Plays of the month: Give yourself a professional boost by bringing your great ideas to life 💡

[Kristen Roth]

So you’ve got an absolutely genius new idea that you’re excited about, and you just can’t wait to share it with everyone... NICE! Great work coming up with something brilliant that’ll have an impact (and not to mention, raise your profile along the way), but now for the hard part: getting the rest of the crew on board.

It can be hard for people to embrace new ideas at work. Especially when they can’t see exactly what’s swirling around in your mad scientist brain and how you envision everything unfolding. But your ability to bring new initiatives to life can be critical to your career, and we happen to have a few Plays in our arsenal that will help get you the support you need to push your idea forward:

• Project poster: Outline how your idea will help execute on a problem you’re solving for, and share why it matters to the business and your customers.

• Demo trust: Present your vision to your leadership team to give them a thorough understanding, then provide them with the opportunity to challenge it. 

• Elevator pitch: Create an overview of your project idea that’s so concise it can be explained in the time it takes to ride an elevator. This will succinctly capture the true value of your idea.

• Stakeholder communications: Build trust with the team by spelling out how you'll provide your stakeholders with the right information at the right time.

How do you tend to approach sharing a new idea with your team? Do you jump in feet first as soon as the idea strikes you? Or do you spend time preparing a thought-out presentation? We’d love to hear what works for you! 

[Huwen Arnone _Deiser_]

This sounds definitively like a good practice. Very structured.

I think I've gone through each of these steps unconsciously on this situation but leaving aside the project poster and the elevator pitch; I've never before imagined bringing the elevator pitch onto this context, which makes total sense.

Interesting, @Kristen Roth; thank you for sharing.

[Kristen Roth]

It can be so hard to not let excitement for a new idea carry us away before we're truly ready to share it out. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, @Huwen Arnone _Deiser_ !

[Huwen Arnone _Deiser_]

Thank you, @Kristen Roth,

I will definitively consider this for next opportunities. Thank you! :) 

[Jimmy Seddon]

Thank you @Kristen Roth!  I love this concept of promoting plays people might not have encountered.

To answer your question, I work on a team where we will share ideas as soon as we have them.  We work in a (at times) very experimental environment so the sooner we can share and talk about an idea the faster we can take an idea to a proof of concept.

I'd love to see more of these discussions in future months!

[Kristen Roth]

Ooooh, I love hearing that you work in a "very experimental environment." It sounds like that makes the process of sharing and embracing new ideas pretty smooth! 

Glad to hear you're enjoying these discussions, @Jimmy Seddon! Click on the "play-of-the-month" tag above and you'll see discussions from previous months, too. We'll definitely keep them coming! 

[Benjamin]

Hi @Kristen Roth ,

The team and organization I work with, we usually just share our ideas right way. It helps to vet the idea through feedback whether there's something else to consider or another way to look at it or that's awesome and just go for it. 

The time that we prepare a presentation is when that idea probably be good company wide or cross-team. 

I have also seen other side of it where the work culture makes it difficult to make new changes or work life is imbalance causing team members to become so busy to welcome new ideas.

-Ben

[Kristen Roth]

Thanks for sharing, @Benjamin ! Glad to hear your team and organization are good about welcoming new ideas!

[Michaël Monserrat]

Hello everyone,

It is sometimes difficult to get your ideas adopted. Having a good method and patience helps a lot. Thanks for your advice.

[Mayur Jadhav]

Hi Everyone!!

This sounds like very good Practice.

[Esme Crutchley]

I have an ideas board with the date created time on each card in Trello, so that I can put every-single-idea that I have into it and then in a sitdown with my VA we can attempt to organise them! We talk through each one, get some pros & cons down and see which ones we like the sound of and which we think would be most beneficial. Sometimes it's a sequence, sometimes it's a single concept that blooms into something wonderful!

[Kristen Roth]

Love that idea, @Esme Crutchley !

[Walter Buggenhout]

I like to make a distinctions between ideas I can elaborate on my own versus other stuff where I need stakeholder buy in to get things done.

For the first category, I - pretty old school - have a habit of drafting some things out on plain paper first. I use that as a way to help myself see things I thought of and revisiting it a couple of times to then see if something is feasible or not, or doesn't have too big holes in it. But then, I do love to just try things out and see if they work or not. Either you win or you learn.

If I know I will need buy in from stakeholders to get something done, I tend to reach out early to them to see whether the idea has a chance or not. If they really don't want it, it's often not worth investing too much time in it. A caveat of that approach - as I noticed a couple of times - is that you're sometimes unprepared to answer certain questions they have. And then it becomes more challenging to sell them your idea on a second attempt.

[Marjorie]

Thanks, project poster is going to be added to my site.

[Sedera Randria]

Variations around the Vision Poster :

• I like Work Expo with a specific value or a power word at the center of the poster. A visual way to communicate! 
• When coaching a team, I regularly propose to do create a destination postcard in Confluence. A powerful way to share their vision in a few words

[Hakeem Olasupo]

I always face this issue. 

Thanks so much for this article and thanks to everyone that responded also 😊

[Pramodh M]

Great!! @Kristen Roth 

Nice Points on mentioning the ideas regarding Plays that we need to get started.

Hope to catch up with you on discussions regarding Team Playbooks in near future.

I have just enrolled in one now.

Thanks,
Pramodh

[Kristen Roth]

Let us know how your Team Playbook journey goes, @Pramodh M !

[Gaurav]

Great idea @Kristen Roth around making the poster!!

Well to answer the question, in our team, we discuss the idea as soon as someone has one and really hash it out and then proceed towards a POC, though that does depend on the bandwidth available.

[Vero Rivas]

Hi @Kristen Roth 

   I make a mix, I make a presentation but it's not elaborate at all, I usually do it quickly with the essence of the idea and I even leave space for the team to give their opinion and if possible make it their own, to improve it

Cheers

[Kristen Roth]

Sounds like a great way to do it, @Vero Rivas ! Thanks for sharing!

[Sidar Yarar]

I think a demo is the best way to visualize your idea and if a demo is too tedious you need a very good presentation.

[Manoj Gangwar]

Great way to do it

[Josh Shepherd]

There is another technique, similar to a project poster that I have seen being used by our team (and others!) called a "Placemat". Where a Project Poster might be oriented around helping to outline the problem and why it matters, a Placemat is the term we are using for a 1-3 page executive overview of all the elements of an initiative or event. Details, audience, analytics, exec summaries, etc. - all wonderfully crammed in with colours and charts. The overall purpose is to answer all the questions that people might have at a high level to speak intelligently about the topic. I should see if I can find an example... 

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

I like it!

For new ideas, I like brainstorming sessions. For communicating ideas up the chain, maybe to a client, then meetings with prepared options are my preferred method.

[Laurie Sciutti]

Thanks, @Kristen Roth !  I need to remember to revisit this periodically.  It's a great, structured plan for socializing new ideas and processes.