“People are starved for the types of interactions that improvisers take for granted. We get to express ourselves creatively, play together, have our ideas honoured and our failures not only forgiven, but celebrated. It is impossible to miss the transformational effects of improv, even for skeptics. The links to the bottom line have become clearer and clearer. Innovation soars. Teams resolve conflicts and work more productively." Kat Koppett
Creativity was identified as the single most important attribute to future business success in a study that interviewed over 1,500 CEOs from 60 nations and 33 industries (IBM, 2010). A range of different agencies are employing techniques that actors and improvisers use to create believable characters and scenes to both explore and create business opportunities and ideas.
Businesses are increasingly using design thinking (a human-crentred, prototype driven process) as their innovation platform, superseding some of the research practices in this area. As organisations embrace design thinking practices, market research risks being locked into twentieth century forms of focus groups and surveys. “Co-creation is not asking the “consumer” what she wants. That’s a focus group.” Morgan Gerard (Idea Couture).
Courage to dream “I start where you leave off. You meet people in the artificial setting of your office. I meet them on the street and in their home, in their natural surroundings. You analyse their dreams. I give them the courage to dream again. You analyse them and tear them apart. I let them act out their conflicting roles and help them to put the parts back together again.”
Roy Langmaid in a post ‘Psychology on a Page’ began with this quote. Jacob Moreno (founder of psychodrama) stated he said this to Freud after a lecture. Langmaid, who co-wrote the original text on qualitative with Wendy Gordon, and now facilitates creative sessions, writes a very interesting set of blog posts which start here about his journey from running focus groups to facilitating creativity sessions.
DD + D are an example of a theatre-based design consulting company. The use of theatrical skills and tools is not only used in the UK and the US. Teresa Norton is a management consultant based in Hong Kong who has pioneered effective, theatrically directed, group training. Teresa Norton discusses in this HBR blog post how she takes her theatre training into workshops with clients in Asia.
More than comedy
Improv is not only effective for actors but also for people in business. People often associate improv with comedy, partly due to popular comedians and television programmes. (Whose line is it anyway, Tina Fey). Questions on its relevance could include: we are not actors, we are not comedians and surely this is just for teams of extremely talented people who make it up on the spot. Robert Poynton, in his excellent book ‘Everything’s an Offer,’ notes that while improvisational theater may seem a far cry from modern business but in fact it is highly relevant. Improv offers a different way to engage with and respond to the complexities and uncertainties of leading organisations into an era when creativity and change are of paramount importance. Still wondering about the relevance of improv to business. Ian Gotts & John Creme have compiled an excellent ppt deck which contains the experiences of how leading practioners are using improv in the business environment.
Part of the future
Design agencies are utilising improv in their creative work. Nathan Waterhouse, a lead at OpenIDEO, has released Design Improv. Liz Danzico and Elizabeth Gerber both well-known at design industry conferences, with academic publications on design and improvisation, state: “Both [improv and design] engage in solving a problem while creating or discovering something new within a given set of constraints”. The presentation below by Frog shows how improv can blend with gamification which is becoming part of the business skill set.
Much qualitative research is conducted (like many meetings) as if we only had brains and no bodies. Typically 8 people sit around in a circle. And answer questions. Sometimes look at photos. Other times close their eyes and imagine. Usually they don’t move.
Embodied cognition is the idea that the mind is not only connected to the body but that the body influences the mind. George Lakoff contends that people use their understanding of familiar physical objects, actions and situations to understand other more complex domains (such as relationships or mathematics). A blog from Scientific American explores this further.
Embodied cognition is the idea brain circuits responsible for abstract thinking are closely tied to those circuits that analyze and process sensory experiences— and its role in how we think and feel about our world. How we think is influenced by our experiences in the physical world; a number of different experiments are demonstrating this influence through releasing endorphins, the neurotransmitters that relax us into a state of cortical alertness.
“The scientists found that a region of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex … showed a slowdown in activity during improvisation. This area has been linked to planned actions and self-censoring, such as carefully deciding what words you might say at a job interview… The researchers also saw increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex … This area has been linked with self-expression and activities that convey individuality, such as telling a story about yourself.”
