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Great ideas and AHA! moments don’t always come easy. So when we have them, we don’t want them to escape us. Here are five tips to help you harness your great ideas to become actionable and successful.

1. Recognize a good idea when you see one

Often, a great idea comes with a gut reaction. There’s passion behind it. Not that the idea itself is passionate, but the people behind it feel like they have a winner. Nothing great gets accomplished without a healthy dose of passion. Mediocre ideas can soar to great places when they're fueled by passion.

Also, consider the problem at hand. Does your idea solve it? When an idea has a clear purpose and a solid understanding behind the why, it has a much studier foundation. 

2. Don’t underestimate the power of collaboration

Collaboration is essential in developing great ideas. If there’s a desire to build, advance, and improve an idea, then you’re going to need collaboration. 

• To ensure your collaboration is effective, bring people in sooner rather than later. The more refined an idea appears to be, the fewer improvements people will be willing to offer. When there’s more moulding to do, the more comfortable people will feel offering feedback. Ask for input when there are spelling mistakes, bullet points, or even Post-Its on the wall. 

• Remember to be intentional about who you ask. Look for people with different experiences from your own. Whether they are people from different financial backgrounds, ages, genders, ethnicities, or levels of experience - they all have valuable input to offer. 

• Be clear on timelines. Everyone involved in the collaboration should know when you are ready to start receiving feedback and when you plan to stop receiving feedback. It’s best to start with a nugget of an idea, get ideas and build, ask for feedback, and once you are ready to find a solution, cut off feedback and start refining.

• Be mindful of gathering too much feedback! That can kill a budding idea. A facilitator can be very helpful in keeping this process on track. 

3. Know how to gather ideas

We call this diverging. When diverging, there are no bad ideas. Everything is on the table. At this stage, ensure everyone’s voice is heard. Being intentional and systematic about gathering feedback is important. You could go in circles around the room or down a list of names. Don’t limit people to one idea - everyone should have an opportunity to have the floor. 

Movement is a helpful tool in brainstorming. If you’re meeting with your group in person (or even virtually), let people move. Whether that’s pacing around the space or walking and talking. Movement gets the creative juices flowing. 

4. Know how to refine an idea

When we’re brain-dumping ideas, there’s bound to be overlap. Start by looking for similarities. Can you group them? Are you seeing any common themes? 

However, don’t ignore reality. An idea might seem awesome in theory, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t pull it off. Consider your time frame, budget, human resources, etc. Think of these as filters. If an idea doesn’t fit, it gets filtered out or shelved until your constraints change. 

Refining ideas is a huge challenge. Having a facilitator at this particular step is incredibly important. A facilitator can keep the team on track and allow leaders to fully participate without having to lead. 

5. Don’t forget to reflect

Once you’ve refined an idea, that isn’t the end of the road. Has your idea actually solved the problem? Reflection can be a touchpoint meeting or a formal debrief. It could be multiple checkpoint meetings over time to track progress. If your idea isn’t achieving what it was intended to, perhaps it’s time to start the process over again.