In The Thick of It
MxM Week 3: Brainstorm. Review. Repeat.
Yesterday afternoon, we sat down with Stuart, Made by Many’s CTO extraordinaire, to review several days of independent brainstorming (more on that later). As we turned to questions like “What comes next?”, “What do you think?”, and “Is it alright if this all feels a bit chaotic?”, we learned about the Lego metaphor.
Choosing between ideas is not a mutually exclusive process.
People too often settle for one initial idea over many others. They become unnecessarily isolated in one silo of thinking. Here, the end result will never achieve full potential.
In reality, choosing between ideas is not a mutually exclusive process. The first ideas, no matter how complete or compelling, never represent the best final product. Rather, you take the most compelling initial ideas, pull them apart and prototype. Like with Legos, you take the best pieces from each and piece them back together into a quality final product. In week three, we have started to put this theory into action.
Brainstorm. Review. Repeat.
After last week’s scoring session, we each presented research on a wide topic area: Personal Productivity, Events, or Urban. From there, we took the most compelling opportunities and began brainstorming. We spent a good chunk of time mapping out problem spaces and identifying “pains” not currently addressed.
We also put our initial mess of thoughts into context through the “jobs to be done” framework. In essence, for each idea or space, we ask what is really trying to get done — what is the ultimate end goal?
It all still seems like a chaotic mess, but we have actually made real progress since last week.
Throughout we have brainstormed, reviewed, brainstormed further, and just today conducted a sketch session. The end result: we have narrowed in on a few topic areas within the decision making vertical.
Some Other Thoughts
Through both our project work and other adventures, it has been great becoming ever more immersed in Made by Many’s culture. Most of the work we did on our project this week was independently driven. It was validating to present our progress to nods of approval and interest at our weekly studio all-hands. I suppose we are doing something right!
Oh, and we have fun too! It is hard to cover every detail of a week gone by in one blog post, but there is more to each day than endless brainstorming sessions. We go out to lunch as a team; we play Call of Duty to de-stress; we grab a drink after work. Working in a such an intimate office space is new for me, and I have been loving all aspects of it thus far.
I am looking forward to yet another week of work, play, and progress. Until then!
