As a product innovator, you probably have tons of ideas for new features, solutions, or improvements. But how do you keep track of them, evaluate them, and communicate them to others? In this article, you will learn some practical tips and tools to organize and document your ideas effectively.
An ideation framework is a structured process that helps you generate, refine, and prioritize your ideas. You can choose from a variety of frameworks, such as SCAMPER, Brainstorming, Brainwriting, or How Might We. It's important to select one that meets your goals, team, and context. A good ideation framework should allow you to define the problem or opportunity you are addressing, generate numerous ideas without judgment, group and categorize them based on themes or criteria, select the most promising ones based on feasibility, desirability, and viability, and document and present your ideas in a clear and concise manner.
One if the most important aspect is to record the idea as soon as it comes to the mind. Using microsoft todo, notepads on mobile, etc can be good options. The second step ideally is to periodically review this list and document them in a journal with a set timeline to start working on it. Using a 2x2 framework to segregate the impact of the idea and effort estimations should help in prioritising the ideas.
I believe one of the most important thing you should do here is to scan and record everything, make some notes, record screens and finally make list based on your observation. then, review the list you generated in the previous step and prioritize them based on some common method such as "RICE" consider , effort, Impact and etc. and do it iteratively!
In my experience there is tons of ideations techniques that can be used to generate new ideas but one thing that I have personally found very insightful is to be able to define before any generation what is the target we want to achieve first. We want to be able to generate ideas on new innovations that goes into the x experience touch point. We want to solve the y consumer problem. Having that definition at the start put things into perspective and reduce the amount of clutter.
For product innovators, ideas are gold. But organizing and documenting them is crucial. Keep an Idea Journal—be it a notebook or apps like Evernote. Visualize connections using Mind Maps with tools like MindMeister. Prioritize using an Idea Backlog; Trello can be your ally here. Engage in Feedback Loops via Slack to refine those ideas. Sketch them out through Prototyping using Figma, and consolidate everything in an Idea Repository like Google Drive.
A good ideation framework should allow to create links between; all collected ideas in the past, needs that are know or new, potential products listed in the history or dream products. I would prefer products or services of competitors as well which will allow to see the landscape. Knowing that an idea is not a single star at universe but a member of a galaxy system, links are as valuable as single ideas. Links may allow us to think and evalute different for the ideas that we parked.
Finding a digital tool that works for you and your team can help you capture, organize, and share your ideas more easily and efficiently. Options such as Trello, Miro, Notion, or Evernote provide various features that can prove useful. A good digital tool should enable you to record your ideas in different formats, such as text, images, audio, or video. It should also allow you to organize your ideas in boards, lists, cards, or notes. Furthermore, it should facilitate collaboration with your team members in real time or asynchronously. Moreover, it should provide access to your ideas from any device or location and export or integrate them with other tools or platforms.
Tools can be digital and traditions. dont get hung up on just tools, sometime a white board and sticky pads can paint a much better picture that can be transported to a tool. In my experience have not seen one tool that can help across everything Miro board, Product Board, Jeera, Monday.co, asana, Confluence, Aha, there are many bot nothing that supports the entire process. Having said that, I would say pick only 1-2 that across your organization many can use
I would add - traceability. With stand-alone and isolated tools it becomes difficult to unlock the value of data that is persisted in there. Ideation tool shall have a feed to downstream systems that are used for planning and work management (like Planview and similar). Whenever an idea is picked for further investigation/implementation, at any point anyone involved should be able to trace the subsequent work back to the original idea to have end-to-end context (what and why).
Using a digital tool might help you a lot, because any tool in our knowledge area comes from thousand of best practices, therefore, you come to a common perspective with you team and other stakeholders. some great tools helped me to be more aligned with the teams are: Miro, Jira Board, Trello Product Board, Aha, Confluence.
I prefer Excel/Google sheets as it's pretty straightforward and does not have a learning curve especially if you're trying to collaborate on ideation with new team members. It's very easy to create a shared idea bank and work on prioritization together.
When I organize and document my ideas, I turn to Dovetail, which is incredibly handy for keeping everything together. It's not just for my random thoughts; I also store all the market and user research there. This way, I can easily cross-reference my ideas with actual data and insights from the market. In Dovetail, I categorize and tag everything, from initial sketches to detailed research findings. It's like having a digital library at my fingertips, where creative ideas meet real-world information, allowing me to make more informed and impactful decisions.
