But then an association to colors and colorful life come out, which led to the idea of a new product line of colored bottles. How does the word “flower” or its image relate to the brand positioning of an aluminum bottle. This involves selecting two or three words or pictures out of a hat and then looking for analogies, associations, and other links to the problem statement. Just like competitive swimmers train both in the pool (to be good at the actual swimming) and in the gym (to improve stamina and muscle tone), jammers need to practice not only problem definition and brainstorming but also spend time engaging with creative thinking tools that they can apply in their ideation processes.įor example, SIGG, a Swiss producer of aluminum bottles, used a “random words” exercise in a jamming session. Jamming sessions are over for now at this company. ![]() Since expectations going into the process had been very high, the sense of disappointment was doubled. People never got near to framing a concrete plan for actually growing. Here the problem statement was simply “look for growth opportunities.” The result was an existential discussion around the meaning of growth and an identification of all the potential drivers. I saw just this dynamic in a jamming session we tracked at a European sportswear company. Pretty quickly the whole jamming process will break down. The business, technological, and other challenges that are encapsulated in a jamming team’s problem statement all need to be clearly understood in the same way by everyone otherwise each team member will end up trying to solve a different problem. These are usually jargon-heavy and can be interpreted in different ways, which is sometimes thought useful because it initially helps achieve buy-in.īut for jamming to pay dividends, problems need sharp definition, even if this requires more effort up-front. Often, in a desire to get the ball rolling or maybe because of the leadership’s own imperfect understanding of their company’s problems, jamming teams are often given broad, ill-defined problem statements. In many of the cases we found that the reason for failure in jamming lay in a weak definition of the problem or challenge a team was addressing. They define the problem statement clearly In general we find that teams of four offer enough diversity and engage quickly with the challenges they select.Ģ. If time is tight - as it is with jamming - you want to accelerate this part of the teaming process and you can’t do that with a big team. In any team, members need to get to know each other and define their norms of working together. A big mistake is to think that you need to let everyone get involved, but academic research consistently shows that people tend to prefer working in small teams. ![]() You’ll see much more creative energy.Īnd keep the jamming teams small. Let participants choose what they want to work on instead. If that’s what you’re doing now, then stop. Well, it turns out that in many companies jamming participants are simply assigned a challenge or a problem to work on. It’s dramatic proof that when we choose for ourselves, we are far more committed to the outcome. Intriguingly they found that they had to pay five times more to people who had chosen their own numbers. ![]() Just before drawing a winning number, the researchers offered to buy back the tickets. ![]() The others were asked to write down a number. Half the participants were randomly assigned a number. In a classic experiment, researchers ran a lottery. They work in self-defined, small sub-teams We’ve been comparing how innovative companies structure and conduct jamming sessions and we’ve identified a set of practices that successful jammers all seem to share:ġ. If your company is one, you may be interested in our experience at the European Center for Strategic Innovation. Jamming has become a popular way to unearth innovations - bringing together people of many different backgrounds to creatively brainstorm around a company’s competitive challenges, expressed as “problem statements.” Yet although the process is widely hyped, many companies struggle to make them work.
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