What does this mean for what we do in research? Which parts of the brain are we tapping into? Elizabeth Sanders is a leading figure in design research, having introduced many of the tools, techniques and methods being used today to drive and/or inspire design from a human-centered perspective. She describes the shift from designing for users to one of designing with users. “Traditional design research methods were focused primarily on observational research (i.e., looking at what people do and use). Traditional market research methods, on the other hand, have been focused more on what people say and think (through focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires). The new tools are focused on what people make, i.e., what they create from the toolkits we provide for them to use in expressing their thoughts, feelings and dreams.”
How are other related industries integrating embodiment into work they do with stakeholders in organisations as well as with users?
Evolving understanding of the role of what bodies bring to any project is one reason why improv principles and practice is needed for generative research.
Over the last few months I have consulted to an international project which involved online co-creation. Interestingly, it was preceded by social media monitoring – listening to what people had discussed online in relevant populations and on relevant topics. The outputs of the first phase were compelling – for a different future. I realised that the quality of outputs of social media monitoring had stepped up. Some of the outputs (or the narrative structure) was similar to what could have been gather through the classic u&a focus groups. These insights were backed by a wide range of actual conversations people were having in the category as they searched for information, debated, discussed and offered advice. Certain forms of qualitative research might have a future in this time of big data and neuroscience advances. I suggest gathering groups of eight people for two hours in a mirrored room to answer predetermined questions will not.
Have we got stuck at the same level of the online qualitative discussion for too long? It’s time to move on from discussing focus groups vs bulletin boards (which is like comparing hammers and saws). The paradox of online qual is that while it is all about the technology (because of the impact on participant experience), it also all about people.
Imagine attending an online qual workshop where neither focus groups or bulletin boards are mentioned. For example;
Imagine discussing objectives, and applications. What are you trying to do?
Do you want to understand behavior, and meaning? Then decide between online vs offline ethnographic approaches or a blend….
Do you want to generate or evaluate ideas? Then looking at the category and the users – decide on how to best create and explore ideas – online, offline or a blend. If you are using qualitative to evaluate ideas then it is still a generative project. If evaluation is not using quantitative, then you want a diagnostic approach. A generative approach enables you to understand what ideas people both create and are drawn to as opposed to just reporting how people evaluated the ideas.
I am reading the excellent ‘Thinking fast and slow’ by Daniel Kahneman which illuminates the human element of decision making. In the book Kahneman cites Klein’s premortem as a partial remedy to overcome some of the problems with optimism and decision making. Gary Klein came up with a proposal to overcome the overconfidence that strikes both individuals and groups (and where in retrospect all too easy to see what was going to go wrong). Gary Klein proposes before a big decision, gathering together a group of knowledgeable individuals.
The leader starts the exercise by informing everyone that the project has failed spectacularly. Over the next few minutes those in the room independently write down every reason they can think of for the failure (and especially those that aren’t mentioned due to group reasons). Then the lists are debriefed until all different elements are identified; and then potential solutions are generated.
I like the framing of the ‘spectacular fail’, and the individual generation of reasons. A handy remedy especially for those large research projects where the given brief, and the actual brief on commencement of the project (and eyeballing stakeholders), is somewhat different.
Alex Osborn developed with Sidney Parnes the Creative Problem Solving Process and set up the Creative Education Foundation at Buffalo. One of the people who attended the training was Min Basadur who worked at P&G. In what could be termed a brainstorming meeting (using tools influenced by the creative problem solving training), P&G developed an effective response to Colgate’s introduction of a green striped Irish Spring. Basadur used “How might we” repeatedly to reframe the problem until they had the right problem to solve. They also assembled a diverse group separately to break through the patent challenges facing them.
Charles Warren from Google talks about the “How Might We?” approach that can lead you through any design challenge and references Basadur:
‘How might we’ enables people to frame problem definitions as challenges. Every challenge or constraint can be framed as a “How might we” question.
I have read a great deal of academic research on group creativity (for someone not at university) in preparation for a paper for Esomar on improvisation and its value for research. A spate of recent blog posts on brainstorming seemed mildly uninformed… (especially the blogs that quote blogs which quote blogs).
