How can we narrow down ideas and start taking action?
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When getting to this page, your CO may have already come up with a wide range of ideas and possible actions to start working with. It’s time to take steps towards narrowing these down and keep the motivation up with the expectation of working on some more practical steps. This section provides tools for the community to collectively decide and choose what paths are the most relevant and, in combination with the , understand their feasibility. This section is designed to provide a variety of creative tools and techniques, which aim to facilitate the process of idea generation, identification, opportunities and creative thinking techniques.
Starting to narrow down our initial ideas and discussions will help us make tangible progress and keep up the original energy that made the CO decide to take action. This process may require finding the agreement of different voices and it will require the active engagement of the members of the citizen observatory, maybe opening up these discussions to external participants such as local creatives, artists, and potentially other local stakeholders (see our section on for more information). Using these tools collectively, with the diversity of the different participants involved, can help ensure that the selected idea is not only representative of the community, but also capable of generating change in the direction the collective aims.
During this exploratory phase, we can use different tools to bring ideas to paper, so these can be discussed and assessed in the group. This is a very good moment to also involve creatives, artists, makers or designers as their unique perspective can add value to the idea generation and selection. Creative practitioners can also bring new idea generation and selection processes to the group, which allows experimentation with new innovative means of ideation. Below is a list of different tools and methods that can be used depending on the stage of the idea development.
The Creative Strategy Canvas is a visual tool inspired by Walt Disney's creative process, originally formulated by Robert Dilts, a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) expert. It provides a framework for organising and exploring ideas from three distinct perspectives: the Dreamer, the Realist, and the Critic. The canvas encourages individuals or teams to think creatively, consider practical aspects, and critically evaluate their ideas, fostering a comprehensive approach to choosing one idea from many to put into practice.
The SCAMPER method is a creative thinking technique used to generate creative perspectives by exploring different dimensions of an existing idea. It stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. Each letter represents a specific question or prompt that encourages individuals or teams to think critically and creatively about how they can manipulate or transform an idea to generate new possibilities and solutions.
This tool, similar to the SCAMPER Method, allows you to generate new ideas or consolidate existing ideas, looking at the problem from different perspectives, and evaluating ideas in different scenarios.
The Opportunity Matrix is a strategic and creative tool that helps individuals or organisations identify and evaluate potential ideas. It involves mapping ideas based on their attractiveness and feasibility. The matrix typically consists of four quadrants: High Attractiveness, High Feasibility (Ideal opportunities), High Attractiveness, Low Feasibility (Challenging opportunities), Low Attractiveness, High Feasibility (Safe opportunities), and Low Attractiveness, Low Feasibility (Avoid opportunities). Attractiveness can have additional meanings connected to it such as beauty and environmental sustainability. By plotting ideas on the matrix, the group can prioritise their efforts and focus on pursuing ideas that offer the highest potential for creative and meaningful impact.
The Future Newspaper tool works by prompting participants to reflect on the objectives of their citizen-led action and to imagine a range of desirable futures that they would like to see in their environment. This process of creative reflection can help to generate new ideas and insights that may not have been considered before, while managing expectations of the outcomes. Participants can then work backwards from those visions to identify the necessary conditions, resources, stakeholders, and events that could help bring about those outcomes. These serve as discussion points that the community can deliberate on and vote on to establish actions and interventions.
Co-creation assemblies are events that propose, discuss, and prototype possible collaborative actions. It is crucial to involve a wide range of stakeholders in these assemblies, including those who may have opposing views towards the campaign action. This exercise guides the co-creation process and helps in comprehending the diverse ways in which participants perceive and tackle the issue, and how it relates to the community's identity.
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is a toolkit that facilitates seeking opportunities, threats, challenges and shared visions for innovation, research and business opportunities in the future.
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This report review some activities that are of relevant to policy makers and on the work of the Observatory Policy Interface