Recently I found myself in an ideation exercise. The participants at my table jumped into a conversation and started to argue and judge the ideas that appeared. Every idea was met with questions highlighting the problem that the person was perceiving. Some were directly rejected under the assumption that one had already tried to implement or implemented that idea.

The participants used their experience to assess the ideas being shared. Relying on their experience meant focusing on how they had done things in the past. They were evolving in known territory and using the problems they had encountered as a measure of existing obstacles. Sometimes in the hope that it would make those obstacles more manageable. Instead of an ideation process they were, metaphorically, grabbing the shovel to dig the problems away.

They were reacting to the information at hand and looking for a solution.

In doing so, they lost focus and forgot the task they were asked to address. They assumed that the question they had been asked was a complete description of the task and were not making themselves aware of what it was they actually wanted to achieve and why.

Investigating the what and the why would have helped them to become more specific about the task they were trying to solve.

They fell into the trap the how embedded in one’s experience provides us with. It feels safer to use known solutions than to imagine what a task may ask of us.