Sometimes I laugh when i read headlines like brainstorming doesn’t work… because more often than not the scientific basis for this is a bunch of psychology students herded into a windowless room and asked to think of ideas for solving traffic congestion. After a bit of counting and statistics – voila – people can generate more ideas on their own than in groups. Therefore, brainstorming doesn’t work…. Ok so maybe the presence of windowless rooms does match some of my experience; but the actual academic experiments cited are often locked in a 1953 practice of generating verbal lists of ideas.
I find it even more astonishing when some of this research is conducted in California where potentially Apple, IDEO, Pixar, d-school at Stanford or any of the design thinking movement might have influenced how the brainstorming was conducted. Which makes me wonder what people are referencing when they talk about brainstorming not working. I suspect when people refer to brainstorms not working, they are referring to either outdated practice or bad practice which we have all experienced. I certainly have experienced that moment of thinking I would rather walk over cut glass than be banished again to a room with equally uninspired colleagues with a large white sheet of paper with an instruction to come back in an hour. However, one could argue most organisational groups don’t ‘work’ – meetings, classes, focus groups or brainstorms.
Brainstorming equals Alex Osborn. Journalists, bloggers and academics refer to Alex Osborn and his 4 brainstorming rules. These 4 rules are then held up as how Osborn went about creating ideas. They do not typically go on to discuss his research into the creative problem solving process. Along with Sidney Parnes, Osborn developed the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process (commonly referred to as CPS). The process has different stages including problem finding as well as idea generating. It uses divergent and convergent thinking at each stage. When critics point to the lack of criticism in brainstorming, I then suspect they haven’t read much by Alex Osborn. Separating generating and evaluating ideas is part of the practice – “Judicial judgment is ruled out. Criticism of ideas will be held until the next day.” Osborn advocated diversity in brainstorming sessions, and saw brainstorming as a supplement to individual ideation, not a replacement. Preparation for brainstorming, and how the problem is framed are also critical elements. Funny how core elements of Osborn’s practice are mentioned as deficits…
When doing postgraduate research in Media Studies in London at the Institute of Education, David Buckingham taught me to read the original research. In media research, as in brainstorming research, there are some tenuous conclusions reached from some truly bizarre experiments. Much of the so called scientific evidence is only somewhat useful for organisations. For example, the recently cited Charlan Nemeth in the New Yorker article on brainstorming. Today I looked up some of his research and it suddenly does not look so conclusive. One experiment had participants (psych students) seated at tables in groups five of the same gender. They were told not to speak until the experiment began. Then they were told the topic of how to reduce traffic congestions, and given 20 minutes to come up with as many good solutions as they could to the problem. Nemeth in his conclusion is not stating brainstorming doesn’t work (though he would like to see more debate). This is typical of some of the academic research – who participates is not a diverse group with domain expertise represented, the group do not prepare, and the groups are not moderated by a trained facilitator. (My favourite task in an experiment involves thumb tacks and boxes and candles…) It makes ideation work conducted by research agencies look amazing and world leading. Astonishing – read academic research on brainstorming, then look through
this co-creation piece by Face.
Compare discussion of groupthink to how Tom Kelly describes brainstorming ” They overlook the possibility that brainstorming can be a skill, an art, more like playing the piano than tying your shoes. You’re always learning and can get continuously better. You can become a brainstorming virtuoso … Brainstorming is practically a religion at IDEO, one we practice nearly every day. Though brainstorms themselves are often playful, brainstorming as a tool – as a skill – is taken quite seriously. And in a company without many rules, we have a very firm idea about what constitutes a brainstorm and how it should be organised.” (Tom Kelly, The Art of Innovation). IDEO refers to “get physical”, “get visual” and “the space remembers.”
