Have you ever felt overwhelmed when leading an ideation session? It can sometimes be tricky to read the room, empower collaborators to share their ideas, and keep the meeting on schedule. While it can be a lot to juggle, Lucidspark makes it easy to host better collaboration sessions.

In this article, we’ll break down the Lucidspark course, “Collaborate for ideation,” and show you ways to keep your teams focused and engaged during ideation sessions. We won’t cover the entire course though, so be sure to register to access the full content.

Before you meet

If you fail to plan, then plan to fail. Ever heard that saying before? Make sure you are well prepared before your ideation session by taking some time to plan ahead.

We like to use the pizza rule. When brainstorming, keep the group you invite between four and six people—about the number of people you’d share a pizza with. If your group needs to be larger, use Breakout Boards to split the group into smaller teams.

Thinking through these logistics beforehand helps establish collaborative equity because everyone has a chance to contribute their ideas.

Prepare to facilitate

Now that your board is prepared, it’s time to facilitate! If someone joins the meeting late, quickly bring them up to speed by adding a Path. Simply click on the Frame icon from the Primary Toolbar and select Path > Create Path. Then, add Frames and order them according to the flow of your meeting. Share the link with all collaborators so that when they join, they will jump right to where you are.

Another tool for prepping your board is to time block your board to stay on track. Use the timer tool to allocate specific time constraints for each frame. That way,  you can cover all the material and finish your session on time.

When a large group adds sticky notes and moves around the board simultaneously, it can be hard to see where your sticky notes begin and end. Adjust the board’s cursor settings to make collaboration clearer. You can add Collaborator Colors, toggle on the Show authors feature, and more.

Bring ideas forward

Collaboration in Lucidspark makes it easy to gauge progress and engagement in real time. For example, if you notice cursors have slowed or stopped on the board, then people are likely done adding their ideas. This means you can stop the timer or start asking for feedback. 

When you’re ready to move on, click Invite others to me, and everyone will move to your view of the board so they can follow along.

Another way to jump-start action on your board is to ask the team to add emoji reactions. This is an interactive way to gather feedback without using words at all! If you see some ideas with hearts, stars, or a thumbs-up emoji, you’ll know those ideas are popular.