AD-00004

A group of scientists met on three occasions to explore new uses for a raw material whose use in their industry is declining.  In the first ½ day session they brainstormed "out-of-the-box thinking" ideas on some alternate uses for the product.  Each idea was clarified and thoroughly discussed (Organize, Discussion Mode).  Then each idea was used as a topic in Generate, with participants controlling selection of topics to work on, to enter the "history".  History was defined as knowledge of past use of the raw material for any ideas just discussed.  The ideas and the history were printed. 

A week later, after "soak" time, the group met again and reviewed comments from the group.  They used Evaluate to shorten the list.  Then, they used Generate again to record "pluses" and "minuses" about the alternate use.

The following week they reviewed the benefit statements, and used Cross Impact to rate the final list of proposed alternate uses, against 5 strategic criteria adopted by the group to evaluate new projects.  The top 3 ideas are now being considered.