The 5 methods every team should learn first

Learn five methods first: interviews to understand the problem, "how might we" to frame it, brainwriting to generate ideas, an impact–effort matrix to choose, and a paper prototype to test. Together they cover one full cycle from problem to evidence, they need no software or budget, and each can be learned by doing it once. Everything else is easier once these are habits.

The list is short on purpose. Teams that start with a poster of forty tools use three of them badly. Teams that practise five on real problems build judgement, and judgement is what tells you when to reach for something else. For a wider toolkit later, see The 10 tools every innovation team should know.

1. Stakeholder interviews

Talk to the people who live the problem before anyone proposes a fix.

Most failed initiatives solve a problem the team imagined. Thirty minutes with someone who experiences the problem replaces weeks of internal debate. The skill is not in the asking but in what you ask about: real past events ("Tell me about the last time you…"), not opinions or hypotheticals ("Would you use…?"). People are poor predictors of their own future behaviour and good reporters of what just happened to them.

What to do: interview in pairs, one asking and one writing. Aim for five to eight conversations per problem. Write down quotes, not interpretations, and only interpret once you have them all on the wall. The stakeholder interviews guide has question patterns and a note-taking template.

Instead of: surveys as a first step. A survey tells you how many people agree with what you already thought to ask. Interviews tell you what you didn't know to ask.

2. How might we

Turn what you heard into a question that invites many answers.

Between research and ideas sits the step teams skip: deciding what question you are answering. "How might we…" is a phrasing that came out of Min Basadur's work at Procter & Gamble in the 1970s and was later spread widely by IDEO. Each word does work. "How" assumes it can be solved. "Might" permits answers that may not work. "We" makes it shared.

What to do: write several versions and test their width. "How might we improve the citizen experience?" is too wide; any idea fits. "How might we add a text reminder?" is too narrow; it contains the answer. Aim for the middle: "How might we help applicants know what is missing before they submit?" The how might we guide shows how to adjust a question up and down.

Instead of: jumping from findings straight to "so the solution is…". The question you choose limits the ideas you get.

3. Brainwriting

Generate ideas silently, on paper, before anyone discusses them.

Open group brainstorming has a well-known weakness: the first few speakers anchor the room, and people hold back ideas they fear will be judged. In hierarchical settings, nobody wants to speak before the most senior person. Brainwriting removes the problem by having everyone write first. The best-known form, 6-3-5, was described by Bernd Rohrbach in 1968: six people each write three ideas in five minutes, then pass the sheet on to be built upon.

What to do: you do not need exactly six people. Give each person a sheet, run three to five rounds of five minutes, and ask people to build on the ideas already on the sheet they receive. Then put everything on the wall and discuss. A group of five can easily reach 50 ideas in 25 minutes. See the brainwriting guide.

Instead of: "Any ideas?" in a meeting. You will hear from the same three people and they will agree with each other.

4. Impact–effort matrix

Sort ideas by what they would achieve and what they would cost, then pick a few to test.

Once you have 50 ideas, the risk becomes arguing about all of them. The impact–effort matrix is the simplest useful filter: a two-by-two grid where each idea is placed by its expected benefit and the work it needs. It forces a conversation about trade-offs instead of preferences, and it is fast enough to run in 20 minutes.

What to do: place ideas relative to each other, not on an absolute scale. Agree what "impact" means for this problem before you start (fewer repeat calls? faster approvals?). Pick two or three ideas, usually from the high-impact, low-effort corner, plus perhaps one bold idea worth a cheap test. Be honest that the placements are judgements, not data. The impact–effort matrix guide covers the common traps. When a decision needs more rigour, the next step up is a weighted decision matrix, compared in How to prioritise ideas: five ways compared.

Instead of: picking the idea the most senior person liked, or the one with the best presentation.

5. Paper prototype

Make the idea real enough to react to, in hours, and put it in front of users.

An idea in a slide invites opinions. An idea on paper invites behaviour: people try to use it, and you watch where they get stuck. A paper prototype can be a sketched screen, a draft form, a mock leaflet or a written script for a counter conversation. Its cheapness is the point. Nobody defends a sketch they made in an hour, so the team can actually learn from the test.

What to do: build only the part you need to test. Set two or three questions you want answered. Test with five or so users, one at a time, and resist explaining: if you need to explain, that is the finding. Note what people do, not only what they say. The paper prototype guide includes a simple test script. For other cheap formats, read The cheapest prototype you can make this week.

Instead of: building a pilot first. A pilot built on an untested idea is an expensive way to discover a misunderstanding.

Why these five, and not others

These five map one complete loop: understand, frame, generate, choose, test. A team that can run that loop on any problem has the core of innovation practice. Many popular tools are variations or extensions of one of these steps. A journey map deepens the "understand" step; a Business Model Canvas, from Strategyzer, is valuable once you are designing a whole service or offer, not on week one.

One habit is worth adding from the start, though it is a practice rather than a method: a 30-minute retrospective at the end of each cycle. It is how a team gets better at the other five.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Learn each method by using it on a real problem, not on a training exercise.
• Use all five in sequence at least once, so people see how they connect.
• Rotate who facilitates, so the skill does not live in one person.
• Keep the outputs: interview notes, the questions, the idea sheets, the test notes.

Don't

• Teach all five in a single training day and expect them to stick.
• Skip interviews because "we already know our users".
• Treat the matrix as a calculation. It is a structured conversation.
• Polish a prototype before you test it.

Illustrative example

Illustrative: an invented organisation, for explanation only.

The finance operations team at a mid-sized engineering consultancy in Singapore wants to reduce the time it takes to approve supplier invoices. A team lead learns the five methods by applying them to this one problem over three weeks.

She and a colleague interview six project managers and two suppliers, and hear that most delays come from invoices missing a purchase order number. They write "How might we make sure invoices arrive complete the first time?" A brainwriting session of five people produces 42 ideas in 25 minutes. On the impact–effort matrix, three ideas sit in the high-impact, low-effort corner; the team picks two. They mock up a one-page supplier checklist and a revised email template on paper and test both with four suppliers by video call. The checklist confuses two of them; the email template works. The team rolls out the template and keeps the checklist for revision. In the retrospective, the newest team member says brainwriting was the first time she had put forward an idea in that team.

Questions people ask

What are the basic tools of innovation? A short core set covers most work: interviews to understand a problem, a "how might we" question to frame it, brainwriting to generate ideas, an impact–effort matrix to choose and a paper prototype to test. Learn these before larger frameworks.

Is design thinking the same as these methods? Design thinking is a broader approach that uses methods like these at its stages. You can practise all five without adopting any named methodology. See Design thinking, step by step for the full process.

How long does it take to learn innovation methods? Each of these five can be used competently after one real attempt with a short guide. Judgement about when to use which takes several cycles. Practice beats training.

Where to go next

Start with the guides to stakeholder interviews, how might we, brainwriting and paper prototypes. To see all five in sequence over a month, read Where to start with innovation in your team: the first 30 days; to run them in a single week, read Your team's first innovation week.