5. Tools – making use of best-practice – Page 2

SCAMPER

SCAMPER is a really useful tool (or more accurately, a checklist) for exploring creative possibilities and opportunities around a solution or situation.

TRIZ, a truly amazing resource for stimulating productive innovation, was developed from researching the entire patents database for the core inventive principles which underpinned innovation. The … Read more

Tricider, Trello and other online tools for collaboration

There is a huge wealth of on-line tools that can help your team to ‘meet’ without physically being in the same place at the same … Read more

Reversal

The creativity of the human mind is excellent at making progress back toward something it understands and fairly hopeless at making progress away from its … Read more

Reframing Matrix

The Reframing Matrix is a technique for looking at the problem from different perspectives (planning, product, people and potential, rather than the more abstract perspectives … Read more

Problem Restatement

Problem Restatement is a technique for looking at the problem from different perspectives (usually more abstract ones, rather than the stakeholder ones reflected in the … Read more

Affinity Diagram

The Affinity Diagram is one of the Seven Management and Planning Tools and is deceptively simple. It is a means for looking at patterns and … Read more

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a tool which enables groups or individuals gain a better understanding on the current situation in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities … Read more

Hopes & Concerns

Hopes & Concerns is a tool which enables groups to outline and share their positive and negative feelings about an event from the outset.

Six Thinking Hats

Six Thinking Hats is a useful tool for taking different perspectives on a situation. It was developed by Edward deBono, and despite its apparent simplicity it … Read more

Cause and Effect Fishbone (Ishikawa)

The Ishikawa diagram, more commonly known as the fishbone diagram (because of its shape) or the cause and effect diagram (because of its purpose) is … Read more

Kipling List

The Kipling List is taken from a very short poem by Rudyard Kipling: “I had six serving men, they taught me all I knew, there … Read more

Matrix Diagram & QFD

Matrix Diagrams are an excellent device for encouraging methodical exploration of all of the potential ways that one set of things can influence another, for … Read more

Seven Management and Planning tools

One of the real strengths of the Japanese is a tendency to standardise and simplify wherever possible. Faced with an ever increasing number of management … Read more

Multi-Channel Templates

See: The concept of a multi-channel approach Multi-Channel Involvement is about using alternative forms of input to the meeting. The standard input to a meeting tends … Read more

Impact/Ease Grid

The Impact/Ease grid is a four-box model (a 2×2 positioning chart) for plotting solutions (or ideas or strategies) to reflect the impact of taking them … Read more

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is probably the best known, the most-used, and the most misused tool in creative work within organisations. Essentially it is a free-form technique for … Read more

Effects Database

The Effects Database is a useful tool for applying the principles of TRIZ quickly and easily to problems and idea generation. It has been created … Read more

Rules of Brainstorming

Ensure people understand the following simple set of rules for brainstorming before they start:

Force-Field Analysis

The Force-Field Diagram is premised on the assumption that people and events behave (or fail to behave) as they do because of the balance of … Read more

Planning Chart

The Planning Chart is simply a grid, with either months, or numbers along the top, to represent periods of time into the future, and rows … Read more

Clothesline for target setting by consensus

See also: Clothesline for virtual meetings The clothesline is a specific adaptation of Consensus Reaching and helps a group arrive at a target and develop a shared … Read more

Red Green Cards for Consensus Reaching

Red Green Cards are a specific adaptation of Consensus Reaching and help a group arrive at a conclusion and develop a shared commitment to it through … Read more

Clothesline for virtual meetings

See also Clothesline for target setting by consensus The Clothesline is a tool used to develop group consensus on target setting.

‘Parking Lot’ Principles

A ‘Parking Lot’ is an extremely useful device for ensuring your meetings keep on track with the full support and attention of the attendees. Essentially, … Read more