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This method is similar to playing devil’s advocate, but has a different philosophical grounding and is executed in a slightly different manner. When playing make believe, a group of stakeholders composed of people from different functional areas in the business come together and collaboratively try to answer the question what has to be true for this idea to be the best choice for our customer?
Alternatively, you can use a group of external people (trusted confidants) for this exercise—so long as they have diverse professional backgrounds. One of the core strengths of this exercise is that it creates the conditions for multidisciplinary brainstorming and validation. You want people from marketing, operations, legal, product development, customer experience/support, and talent development all applying their unique perspectives in service of the end goal—validating your spark.
What You’ll Need
A varied group of participants, each with a different professional background that’s relevant to the spark;
Sometimes the “customer” is an internal customer or stakeholder, not necessarily a buyer or other market participant—this exercise still works in this scenario, just modify your expectations accordingly and include a representative for that internal customer in the exercise.
A quiet, distraction-free environment like a large meeting room or conference room:
I’ve found that 3-6 participants is ideal—it can be difficult to keep more than this on track and meaningfully involved.
A facilitator, whose role it is to keep the exercise on track and move the participants through each of the phases efficiently. You can double as the facilitator in a pinch, though there’s often considerable value in asking someone completely neutral and uninvolved in the topic at hand to play this part;
Optionally, a scribe (a person or AI assistant who can take notes / transcribe the exercise so that the group can focus their mental energy on the discussion without interrupting their mental flow to write down notes). This is less important than with the Devil’s Advocate method as there tend to be pauses in the exercise where a given individual isn’t directly involved in the exercise and can collect their thoughts.
What You’ll Do
Think through how you would present your idea to someone who knew nothing about it, or the topic, and jot down some notes to refer to while engaging another person or persons—your preparation should naturally be a bit more robust for this exercise than that of the Devil’s Advocate, given that there are more people involved;
If your spark (idea) is complex or requires background preparation on the part of the group to comprehend, then provide a written summary of the idea in advance of the exercise.
Round up your group of confidants and schedule some time for the exercise to unfold. Importantly:
Remove yourself from environmental distractions (if you work in a busy office, go off-site);
Block off sufficient time to focus on the exercise and engage in rich discussion (I find that a 1.5-2 hour session works well—less than this, and you run the risk of cutting short valuable time to engage with the discussion substantively. More than this and you’ll sap the available mental energy of participants, leaving the end of the session a bit lacklustre);
Remove any technology distractions (laptops closed, smartphones set to silent unless either is essential to communicating the idea—in which case, shut them off when finished);
Before beginning the exercise, go over the basic ground rules with your group:
The group’s role isn’t to criticize the idea directly (or any of the people behind it). Rather, their objective is to imagine the conditions that would have to be true or real in order for the idea to be best choice for the customer. The group isn’t changing the idea through exploration, they’re constructing an imaginary world where the idea is the best choice for the customer;
Commentary about the idea and follow-up discussion points should be presented in a round-robin format. No one person should monopolize the time of the group, and the focus should be kept on constructing conditions which make the idea the best-choice for the customer;
The group is expected to work collaboratively in order to construct the imaginary world around the spark—this is not an adversarial exercise, and debate between participants should be kept to a minimum;
“What if” statements and questions are highly valued, generally productive components of this exercise.
Define the customer for the group that the spark applies to (or re-iterate an existing definition of a customer segment/psychographic profile);
Ask the scribe to begin recording or taking notes for the session;
Begin by presenting the idea to the group, who should make every effort to allow you to finish before asking questions (unless a clarification allowing them to understand what you’re saying is needed);
After the idea presentation is complete, kick off the exploration of the group by asking them, “What would need to be true in order for this to be the best choice for the customer?”
In a round robin, each participant should outline a single point that supports answering the question, building a constructed world where the idea and customer are in strong alignment;
Repeat the round-robin until a clear picture begins to emerge, and the constructed world is in focus for the group:
Naturally, questions from one participant to another will begin to arise as the constructed world comes into focus—everyone present should make their best effort to ensure this dialogue is additive, rather than debating the worth or validity of each other’s contributions.
Once there are no further round-robin additions, ask the group if there are any suggested revisions to the contributions:
This should also proceed in a round-robin style, but with a slightly more relaxed mindset—participants shouldn’t monopolize the group’s time, but should be afforded the space to justify their revision and lightly debate with any opposing viewpoints;
Once the suggested revisions are settled, the facilitator (or scribe) should read back the spark and all of the conditions which would have to be true in order for it to be the best choice for the customer;
Ask the group—is this reasonable today? What would have to change in our business to make these conditions reasonable?
This will generate some open discussion—while no-one should monopolize the group’s time, make every effort to give each participant space and time to discuss their viewpoint.
Ask the group—overall, do you think this idea is viable and worth pursuing?
Each participant should respond with a thumbs-up for yes and a thumbs-down for no.
For each ‘thumbs-down’, ask the participant why they don’t believe the idea is viable or worth pursuing. This will also likely generate some open discussion—but as with the other steps of the process, try to minimize back-and-forth debate and keep the discussion focused;
When the session concludes, the scribe (or facilitator) should summarize their notes for everyone involved including a list of takeaways or action points that arise from it. If participants were tasked with taking their own notes, ask them to contribute them to a shared document that is distributed to the entire group for review.
Want a headstart on organizing your session? A download link for the template that I use can be found at the end of the post.
Pros of this Method
Aligns participants towards a common goal—identifying under what conditions the spark (idea) is worth pursuing;
As such, avoid unnecessary conflict which can arise when people are overly invested in their own viewpoint;
Like the Devil’s Advocate, can be organized and executed with a minimal investment in overhead and time—but tends to yield a stronger output given the structurally-forced diversity of professional viewpoints;
Provides a good forum for leadership or stakeholder teams to strengthen additive brainstorming skills.
Cons of this Method
Can be difficult to manage with larger groups—participants with certain personality types can have difficulty setting aside their own feelings to contribute to the discussion in a net-positive manner;
Also not a substitute for market feedback, and can create false confidence in the idea (especially if the participants are overly prone to groupthink)—never greenlight significant investments of time or money based on the outcome of this exercise alone;
Can be challenging to pull together the mental presence necessary for this to be highly effective if the participant group is constantly running on a hamster wheel in their day-to-day (an effective way to counter this is to plan it as a strategic retreat / leadership retreat well in advance and ask participants to arrange coverage for their normal duties).
This post is part of a series on practical methods for stress-testing your ideas (and ultimately validating your sparks of inspiration). Missed the introduction? Check it out here.
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Tools and Downloads
Plan your next Alignment Method group session with confidence! Here’s the template that I’ve used in dozens of sessions :
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