Techniques To Weed Out Bad Ideas

And here before your eyes is a heap of a wide variety of ideas. Now we need to exclude the failures from all of them and select the most fantastic ones.

You yourself may well notice unsuccessful ideas among your ideas.

Turn on seriousness.

Brainstorming creative ideas. Let go of the imagination and have fun. It’s time to switch the mode.

We can be overly committed when it comes to our ideas. Especially when ideas need to be sold, then we use all possible ways to communicate their merits.

But such an attitude of extreme benevolence and optimism acts like a horse’s blinders. We do not notice frankly unsuccessful ideas among our ideas.

If you work in a team, before taking a scalpel and cutting out bad ideas, set the rules:

Do not hurry. Be patient as this process takes a long time.

Doubt. Skepticism allows you to consider the maximum number of facets of one idea.

Don’t interrupt. Listen to your colleague’s arguments to the end before expressing yours.

Nobody knows how to do it right. You are here to complement each other’s ideas, not to sort things out.

All techniques in this article can be performed individually or in groups. Ask each participant to do it themselves and then compare the results.

List the problems.

Write down the problems of the project for which you are coming up with ideas. Let the number of problems be at least 90. Yes, there are so many. First, you will write your doubts, after — natural facts and only then — unusual combinations. Anything you write after paragraph 60 is the most valuable thing.

Have made a list — re-read and highlight those that you can work with now.

Hire a newbie.

We have the unique ability to focus on what we see in front of us and ignore what is hidden from our eyes. We forget that there may still be something that we do not know. We don’t know that.

This allows us to cope with a huge flow of information exactly until the moment when something new has not caught us by surprise.

Explain your idea to someone without your knowledge base. For a beginner, trainee, acquaintance — someone who expresses his own opinion and asks questions. If a newbie doesn’t understand your idea, you need to work on it. Listen to his questions, these are your points to think about.

Hire the devil’s lawyer.

When you work in a team, there is a danger of groupthink.

Any group of people who work together for a long time will start thinking in a similar way. Man is a social being who strives for harmony in a group of people. This “collective intelligence” makes it difficult to find mistakes. Someone did not begin to pronounce, so as not to offend. Someone believes that the main thing is to maintain a favorable climate in the team. Someone is simply afraid to express an opinion because of the boss. And everyone else may not notice the error.

Team harmony is good for the group but bad for ideas.

Try to designate one person as “devil’s advocate.” His job is to question EVERYTHING. He should not agree with the opinion of all participants but prove the opposite. Find possible arguments rather than just abandoning colleagues’ ideas.

The lawyer has the right to draw a different conclusion based on the proposed data or to find information in the words of a colleague that was missed.

Remember to change your member to the role of a lawyer.

Get rid of self-confidence.

There is only one step from confidence to self-confidence. If the first is based on real abilities, then the second is based on delusions.

The cause of many failures is the notorious self-confidence. If the stakes are high, become a skeptic.

Write down 12 reasons why you believe your idea is sparkling. Why are you sure you are right. If the required number is typed, then write another 8 points.

When you find evidence with ease, you are more likely to believe that it is true.

But the more difficult it is to search for information, the fewer chances you have to believe in it.

Writing 12 reasons will relieve overconfidence, you will look more sensibly at your ideas.

Be patient and evaluate ideas sensibly. Choose the most powerful ones.