What if you were able to leave your kids alone in a self driving car? Or what if you could do a workout in the car on your way home? When you’re finding that everyone’s ideas are falling in and around the same areas of exploration, it’s time to expand the boundaries of your thinking. This is the perfect time to use a Creative Matrix!
HOW TO USE THE CREATIVE MATRIX
The goal of ideation is to expand the thinking and ideas of everyone on the team, to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. However, without context and practice, most of us have a tough time expanding beyond what we know (or came up with in the shower).
The creative matrix was designed with this in mind. Essentially, the creative matrix is a tool that will help spark new ideas at the intersections of discrete categories. This tool is all about divergent thinking. Best of all, you get to design your own creative matrix based on your design criteria, the market you play in, or the customers you serve (or wish to serve).
STEP BY STEP
- To design your own creative matrix, draw a grid on a whiteboard or poster paper with no more than five rows and five columns. Give it a topic or a central “how might we…?” question.
- For each of the columns, designate a customer segment (existing or new). For each of the rows, designate a particular technology, enabling solution, or value proposition. You might also opt to designate the end column and/or row as a wild card category, for placing open ideas.
- With your matrix in place, it’s time to ideate! Using sticky notes, have each person randomly and rapidly add as many ideas as they can come up with to the cells in the matrix. Words are good. Pictures are better! The goal is to fill in every single cell in the creative matrix with at least one idea.
- To incentivize people to generate more ideas, assign a point for each sticky note. The highest total score wins.
- Once every cell has been filled in and the time limit is up, it’s time to review everyone’s ideas. From there, as a team select the most promising ideas to move forward.
CREATIVE MATRIX FOR BMW
BMW is wondering if they can approach more market segments. What if babies and kids can be alone in a self driving car, how would that change the schedules of parents? What happens if teenagers don’t need their driver’s license anymore to drive to their friends? What if you can do your workout in the car, on the way to your destination? How far can people of 70+ travel, if they don’t have to drive themselves?
Once every cell has been filled in and the time limit is up, it’s time to review everyone’s ideas. Some ideas may sound to crazy, but we also did not believe we could ever fly to get to our destination, right? Nowadays, the airplane is a very common thing. So, in most cases, crazy ideas lead to new products, services or even companies. Once everyone has had an ample chance to look at each other’s work, have each person call out their favorite ideas (or top two). From there, as a team select the most promising ideas to move forward.
SO WHAT
The Creative Canvas helps you and your team to look further than existing ideas. What are the most crazy ideas that you can think of? This canvas helps you to think big. Put on your yellow thinking hat, which symbolizes brightness and optimism. From there, as a team select the most promising ideas to move forward. Note that this canvas is not meant to come up with solutions for problems. It is about creating insights and new ideas, and about having a conversation with your team about new possibilities. How creative are you?
NEED SOME HELP?
Do you want to innovate within your organisation, having a conversation about the future, new ideas or possibilities? Use the Creative Matrix! Make sure you have plenty of post-its and markers ready, and validate your new ideas. Do you need some help from us? Get in touch, we are more than willing to help you.