How to align your team before any ideation session

What you need

• Pens and Post-it

• Notes/Papers

• Your team (divide them into smaller groups if your team is more than 4 members)

• 15 – 60 minutes

Introduction

It’s very common that teams think they are working towards the same goal, but the truth is, we might have very different things in our heads. 

This tutorial is a simple and great warm up for your team to share some key points and in the end, align them to a common goal for your next session.

Pro-tips

It’s important everyone in the team speaks up and feels listened, so make sure they all have time to participate.

Steps

1. Explain to everyone why you are doing the exercise and the importance of having a clear common goal.

2. Ask all team members to take 5-10 minutes to answer the following questions individually and in silence:
   
   What do you expect from the session?
   What do you think is the goal of the session?
   How would you define a successful session?*

   *You can clarify this question by explaining with examples, such as “finishing on time with a clear conclusion” or “having a good feeling”.

3. When the time is up, ask everyone to share their notes with the rest of the groups. Encourage members to ask questions if they have any doubts.

4. Finish the meeting by grouping the most common answers. Write this list down where it can be seen by everyone (e.g.: an online document, whiteboard or piece of paper) and keep it for the rest of the session.

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