Association Insight International & European | Page 38
Association Insights | Expert Briefing
Step Three: Evaluate
Now it’s time to evaluate all the ideas and choose the best
one(s) to implement. There are various ways of doing this,
but assuming you have a lot of possible solutions, one
option is to open it up to a simple vote. Each participant
has 3 or 4 dots they can use to vote for their favourite
ideas. Participants should be encouraged to vote for
some wild ideas too, as these can turn out to be the most
creative.
A grid such as the one below can be used to assess the
ideas against criteria identified by the group. Ideally these
need to be chosen in advance of the evaluation process
and might include things like cost, time, number of staff
needed to implement etc. Once they are agreed, score each
idea against each of the criteria in turn, giving marks out of
10, and then move on to the next idea. If a criterion is very
important you can even assign double points.
Next a more scientific process can be used to evaluate the
most promising ideas.
Scores against each of the evaluation criteria:
Promising Solutions:
1 (Cost)
2 (Time)
e.g. offer a free gift on
renewal
4
7
3
4
5
6
Totals
Step Four: Implement
Make a plan for implementation and put the new ideas into
practice.
This is often neglected but doesn’t have to be difficult.
Follow these simple rules:
• What needs to happen before anything else?
• Who else needs to be involved?
• Does anyone else need convincing?
• How will we do this?
• What is the best implementation schedule?
• When is the best time to start?
“If you always do what you’ve always
done, you’ll always get what you’ve
always got.”
- Mark Twain
“Insanity is doing the same thing
over and over and expecting a
different result.”
- Albert Einstein
What next?
It’s really important that someone takes responsibility for
the implementation of the chosen ideas. This usually means
that someone in senior management needs to give their
approval. If you are in that position, but haven’t been able
to participate in the session, it’s helpful to acknowledge
how much effort has gone into the process of choosing
which ideas to try out. All too often people come up with
some really creative ideas, only to find that management
is unwilling to try them. So it’s important to have
management buy-in to the process from the start.
Don’t forget to evaluate the success of any new ideas and
also revisit any ideas that were saved for later use. A regular
staff meeting with a creative problem solving session will
really encourage continuous innovation in your association.
Caroline Fryer Bolingbroke
Director of The Creativity Centre
Co-editor of the Creativity & Human
Development International eJournal
[email protected]
www.creativitycentre.com
www.creativityjournal.net
38 | © Associations Network 2015
Solution
This puzzle is thought to be the origin
of the term ‘think outside the box’. It’s
become a catchphrase for creative
thinking, but actually you don’t always
need to think outside the box to be
more creative. Often having a box
or boundaries actually promotes
creativity. For example, the film Apollo 13
demonstrates how creative people can
actually be, when it depicts the scene
when NASA staff were given a limited number of parts to use
to create a replacement air filter in a short amount of time.
Caroline was one of the first creativity consultants in
the UK, and for the last 20 years she has been enabling
organisations, associations and individuals to become
more creative. She learned many of the creative thinking
strategies she uses directly from the experts who devised
them and has published many articles on the subj ect.
www.associationsnetwork.org