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