This is the fourth part of a six-part series on how the innovation process is evolving in the age of AI.
How do you make sure your team is putting its energy and resources behind the absolute best ideas?
In my previous article, I wrote about architecting the solution space and moving from the traditional brainstorm to a structured map of ideas.
But after that comes the trap. You look at that map, point to a favorite, and say, “Let’s build that one.”
Not so fast.
Before you pick a winner, you have to make the field stronger. This is the moment for the Strengthening Session.
Here is how it works: We get together to make every single idea better. But this is not a critique. It’s not a debate. It’s not even a discussion. In fact, it feels more like a game.
The idea goes up. The team reads it. Then, everyone has exactly one minute to write down ways to make it stronger.
- “What if this was voice only?”
- “What if we stripped out the hardware?”
- “What if we combined this with idea X?”
It is pure creative chaos packed into sixty seconds. With a team of 15, you can generate 20 improvements to 50 ideas in just an hour. That is 1,000 inputs before lunch.
Will they all be brilliant? No. But you are manufacturing serendipity, and the sheer density of unexpected connections is unmistakably powerful. The original idea might have come from a quiet morning coffee, but the strengthened version is a product of the collective brain.
Pro Tip: If your team has gaps or is too like-minded, create an “AI Shark Tank.” Spin up a few custom agents — a skeptic, a brand expert, an investor — and have them build on the ideas alongside you.
The Dot Vote Dance
Now that the ideas are strong, it is time to choose. And this is where most teams fail. They do the “Dot Vote.”
You know the drill. Everyone gets three red stickers. They walk around the room staring at sticky notes. They put a dot on the safest idea, or the one the boss likes.
…The dot is a blunt instrument… You end up with the idea that everyone sort of likes, but nobody loves…
The problem is that a dot is a blunt instrument. I might vote for an idea because it sounds like an easy win while you might vote for an idea because it sounds difficult but worth it. Those are two completely different yet common and valid views worth surfacing. Yet, when you tally the dots, you strip away the context. You end up with the idea everyone sort of likes, but nobody loves for the same reason.
Back to School
To fix this, we go back to high school. You might remember voting on superlatives: Class Clown, Most Likely to Succeed, Best Dressed, and so on.
We took this model and adapted it into how we vote. Instead of generic dots, we give the team specific “badges” to award. We typically aim for 8 to 10, tailored to the project. Here’s just a few examples:
- The Quick Win: The best idea we could build next week.
- The Moonshot: The idea that transforms the company in five years.
- The Brand Builder: The idea that makes customers love us.
- The Curious: The idea I just personally want to exist.
Yes, this can seem silly, especially for an important project. But the underlying mechanism works because your team is voting with meaning. Then, when you look at the results, you don’t just see a winner. You might see an idea with zero “Quick Win” votes but ten “Moonshot” votes. That tells you something a red dot never could. It tells you why the team believes in it. You see the team’s sentiment, which helps you make better decisions about which ones to pursue.
Sacrificing for Uncertainty
Finally, stop trying to pick “The One.”
In the old world, building was expensive, so we had to bet on one horse. We picked one hypothesis, built one MVP, and ran one experiment.
In a world of high uncertainty, betting on one horse is reckless.
But in a world of high uncertainty, betting on one horse is reckless. You need Sacrificial Concepts. Armed with your superlative map, pick the strongest six to 12 ideas. Choose ideas that push on different dimensions, ranging in familiarity, ambition, and differentiation.
These are not your final products. They are probes. You are building them not because you know they are the answer, but to see what happens when they collide with reality.
In the age of AI, where the cost of building has dropped to near zero, there is no excuse for narrowing down too early. You can afford to be wrong 11 times to be right once.
Next time, we’ll talk about how to take your portfolio of solutions and make them real enough to feel.
(Continue reading this series… Stop Explaining — and Start Building More Prototypes)
Todd Reily is a design and innovation leader who helps teams manage uncertainty to architect breakthrough product experiences. He spent the last decade shaping the future of sound at Bose, and developing one of the world’s first social robots at Jibo. His work has been recognized by two Time Magazine “Best Inventions” citations, and over 25 design patents.
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