142 desIgn IdeatIon The Ideation Process The ideation process can take several forms. Here we outline a general approach to producing innovative business model options: 1. team composition Key question: Is our team suffi ciently diverse to generate fresh business model ideas? Assembling the right team is essential to generating effective new business model ideas. Members should be diverse in terms of seniority, age, experience level, business unit represented, customer knowledge, and professional expertise. 2. immersion Key question: Which elements must we study before generating business model ideas? Ideally the team should go through an immersion phase. which could include general research, studying customers or prospects, scrutinizing new technologies, or assessing existing business models. Immersion could last several weeks or could be as short as a couple of workshop exercises (e.g. the Empathy Map). 3. expanding Key question: What innovations can we imagine for each business model building block? During this phase the team expands the range of possible solutions, aiming to generate as many ideas as possible. Each of the nine business model building blocks can serve as a starting point. The goal of this phase is quantity, not quality. Enforcing brainstorming rules will keep people focused on generating ideas rather than on critiquing too early in the process (see p. 144). 4. criteria selection Key question: What are the most important criteria for prioritizing our business model ideas? After expanding the range of possible solutions, the team should defi ne criteria for reducing the number of ideas to a manageable few. The criteria will be specifi c to the context of your business, but could include things such as estimated implementa- tion time, revenue potential, possible customer resistance, and impact on competitive advantage. 5. “prototyping” Key question: What does the complete business model for each shortlisted idea look like? With criteria defi ned, the team should be able to reduce the number of ideas to a prioritized shortlist of three to fi ve potential business model innovations. Use the Business Model Canvas to sketch out and discuss each idea as a business model prototype (see p. 160). 142 bmgen_final.indd 142 6/15/10 5:40 PM