How to do a quick first round filtering ideas

After you are done ideating, sometimes you end up with a wall full of post-its. Filtering those ideas can be a mess if you have to go into details and discuss every aspect of them.

In this situation, we think a first filtering round should be quick and practical. That's why we use a simple exercise that you can try with any team.

The exercise
Ask your team to go through the ideas categorising them in three different piles; good, with potential and discarded.

Good ideas
It's clear, isn't it? Put in this pile all the ideas that feel good. They don't need to be complete, and you'll probably have to work out details, but they seem good enough to go on with them.

Ideas with potential
The second pile is for those ideas that could be cool but aren't clear enough or have to change somehow to meet the briefing's expectations. You don't want to discard them because there is something good in them, but it's not a complete ok yet.

Discarded ideas
Quite straightforward. Put here all the ideas that aren't interesting for your project, maybe because they are too far away, too dull or just not relevant.

After you do this exercise, you will be ready for discussing pile one and two. At this point, you'll probably have discarded quite a few post-its and made it easier to see which ones you like and which ones will lead to more work.