Organic & Cage Free
Eggs & Egg Products
Shell, Dry, Liquid/Frozen, ESL
Industrial, Food Service,
& Retail Packaging Available
“Eggs Produced the Way Nature Intended!”
Farmer’s Organic Foods
International, LLC
P.O. Box 23
Blair, WI 54616 USA;
Tel: 608-989-2500 • Fax: 608-989-2524
Web: www.farmersorganicfoods.com
wild innovation are encouraged; later ideas can be
screened, evaluated and accepted for further development
or rejected for valid, documented reasons.
Session ground rules include emphasizing a shared sense
of purpose, focusing on the desired outcome, building on
each other’s ideas, being present for each other, being respectful, embracing mistakes and taking risks.
The Icebreaker. Prior to starting the ideation, icebreakers will help to warm-up the session members. Each icebreaker lasts 5–7 minutes. These are fun “mental limbering
up” activities designed to get to know other members. A
couple examples of icebreakers are:
• Appearance: Players pair up back to back, with eyes
closed. They are asked questions about the appearance
of their partner and answer silently to themselves. They
then turn around and see how well they did. The group
discusses the results focusing on how much we notice in
the day-to-day world around us.
• Company Picnic: Players are given a card from an ordinary playing deck. Without looking, they place the card
on their forehead, face out, so everyone else can see it.
Each player gives the others subtle status cues according
to their cards, ace high. After 5 minutes of mingling,
players attempt to line up from lowest card to highest
card without taking their own card off of their foreheads
and looking at them. The players then discuss how it felt
and are asked to consider what clues helped them figure
out where they stood and how status can get in the way of
the ideation session.
The First Phase of Ideation: Frame and Focus
The ideation session has three phases: frame and focus,
diverging and converging. In the first phase, frame and
focus, various techniques are used to zero in on what is to
be ideated by bringing the group together around a refined
(and sometimes redefined) “problem statement” that ex-presses what the project is about. Examples of frame and
focus techniques include:
• Draw the Problem: A general statement of the project is
made. Each team member spends 5 to 10 minutes drawing the problem. Using metaphors and symbols is fine.
Each team member presents their drawing and discusses
it. Notes are summarized on the flip chart by the facilitator and a consensus emerges around a new problem
statement. An ideation might start with the problem
statement, “we need three new varieties of pizza” and
might wind up being redefined by the team as, “we need
to create a microwavable pizza to increase consumer convenience while appealing more to men.”
• Scoping: To narrow or broaden the focus of the ideation,
a large triangle is drawn on the flip chart. In the middle
of the triangle the current problem statement is written.
