important. What is important is the deduction process behind the answer. This process can often give us a lot of inspiration.
03 An example
The following is a practical case from a few years ago. The background is an upcoming flight delay insurance product. I hope to find a feasible marketing promotion plan through brainstorming. The entire brainstorming is divided into two parts. Part of the object and scene is to find out the channels and methods that can be marketed.
The first part of the format during the divergence phase is: who (marketing object), what (scenario), why (purchase motivation); the second part of the format is: reach method, form, point of interest. All R & D students throughout the process also participated in them, and many good ideas were contributed by them, as follows:
1. User demand scenario
2. Promotion plan
About the author
Qiwen Tianxiang
The product veteran has been responsible for user products at NetEase and a leading domestic financial group, and is currently responsible for the financial sub-business of a mobile Internet giant.
Divergence-Convergence
A moderator is appointed throughout the meeting, who will announce the topics discussed and maintain meeting rules.
The divergence stage is when everyone opens their minds and sets no limits. There are two important principles:
-
Do not deny
-
Relaxed atmosphere
Non-negation is to encourage everyone to express their opinions, and no more outrageous ideas can be issued. In fact, the more experienced students in the team should pay special attention to this, because their professionalism, the negation is in their opinion. When there are many unreliable opinionsThe climate change will become a kind of conditioned reflection, where you need to take the initiative to restrain yourself, or to maintain order by the host.
Keeping the atmosphere relaxed and happy is also for everyone to think better. You can even buy some snacks and discuss while eating and drinking (when Netease did this process) This can be determined by the actual situation of each team. If the team atmosphere is serious, this form can be used to forcefully create a relaxed atmosphere.
During the divergence stage, in my practical experience, in order to avoid some classmates’ ideas being wonderful and inhibiting the ideas of other classmates, they will not take public speaking, but will send everyone a note paper, and at the same time Limit the minimum number of ideas, and let everyone fill in the time limit.
This way you can “persecute” everyone to contribute their ideas without pressure.
After all the students fill in the form, the host will collect and summarize it. Each student will take turns telling the ideas behind their ideas. The host will list them on the whiteboard. The same or similar ideas can be merged. Discuss freely based on each idea.
Then enter the convergence phase.
The convergence stage is to introduce some realistic constraints such as cost, operability, benefits, etc., so that everyone can jointly choose the “optimal solution” that fits the theme. Generally, you can choose between two methods : One is qualitative selection, each person chooses the best * idea that they think, one is quantitative selection, 10 points system, each person gives a quantitative score to each idea.
Specifically, in order to avoid everyone’s “conformity” behavior, everyone will write it on the note paper first, and then it will be summarized by the moderator. After the summary, each student will also take turns telling the basis of their score. The part of the explanation is particularly important because sometimes the answer is not important. What is important is the deduction process behind the answer. This process can often give us a lot of inspiration.
03 An example
The following is a practical case from a few years ago. The background is an upcoming flight delay insurance product. I hope to find a feasible marketing promotion plan through brainstorming. The entire brainstorming is divided into two parts. Part of the object and scene is to find out the channels and methods that can be marketed.
The first part of the format during the divergence phase is: who (marketing object), what (scenario), why (purchase motivation); the second part of the format is: reach method, form, point of interest. All R & D students throughout the process also participated in them, and many good ideas were contributed by them, as follows:
1. User demand scenario
2. Promotion plan
About the author
Qiwen Tianxiang
The product veteran has been responsible for user products at NetEase and a leading domestic financial group, and is currently responsible for the financial sub-business of a mobile Internet giant.