Yes, And...

What is the "Yes, and..." Method?

The Yes, and… method is a brainstorming technique in which you build on one another’s ideas. “Yes, and…” is a framework that makes it easier to respond and develop others' concepts.

It’s about creating a safe space to greenhouse ideas. 

Greenhousing ideas means that new ideas need to be nurtured, protected, and given an opportunity. 

Why do we need to protect ideas? Because all to often, we say no to new ideas. Whether it is a good idea or a bad idea, if it’s new and different, we are likely to say no to it. 

Why Use the "Yes, and..." Method?

The "Yes and…", technique can help create the type of atmosphere that gives all ideas a chance to thrive.

Yes, and… takes inspiration from improv and creates space to be creative and ignite inspiration.

The goal here is to invite and nurture creativity by providing permission to come up with crazier and crazier ideas until something happens. As a team, rather than just having 1 or 2 solutions to draw from, we have a whole basket full of ideas.

Some projects start with constraints that make ideation difficult. We’re told we will create a solution with “technology A” or “technology B.” Then what happens? We first compare technologies to learn what it can and can’t do. However, if we start with the solution in mind, we’ve already constrained ourselves, and we’ve lost focus on what matters, which is, indeed, coming up with many ideas to meet the needs and goals of our consumers.

By using a technique like "Yes, and..."  we ignore constraints and explore many ideas instead.

It's better to start with 50 crazy ideas rather than two practical ideas, which often means that while most of those 50 crazy ideas are just crazy and may not be implemented near-term or ever, there may also be a handful of really innovative ideas that we would never have come up with.

How to use the "Yes, and..." Method:

Start with one person coming up with a question—think about new ideas and then state an initial idea.

Then, the next person picks up the idea by saying “yes, and…” and keeps building on that idea with each person saying “yes, and” for at least 2 minutes. 

Here are a few examples to spur on some ideas using How Might We as a prompt:

• How might we create a wallet that a surfer could use when in the ocean? Yes, and...
• How might we create a wallet that can talk to your phone? Yes, and... 

The point is to start with an idea and build off of it. Check out the video below...

Microlearning