Using a template can be an effective way to document your ideas in a consistent and comprehensive way, as well as communicate them to others. There are many templates to choose from, such as Lean Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, or User Story Map - it's important to pick one that fits your stage of development and audience. A good template should help you capture the essential elements of your idea, such as the problem, the solution, the value proposition, the customer segments, or the user journey. It will also enable you to validate your assumptions and hypotheses with data and feedback. Furthermore, it will allow you to demonstrate the benefits and risks of your idea, showcase your unique selling proposition and competitive advantage, as well as explain how your idea fits into the bigger picture and strategy.
Visual presentation is the key to getting you point across and if it is backed with data then you are in a great spot. Use the tool that you lie, but keep it mind, it should showcase what the user experience is going to be and how does the change add value to the business goals
We use our own prioritization matrix (a simple weighted average matrix) to list and prioritize ideas. This comes in very handy as the parameters used to prioritize might change from company to company. Having a template where the parameters are defined and the scoring is agreed between the stakeholders helps with faster prioritization.
After identifying potential solutions or problems, it's time to dive into the iterative process. A useful approach at this stage is to map out assumptions about your product's impact. With your team, discuss and list assumptions regarding the feasibility, viability, and desirability of your ideas. This can be in the form of "we believe that X will happen if we do Y". Once you have a handful, plot them on a 2D matrix. One axis should assess the importance of testing each assumption for the product's success, while the other differentiates between known risks and areas needing more exploration. It's wise to start with areas that are both crucial and less explored to reduce risk early on.
A visual aid can be a great tool to help you illustrate your ideas in an engaging and memorable way, as well as simplify complex or abstract concepts. You can choose from a variety of visual aids, such as sketches, diagrams, charts, graphs, or prototypes. It's important to select one that complements your message and your medium. A good visual aid should show the features and functions of your idea, demonstrate the user experience and interaction, emphasize key points and data, appeal to the emotions and senses of your audience, and stimulate curiosity in your idea.
Visual representation gives life to the ideas. Whether it's rough sketches or high fidelity designs, the visual aid helps create a faster shared understanding between all the stakeholders.
An example I've seen is - Rapid Prototyping, used by Google Team. It includes: 1. Sketching & Paper Prototyping 2. Digital Prototyping (using Figma etc.) 3. Native Prototyping (e.g. HTML-CSS for Web Application)
Having a naming convention can help you identify and differentiate your ideas quickly and accurately, as well as avoid confusion and duplication when working with multiple ideas or versions. There are many naming conventions to choose from, such as acronyms, keywords, numbers, or dates. The key is to select one that is clear, concise, and consistent. A good naming convention should enable you to describe the main purpose or function of your idea, indicate the category or theme of your idea, specify the status or progress of your idea, track the changes or updates of your idea, and retrieve and reference your idea easily.
A feedback loop is a useful tool for improving and refining your ideas based on input from others, as well as validating and testing them before launching. You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, or experiments to create a relevant, timely, and actionable feedback loop. This will enable you to ask the right questions and listen to the answers, collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data, identify the strengths and weaknesses of your idea, incorporate the suggestions of your audience, and measure the impact and value of your idea.
The success of any idea is dependent on effective hypothesis validation through an actionable feedback loop with the relevant stakeholders including users and team members.
Don’t underestimate the power of relevant and timely feedback. Sometimes we get caught up on our own processes and ideas that presenting them to someone else, even if it is not a representative sample or established focus groups. You might find that through the process of explaining your ideas to a third party, it will become clearer to yourself
Having an advisory board of different functions that can give quick feedback on ideas and build on them is very beneficial. Using a template, they can highlight pros and cons of the idea and either shoot it in its tracks if it’s non viable or put it as next step for innovation exploration or opportunity assessment
Stakeholder involvement: no product can be build individually. Have the support and alignment with stake holders is critical for any product/idea to build and launch
Use metaphors, analogies and comparatives in the earliest stages of recording ideas. These are easier to understand and easier to communicate when the ideas are still abstract. They are also less likely to become 'set in stone' (or to be affected by 'ownership bias' or 'solution blindness'). For example, a sentence like: "We would take our product [x] and do it a bit like competitor [y] but with something like [z] thrown in".