Due to the current situation surrounding Coronavirus, we thought we would revisit and share some of our favourite creativity tools that you can use remotely. First up, the brilliant Candor.
What is it?
Candor is a free tool that sets out to “decouple” the generation of ideas from the evaluation of those ideas. It’s a clever way to ensure that you don’t kill an idea before it’s at least had its chance to progress and is also excellent for making sure that everyone’s ideas are heard, as participants are asked to do some thinking in advance.
What is it for?
Massively upping your ideas quotient – and allowing quieter members of the team to have their say.
How does it work?
You start by sending your question or problem out to members of your brainstorming team – making it clear that you want them to come up with ideas that before you all meet up. All of these ideas are submitted via the free Candor app/desktop tool to whoever is organising the session. At the meeting, these ideas are then shown to the rest of the room and the creator of each is asked to quickly explain their thinking. Crucially, there is no evaluation at this stage. Once everyone has had their turn, all of the ideas are up for discussion – they can be eliminated, grouped together or expanded on to make them better. The tool then lets participants vote on their favourites.
It helps to:
- Tackle bias
- Save time
- Encourage participation from all
- Produce more ideas
Who is it for?
Absolutely everyone – especially those whose teams are reluctant brainstorming session participants, or whose creative sessions are often dominated by the same couple of voices.
How long does it take?
Candor works best if people have some prep time – depending on the complexity of the issue and the capabilities of the team, that could be anything from 30 mins to a week or more to allow for that all important incubation phase.
Difficulty rating
1/5. An absolute piece of cake and fun to use. 5/5 for effectiveness!
Why we love it
It’s a clever way to bring some solid and straightforward tech into the brainstorming process, and allows everyone to contribute their ideas without being shot down. It also means that you can generate ideas remotely and share them.
If you’re interested in finding ways to unleash your creativity for yourself or your teams check out our workshops or contact Lucy@nowgocreate.co.uk