Shiritori - Generate New Ideas Easily
I work as a Global business development responsible for a software development company and one of the tasks that I do frequently is to connect the dots. I connect the dots at work in a few ways:
- Connect the vision/mission of the company to a set of areas of focus for business development and further connect these areas of focus to relevant habits for the field operations, marketing and software development. This process not only requires you to think abstractly but also be creative in how you connect the job descriptions/goals of individuals to the ideals of the organization.
- Connect the software technology that we develop to real world engineering applications.
- Connect the software technology and its applications to the appropriate audience (end users, IT, decision makers, etc)
All the above tasks require me to not only connect the dots but also to connect them creatively.
A tool/game that I use for the creative part of my thinking process is Shiritori. Shiritori is "word chain" based where a player is first given a random letter. The player comes up with a word beginning with that letter. The opponent then takes turn in coming up with a new word beginning with the last letter of the previous word.
Here's an example:
- Example 1: Cars - Schumacher - Ride & Handling - Great Performance - Engineering simulation
- Example 2: Truck - Kinematics - Simulation
I've adopted Shiritori to also chain images, chain different engineering applications and chain different software technologies together.
So: the next time you're having to come up with a new idea - try Shiritori. It's easy and fun!
