Do you want to make use of the smartness of your group or team and use the expertise of every individual, in your decision making process? Then welcome! This here is for you.
I will happily pass on my 5 favorite tools to vote smart and fast. With little to no prep involved but big results.
Lets get started. So ive been in innovation business for over a decade now, and what I find most troubling, to this day is how often we waste time and the full potential of a group or team in any kind of circumstance.
But especially when we want to take a decision. Not any kind of decision but a smart one. Using everyones opinion, expertise, their brain, and heart.
Instead, we get caught up in micro discussions, which leads to often times not taking any decision at all. Or the strongest voice in the room "wins", which is not necessarily the smartest way either. But seams to be the best way to move on. Now in this session I’ll give you tools to prevent that. Watch the whole video here or scroll down for a short how to overview.
Number 1. Hello DOT Voting!
What it is:
This is the simplest voting technique, I know of.
How to use it:
Dot voting means you vote with dots, so you give each team member the same amount of dots, for example 3 or 5 to distribute on the ideas they love the most.
Why it's cool:
Dot voting is super quick, you can do it under a minute and no prep work is needed. Love it!
Number 2. Hello CRITERIA Voting!
What it is:
This is a variation of the dot voting.
How to use it: You agree on different criteria you want to vote on based on what is relevant for your project.
For example these 3 criteria.
1. what your user would love the most,
2. what would be super easy to implement and
3. what would be the biggest desired vision.
And you select a color for each category, hand out the same amount of coloured dots to each team member. And off you roll.
Why it's cool: The benefit of this technique is that you can vote on very specific goals that you might have, you cluster the best of and you don’t loose certain ideas, like long term visions.
Number 3. Hello SILENT Voting!
What it is:
This is another variation of the dot voting. How to use it:
Ask your team to vote silently. Each team member writes down the ideas he/she decides upon silently on a postit or paper. And then on a “go”, they all, at the same time, put down their votes onto the ideas they voted on.
Why it's cool:
Because it prevents the social voting: One team member starts the voting process and suddenly the ideas he/she chooses become extremely sexy.It prevents you from loosing the real opinion and smartness of each individual.
Number 4. Hello GRAPH Voting!
What it is:
You vote by organizing a handful of ideas on a graph.
How to use it:
Agree on 2 categories relevant to your project, draw a graph and write the categories onto the access of your graph. Organize the ideas into the categories. The idea hitting the sweet spot (corner up right) wins.
Why it's cool: The outcome gives you a comparison and a clear winner. Number 5. Hello HEATMAP!
What it is:
Its another type of graph with two sides of the coin. A hot top and a cold bottom.
How to use it:
Draw a heatmap, hot on top, cold on the bottom. Then organize your handful of ideas (not more than 5) onto the heat map. The hottest idea on top wins.
Why it's cool: The outcome gives you a comparison and a clear winner. But even cooler it helps you with stalemate situation. Like you’ve voted but two or three ideas have the exact same amount of votes. What do you do? Vote again? no. You use the heat map. ;) So my dear I hope these tools are helpful for you and your team.
Keep up the wonderful work, leave a comment if you want to share your AHAs. I'D appreciate it so much.
Thanks for your time and energy,
xxx Hedi