The 100%Open ToolKit Proposition Jam

Role of this tool

This tool is a plan for a workshop whose aim is to flesh out a mere idea into a new product or service, to give it a pathway to launch and an outline business plan.

In any innovation process it is tempting to want to rush ahead, develop ideas and tell our colleagues and partners when we’ve found a great idea or technology. There are three reasons why it might be better to wait and develop the idea as an investable proposition.

1. We need to evaluate the benefits of different new ideas and choose the best.
2. We need to make a case to colleagues for significant investment to turn our idea into new products and services.
3. We need to overcome our natural cognitive bias in favour of ideas we are involved with. Psychologists call this the Ikea effect.

How do we use it?

A Jam workshop depends on three main ingredients:

A diversity of attendees with different backgrounds, different personalities and from different organisations
Extreme collaboration in every activity from the warm up to the final presentation
Alternating thinking styles – creative and analytical

Explore how we could create these conditions by answering the questions on the form, in collaboration.

1. What are the Proposition Jam’s objectives?

Just because Jams are fun doesn’t mean they are without structure. First we agree with our fellow jammers what we are going to achieve and why. How are we going to choose from our existing ideas? How many propositions do we need to progress? Who will we decide which are the best and how? What do we want to happen after the proposition Jam?

2. Who is going to Jam with us?

Productive Jams are all about the collision of perspectives. Investable propositions need both creative and analytical thinkers. We might wish to include people from marketing, commercial, design and R&D from our organisation and from our collaboration partner. The key output for this Jam is the Investable Proposition Template, which is a high-level business case. So we need people skilled in business management as well as idea creation.

3. What’s our outline agenda for the day?

0900: Welcome, sharing and presentation of our open innovation strategy
0930: Collaboration mindset – warm up exercises
1000: Idea sharing, classification and dot voting
1100: Break (facilitators separate out the winning ideas so far).
1130: Idea development using Storyboard Template
1230: A well-earned lunch
1330: Groups present back their storyboard ideas in plenary. Builds suggested and everyone dot votes on the top ideas
1400: Proposition development of the top ideas using Investable Proposition Template
1600: Groups present back their propositions. Builds suggested
1630: Groups develop their propositions using Give|Get or Open Innovation Models
1700: Propositions represented. Dot voting for the group’s favourite
1730: Close

4. Which ideas will we develop and how?

We will need to present our ideas to the group. You may have a stack of Idea Frame cards or a list of ideas or technologies from Crowdsourcing Platform. These need to be presented in a standard format so that people can judge them fairly. We then choose the ideas that have the most promise. Use sticky coloured dots (perhaps 10 for each person) to find a consensus on the top ideas. Or use PPP Filter to help choose between ideas. Discuss those where there is disagreement. Can they be improved? We archive (rather than bin) the less favoured ideas so we can revisit them later or for a future project.

5. Investable Proposition Development

This is the crucial part of this Jam. Use the Investable Proposition Template to develop and agree how to define the ideas. Check they are new, different and contain significant benefits. Sketch out the collaborative business arrangement and create a feasible route to market plan. We note on the Proposition Jam form which propositions were most successful.

6. What are our Open Innovation Models?

To start to explore the commercial potential of an idea we can use the Open Innovation Model or Give|Get tools. These exercises will help decide on the range of underlying business models needed to form stable partnerships. We note on the Proposition Jam form those we are most comfortable with.

Source: 100%Open

Proposition Jam