Force unexpected insights

When you’re trying to facilitate new ideas or new ways of looking at a challenge, it’s worth trying the “forced connections” process. As a side benefit, this process can be fun and entertaining, in addition to being productive.

The gist of the process

In this process you assemble a set of random objects (either physical or in images), then take each object, one at a time, and find as many connections as you can between the object and the challenge or issue that you’re working on.

For each object, you’ll ask, ‘how is this object connected to the challenge?’ How does the object’s character connect to the challenge? How does the object’s function connect to the challenge? What about its appearance, texture, scale or any other aspect? Forcing connections between two unrelated things helps bring out new ideas and fresh perspectives.

For example, imagine the challenge is ‘how might we improve the way customers experience our retail spaces?’ If one of your objects is an umbrella, you might come up with ideas such as:

• collapse away parts of the store that a customer isn’t interested in

• make the store look completely different from different angles (the way an umbrella can have a decorated under-side)

• create a personalised environment that travels with the customer around the store

• use audio (eg heavy rain, light rain) as an indicator in different parts of the store (maybe where a sale is on)

• use lightweight nylon on wire frames for signage

For each object people can spend a few minutes brainstorming silent and solo or jump into brainstorming as a small group. Record the ideas on sticky notes, one idea per note, so you can post ideas on a wall and move and sort ideas later.

Some people like to have a chance to ‘warm up’ thinking about of ideas on their own, so you can suggest everyone write down one idea to start, as a way of launching into a group activity, where people’s ideas can play off one another. If you’ve got some participants who tend to dominate, you can allow more time for ‘silent and solo’ generation of ideas first then share ideas in a next step.

Prepare participants by coaching them to be open minded and let ideas flow, without any judgement. The objective is to create a lot of ideas first, including ideas that are silly, far-fetched, or wild. Sometimes these are where you find the breakthroughs. Only when idea flow finishes is it time to go back and apply some judgement, analysing how the ideas offer usable insights.

Variations

·       Brain writing – building on ideas of others. Have each person write down one idea, then pass it to the next person, who builds on the idea. Continue with that first idea passing around to several, or all people. Do this rapidly, keeping the flow going for each object.

·       Unexpected guests – invite some people to the brainstorming session from very different parts of your organisation, or from outside.

Assembling the objects

It’s powerful to have some physical objects that you can touch or hold in your hand. If that’s not possible, you can use images with descriptions. You can use a dictionary to find random words or you can ask AI chatbots to generate a series of random objects. For example, I asked Claude.ai and it came up with

·       Umbrella

·       Cactus

·       Violin

·       Screwdriver

·       Popcorn

It’s important to have images to go with the words, because images will help people engage with the object more deeply, making it more likely new ideas will arise. It can also be powerful to have people first quickly draw the object before starting to force connections. Drawing unlocks a different part of your brain, encouraging deeper engagement with the object and the likelihood of new ideas.

If you’re having an online session with people working from home, you can curate a series of objects to have sent to participants, or suggest a collection of objects that people are likely to have at home. Another virtual approach is to have the facilitator have the objects to hand and introduce them on camera by hefting, operating (e.g. open the umbrella) and describing them (e.g. texture, weight, color, smell, feeling).

Analysis

Once you’ve got the ideas from forcing connections, maintain a constructive mindset to analye the ideas. Give the participants time to reflect on how the ideas could be useful-- let them dig below the surface. For example, it may not be practical to collapse parts of a store that a customer isn’t interested in, but you might be able to make more distinct entry points into different parts of the store. At this stage, encourage participants to add ‘observation’ notes to the sticky notes that have been shared.

Once people have had a chance to discuss and process the ideas, cluster them into categories or themes. Does each category have a group of similar ideas that you can aggregate into one? Or are there distinct ideas to highlight? Have participants, or a ‘decider,’ think constructively – which are creative ideas that really solve the challenge?

You can introduce criteria into the discussion, such as originality, impact, or alignment with your values, alongside standard criteria such as cost and time. Which ideas meet the criteria in compelling ways?

From this point you can use dot voting to select the top ideas, or the decider can choose them. (A decider will typically vote after seeing the group’s votes and hearing the discussion). You can run the top-voted ideas through an impact/effort matrix to further refine your choices. It’s useful if you have a problem owner or decider who takes responsibility for the challenge, based on all the input from the group, and moves the process forward after your forced connections session.

Impact/Effort Matrix

Use forced connections to break through

This activity can be particularly helpful if you’re stuck in a rut or facing other blocks. Use it to break out of conventional or safe thinking and come up with more original approaches.