3) Brainstorm Solutions

Now that you understand the problems and you understand what the success criteria are, you can then start brainstorming for ideas on what you need to do.

Designers typically work in various ways. It may be something a user has said that sparks a thought; it might be something they have seen elsewhere that they believe would be a good solution for the problem at hand or it may be a collaborative group setting that allows designers to play off of each other’s ideas to create a few solutions.

It’s not always in the office that creates the best ideas. Sometimes it’s during a walk, or perhaps sitting at a coffee shop. Both of those methods have worked for me in the past. The key is to know your designer and know how best they work in this phase.

I always like to either sketch this out on paper, on my iPad, or on a whiteboard in very low-fidelity sketches. Then I take photos with my phone to save them and share them with folks that need to see them.

One important thing to keep in mind is to make sure the technology doesn’t drive the design. It’s important that the designer knows what is and what isn’t possible, that way they won’t propose solutions that are unachievable either by the technology available or the skill of the developer, which we will cover in the next chapter: Define the strengths and limitations of staff

Possible Pitfalls

This is an area that people oftentimes think they are doing correctly, or skip over entirely.

Many times there is pressure to, “just get started”, but you can’t “get started” without having a plan for a plan. Changing or adding (or failing to define) technologies at the beginning won’t just add significant problems and time to your project, it will also lead to burn-out from your designers and development teams as they will constantly be working in different directions.

All options need to be discussed, as sometimes an issue won’t be apparent to everyone. One of the absolute worst things that can happen is that someone feels empowered to make important decisions without first vetting them with others on the team, and then wants to make core changes mid-project that affects everything else. 

Brainstorming ideas also includes making sure those ideas are feasible, and everyone is in agreement that the direction or technologies chosen are the ones that best suit the project and not just one singular person’s agenda.