I have a preference for academics who have researched actual groups and performance versus psychology students completing a one off experiment with no preparation, no domain expertise and no training. Teresa Amabile is a stand out due to her longitudinal diary research of executives. Certainly the research indicates that people probably can generate lists of ideas faster when they work alone. [However, if you are using groups to just generate lists of ideas... then maybe it's time to leave 1953]. Keith Sawyer’s academic research is particularly relevant. He completed his PhD with on group flow Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He has written Group Genius, and his 2012 edition of ‘Explaining creativity: the science of human innovation’. The research indicates if the problems are complex, or if they are visual or spatial, then groups usually outperform solo workers. My own experience has been in most organisations that problems are complex. Increasingly, as design thinking impacts innovation practice, they are also spatial. (Sawyer’s blog post on Does Solitude Enhance Creativity? A Critique of Susan Cain’s Attack on Collaboration is instructive especially on the topic of pair programming). Robert Sutton & Andy Hargadon completed an 18-month ethnography in the 1990s on how the innovation consultants at IDEO do creative work. The key learning is that it is not the number of ideas generated measures the efficiency of the concept, but building on ideas and combining is more important to successful ideation. (Bob Sutton’s post on his blog -brainstorming pros and cons is worth a read)
In conclusion, both viewpoints are true. Brainstorming does and does not work. Alex Osborn would have evolved his practice – I would love to see more multidisciplinary academic research which mirrors some of the later practice – by design thinkers, service designers, and those both trained in, and practicing Creative Problem Solving, Theory U etc. Using Improvisation to Enhance Brainstorming Sessions by Elizabeth Gerbner is an example of the research happening in the design field. Finally, for many organisations, implementing Pixar’s use of plussing or improv could potentially be more affordable and feasible than a new building designed by Steve Jobs. (Read Randy Nelson from Pixar on learning and working in the collaborative age). Though having both the Jobs designed building and the improvisational classes at Pixar would be fabulous.
I sat beside a guy from the Ministry of Education in Singapore at a presentation in the US. I realised half way through that he was creating the most amazing visual map of the key points that was actually more attractive than what was being shown. When I quizzed him about it later, he turned out not to be an artist or designer, but said he had evolved this ability as a tactic to manage the vast amount of meetings he was forced to attend in his role. This presentation from sxsw 2010 on visual note-taking is the closest I have seen to these maps. It also has some handy sketching hints, and most of us have a range of meetings where we can practice taking notes visually.
Read this article by Mike Rohde which goes into detail into using sketching as a visual tool
Where else are visual skills important for researchers?
- Frameworks used in business presentations which need to be succinct and compelling for stakeholders
- Visually attractive flip charts in workshops to involve and focus participants
- Diagrams used when working alongside other agencies to illustrate and inspire
The presentation below is from Kate Rutter at Adaptive Path, and lists useful how to’s:
What changes for MR?
The use of communities will grow; but media agencies rather than MR agencies will be the core suppliers. More clients will be starting to understand campaign success through social media monitoring. Expect to see a continued shift away from what some clients see as comparatively slow and expensive classic tracking studies – some will move into faster forms of data collection and processing; and savvy suppliers of internet data with days rather than weeks turnaround will find a senior business audience. Mobile will be the flavour of the year as clients look to get closer to behaviour; initially this will have a qualitative flavour but there will be exciting behaviour collections of mobile data in the future. Alongside this expect more discussion of cultural understanding as BRIC markets become increasingly important to marketing headquarters.
What does not change?
Multi-country U&A’s will continue to be commissioned; especially as clients look to understand fast changing environments (whether it is the technology category or emerging markets). Last year it was the low income consumer, this year expect more on the rural consumer, and on the emerging middle class in BRIC markets. Big brands will continue to use focus groups and surveys to understand strategic issues because they are familiar. We will continue to hear about those savvy prosumers, youth and early adopters who are changing categories. Finally, both research agencies and insight teams will continue to discuss the need to be more like business consultants and less like information providers.
Technology is enabling us to triangulate findings more quickly than ever before. The old U&A two step process sometimes led to qualitative assumptions or patterns that shifted with the greater volume of data gathered in a quant survey. Increasingly it is easier to use qualitative to illuminate data with context; stories and answering some of the ‘why” questions. Quant data gathered in community sessions or through netnography gives more detail about who, what and how.
Below is a presentation by Face (who continue to do very interesting work) on Augmented Research.
