When we are thinking creatively sometimes we struggle to identify which “great” ideas to progress.
Here is a simple prioritization matrix to assist.
When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’.
The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creative-paradox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.
Draw a 2-by-2 matrix as above. The X axis denotes the originality of the idea and the Y axis shows the ease of implementation.
Label the quadrants as:
- Now/Blue Ideas – Normal ideas, easy to implement. These are typically low-hanging fruit and solutions to fill existing gaps in processes. These normally result in incremental benefits.
- How/Yellow Ideas – Original ideas, impossible to implement. These are breakthrough ideas in terms of impact, but absolutely impossible to implement right now given current technology/budget constraints.
- Wow/Green Ideas – Original ideas, easy to implement. ‘Wow’ ideas are those with potential for orbit-shifting change and possible to implement within current reality.
List down the ideas that emerge from the creative ideation phase on large charts of paper stuck around the room.
Give each player 3 sticky dots of each colour – that is, 3 blue, 3 yellow, 3 green. 9 dots per person is typical, but go ahead and reduce/increase that number based on the time at hand and number of ideas generated. Ask each player to step forward and vote for 3 best ideas in each category. They need to do this by sticking a coloured dot in front of each idea they choose.
You now have a bucket of WOW!/Green ideas to work on further. Make sure you also collect the low-hanging blue ideas for immediate implementation and theHOW?/yellow ideas to keep an eye on for the future.