Best Practices with a
Celebrity Twist
The Da Vinci Approach
Generating powerful ideas is like creating a masterpiece. It takes passion, experience, and commitment to truly create something great.
This is the premise behind Brainstorming with Da Vinci.
The Da Vinci approach combines proven brainstorming best practices with different creative celebrities. The approach draws inspiration from a wide array of artists including Leonardo Da Vinci, Amy Poehler, Daniel Day-Lewis, Eric Clapton, and Lady Gaga to name a few.
The Da Vinci Approach is fun to learn and easy to remember!
Proven Methods that Entertain and Inspire
Brainstorming with Da Vinci methods help you architect a session to focus your team, inspire them, elevate their thinking to the next level, and if need be, shake it up a bit. Each method combines a proven brainstorming best practice and creative celebrity stories.
Idea Anarchy
Idea anarchy involves inverting the status quo to generate ideas in new, uncharted territories. After defining the status quo, the team will brainstorm on ideas that invert the status quo. Ideas will seem uncomfortable and foreign, and this is the goal behind inversion–to free up the mind to possibilities.
Power Pause
The power pause method uses an intentional break in the brainstorming to increase collaborative input. The goal of the method is to create a momentary silence for everyone to write down an idea they can share with the team.
The Muse
In brainstorming, a participant’s tendency is to project themselves into the solution (e.g., “I wouldn’t do that.”),
The Muse is a method to get participants seeing the situation from an affected person’s viewpoint. The Muse is communicated through a persona.
Idea Waterfall
The idea waterfall is meant to generate as many ideas as possible in a short amount of time. This method is a great way to begin brainstorming and also works well if you are pressed for time and need to get to a solution quickly.
Obvious Springboard
This method is designed to open the team to possibilities by removing the obvious solutions. Since brainstorming often stays within familiar territories, the team is in tune and ingrained with ideas and tactics already implemented. It may be difficult to break free of these ideas.
5 Steps to Actionable Ideas
The Da Vinci approach incorporates the different methods into five steps designed to maximize team participation and creativity to generate actionable ideas.
Step 1: Preparation
Preparation is crucial in running a successful brainstorming session. Methods guide you through architecting a session including setting a measurable goal, choreographing participation, and session logistics.
Step 2: Inspiration
Inspiration is key to unlocking your team’s creativity. Methods are designed to get participants energized and think from different perspectives to achieve the session goal.
Step 3: Generate Many Ideas
This step is about convergent thinking and generating as many ideas as possible that can achieve the session goal. Methods are designed to engage all participants in generating ideas, shake up their thinking, and build on each other’s ideas.
Step 4: Build Out Ideas
This step takes ideas generated in step three and the team builds them out into deeper, more robust ideas. Methods prompt the team to layer in complexity to test ideas to ensure they are actionable.
Step 5: Prioritize Ideas
The final step is to take ideas and create an idea roadmap for implementation. Methods guide to think about benefits and challenges for each idea, and prioritize each idea based on complexity.
Get your copy of Brainstorming with Da Vinci today!
The Ultimate Guide to Leading a Successful Brainstorming Session
The Da Vinci approach is built for when you must lead a session—and want it to be insightful, productive, and hopefully engaging in the process. The book guides you in how to set up a session to focus your team, inspire them, elevate their thinking to the next level, and if need be, shake it up a bit.