Teams playing an INNOBALL (Innovation Brainball) entrepreneurial simulation game are advised to split the ideation process into two phases: ① independent ideation (‘Garden’), and ② integration of ideas (‘Kitchen’) to achieve greater results under time pressure

‘Garden’ – the Independent Ideation Phase
The intellectual teamwork starts from the independent ideation phase in order to cultivate diverse thoughts, ideas and solutions. When the enemy creates a challenging problem, understand the problem as well as the opportunities it brings along, then set your team free to independently cultivate divergent thinking. Ideas from others should be hidden to avoid groupthink.
During the independent ideation phase team members look at the same situation from different points of view and come out with a variety of solutions. Independent ideation helps also manage individual competitiveness so that is doesn’t create barriers caused by one person trying to top others all the time.
The both teams – innovators and enemies – use the same set of metaphoric KoRe 10 Innovative Thinking Tools to invent the next move. The same seeds of inspiration planted in a different thinking environment produce different fruits of ideation. Thus every team member brings a different fruit to the ‘Kitchen’.
‘Kitchen’ – Synergizing Ideas
The individual contributions are synergized during the ‘Kitchen’ phase of the intellectual teamwork. Any two or more team members may merge their ideas into a single solution. When Innoball is used to help a real project to succeed, a more sophisticated method of Spiral Integration of Ideas (SPIN) is to be used.
 

 

Strategic entrepreneurial simulation game