The room is quiet; only the sound of typing can be heard. The noise of the keyboards is growing, filling the room with intensity. Suddenly, the typing stops and a loud, energetic discussion erupts among the people. Several groups start discussing something clearly important and engaging. What is going on?

Actually, this is not a scene from a financial marketplace, but rather very normal for a group working session with Orchidea. The tool was originally developed for managing the innovation process of organizations, but it has now evolved into an effective ideation tool. It can be used for engaging groups in creating ideas and solutions for different challenges or creating engagement and concrete plans for the implementation of those ideas. The group size may vary from a few people up to 100 or more, working in parallel on different tasks. You can have all participants in the same room or call for a virtual meeting.

Get better results

You may wonder why you should use a digital tool to brainstorm with people in the same room. There are several persuasive arguments. Everyone is able to submit their ideas instantly; the writing speed of a facilitator is no longer the bottleneck. When you start creating ideas for your challenge with Orchidea, everyone gets involved intensively while simultaneously seeing all the ideas that the others in the group submit. Ideas flicker past you quickly on the screen and give you impulses for further ideas. Everyone benefits, in different ways. While introverts can focus on their rich inner world, where they find their best ideas, extroverts get enough impulses from the others, creating their best ideas together with the others. The results are astonishing. A group typically develops and documents ideas three to four times faster compared to a traditional brainstorming session. This is often surprising. And it is furthermore very rewarding and energizing for the participants who realize that they are being very effective both individually and as a group.

Strengths of the Orchidea workshop tools

  • Quicker brainstorming, more ideas. The paradox of focusing on your own ideas while seeing all ideas of everyone, simultaneous increased divergence and convergence.
  • Ideas are documented in a useful way.
  • Development of proposals and good descriptions of solutions.
  • Both quiet concentration and effective verbal communication are included in the process, creating a rhythm that makes groupwork efficient.
  • High creative value and high engagement in practical solutions.
  • You can set up local, remote or hybrid meetings.
  • Several groups can be facilitated in parallel by one facilitator.

Bring ideas to life

A typical problem of a traditional brainstorming session using flipcharts or Post-its is widely known. The content captured in writing or drawing is very limited, but it still becomes a large volume of paper. This pile or roll of paper is difficult to transform into a useful digital format other than photos. The results and therefore the impact on reality can be very limited; most ideas are simply forgotten. With Orchidea, all ideas are neatly documented. Not only that; the ones that become a basis for solutions evolve into well-described plans that are easy to understand even for those who were not part of the brainstorming. Evolution continues naturally and the plans can be easily incorporated into strategies.

»Better results from workshops through innovative and digital participation.«

How do typical sessions work?

Orchidea Brainstorming starts with one or several defined challenges, either concerning future ideas or the implementation of ideas and guidelines already decided on. Lots of raw ideas are generated and proposals are created based on them. These are fed into a template that includes clarifying questions for good solutions. All proposals created in the session are thoroughly thought out and well connected to the original challenge. It’s easy for the owner of the challenge to build final solutions based on submitted proposals.

You can also use Orchidea Brainstorming for participative problem solving. The participants can find a common solution to their challenge by using the process called APERA, described below.

Orchidea workshops are held most effectively in the same room, but a remote or hybrid workshop with some participants outside the room can also be run very effectively.

Customer case

We have used different options of the Orchidea idea management tools since 2012. We process our ideas and initiatives with Orchidea and we like its functionality.

Innotiimi-ICG introduced Orchidea Brainstorming to us some time ago and we see good potential in the digital brainstorming method to gain input to develop our operations, products and services both internally and together with business partners. Innotiimi’-ICG’s OPERA workshop tool has been in use in our factories for over ten years and now we had the first sessions with the new digitalized APERA process. It improves the traditional process of OPERA and this makes our workshops more efficient.

The participants of Orchidea Brainstorming and the APERA process have been very satisfied and reported: »this was the best meeting in a long time.«

Image: rawpixel, source: 123RF