108 Ideas involves 6 participants, supervised by a facilitator, writing down 3 ideas each on a worksheet in 5 minutes. After 6 rounds (30 minutes), the result is 108 ideas - this is where the name comes from. The Step by Step Approach is:
Agree a theme/challenge/issue for the session and write this as a ‘problem statement’ at the top of the Ideas Form. The Ideas Form is a grid where the heading of the columns are Idea 1, Idea 2 and Idea 3 and the rows identify the name of who has contributed these 3 suggestions.
Participants are given 5 minutes to complete the first row, working in silence. Ideas may be written, drawn or in symbol form. The facilitator signals the end of time, and the sheet is passed to the participant on their right.
The process is repeated and each participant can either build on the ideas already on the sheet or ignore them and add their own, new ideas.
This continues until the worksheet is completely filled in. If people struggle with the time allowed, it could be extended to 10 minutes for the final rotations.
The 108 ideas can then be assessed to eliminate duplicates, and up to 3 priority ideas identified for the group to focus on.