"Solutioneering" 101 or Presenting half-baked notions

[usmbguest5318]

Many of the best ideas and solutions began as half-baked thoughts shared among bright individuals. We have a term for the process of bringing to fruition a half-baked idea: brainstorming. The key to effective brainstorming is leadership. If one cannot lead an audience to the point whereby they see one's ostensibly hairbrained proposal as something on which they can build, one's idea is dead in the water.

In the context of public policy discussion (not debate) that means one must present one's ideas in such such a way that audience members who understand the topic really well will consider it and in their minds think a variety of things including:

• "Okay, this idea is incomplete, but the guy has given credence to the specifics of the aspects by which it is incomplete, so I can tell s/he knows what he's talking and can be a valuable partner if I were to contribute some ideas that, one way or another, advance building on his/her ideas." (Idea development is advanced either positively by expounding on existing ideas, adding new elements, or by a contributor culling tactical lines from the realm of possible ones initially broached for the purpose of either validating or invalidating them.)
• "This idea is one that can be addressed in isolation; thus it's worth discussing."

Half-baked ideas presented in any other way than those will, among audience members who have a fairly strong understanding of the subject matter, achieve one or two things: resistance and/or indifference. Thus the only way to get hairbrained ideas "off the ground" is to own the incoherence and/or incompleteness of the initial idea. Alternatively, one can altogether abjure posing half-baked ideas, and instead present fully developed ones.

References:

• How to Write an Effective Discussion
  
• Sales Buy-In of Marketing Strategies: Exploration of Its Nuances, Antecedents, and Contextual Conditions
  
• Get the Boss to Buy In
  
• The Focused Leader
  
• Commonalities and differences between scholarly and technical collaboration
  
• Group discussion and the importance of a shared perspective

 

[deanrd]

That's not true. I can think of a lot of half baked notions that we kind of got out of but were terrible disasters in the long run:

Going into Iraq to create a "freedom agenda". Only we made a close friend for Iran.

Tax cuts for the rich. They were supposed to create jobs lost by automation. What a joke.

That having no healthcare is a good idea. So far, it's only bankrupted hospitals.

That college is bad for America. Now we have 6.2 million unfilled jobs because of a lack of skills and education.

And we have a whole list of similar and terrible ideas. Ideas not based on study and examination but "half baked".

 

[Vastator]

Fear of competition also keeps some ideas such as these from being allowed to progress past the conception stage. Take eugenics for example...

 

[usmbguest5318]

That's not true. I can think of a lot of half baked notions that we kind of got out of but were terrible disasters in the long run:

Going into Iraq to create a "freedom agenda". Only we made a close friend for Iran.

Tax cuts for the rich. They were supposed to create jobs lost by automation. What a joke.

That having no healthcare is a good idea. So far, it's only bankrupted hospitals.

That college is bad for America. Now we have 6.2 million unfilled jobs because of a lack of skills and education.

And we have a whole list of similar and terrible ideas. Ideas not based on study and examination but "half baked".

I can think of a lot of half baked notions that we kind of got out of but were terrible disasters in the long run:

I too can think of many that fit that description.

Half-baked is meant to be an intermediate status, not a terminal one. Little or nothing that never makes it past the half-baked point is likely to turn out right. For instance, a half-baked souffle will either come out of the oven well executed or not. Whether it does depends on several things, among them being how well it's baked. So it is with ideas and action plans.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Fear of competition also keeps some ideas such as these from being allowed to progress past the conception stage. Take eugenics for example...

What? I don't understand what "fear of competition" has to do with the development beyond the half-baked status of the ideas of eugenics.

 

[Vastator]

Fear of competition also keeps some ideas such as these from being allowed to progress past the conception stage. Take eugenics for example...

What? I don't understand what "fear of competition" has to do with the development beyond the half-baked status of the ideas of eugenics.

The fear by those who's genetic contribution, will not be incorporated into the project.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Fear of competition also keeps some ideas such as these from being allowed to progress past the conception stage. Take eugenics for example...

What? I don't understand what "fear of competition" has to do with the development beyond the half-baked status of the ideas of eugenics.

The fear by those who's genetic contribution, will not be incorporated into the project.

TY for that piece of clarification.

 

[IsaacNewton]

Many of the best ideas and solutions began as half-baked thoughts shared among bright individuals. We have a term for the process of bringing to fruition a half-baked idea: brainstorming. The key to effective brainstorming is leadership. If one cannot lead an audience to the point whereby they see one's ostensibly hairbrained proposal as something on which they can build, one's idea is dead in the water.

In the context of public policy discussion (not debate) that means one must present one's ideas in such such a way that audience members who understand the topic really well will consider it and in their minds think a variety of things including:

• "Okay, this idea is incomplete, but the guy has given credence to the specifics of the aspects by which it is incomplete, so I can tell s/he knows what he's talking and can be a valuable partner if I were to contribute some ideas that, one way or another, advance building on his/her ideas." (Idea development is advanced either positively by expounding on existing ideas, adding new elements, or by a contributor culling tactical lines from the realm of possible ones initially broached for the purpose of either validating or invalidating them.)
• "This idea is one that can be addressed in isolation; thus it's worth discussing."

Half-baked ideas presented in any other way than those will, among audience members who have a fairly strong understanding of the subject matter, achieve one or two things: resistance and/or indifference. Thus the only way to get hairbrained ideas "off the ground" is to own the incoherence and/or incompleteness of the initial idea. Alternatively, one can altogether abjure posing half-baked ideas, and instead present fully developed ones.

References:

• How to Write an Effective Discussion
  
• Sales Buy-In of Marketing Strategies: Exploration of Its Nuances, Antecedents, and Contextual Conditions
  
• Get the Boss to Buy In
  
• The Focused Leader
  
• Commonalities and differences between scholarly and technical collaboration
  
• Group discussion and the importance of a shared perspective

You just have to know when to get out.




Any idea should stand on it's own. Having to sell it either means the idea is weak or the group hearing it has little imagination.

 

[Darkwind]

Is there a specific context here?

I would venture to say that any idea, fully or half baked, is much like a military battle plan.

Rarely does it survive its first encounter with reality.

 

[TiffanyAyala]

Your idea and reflections have a good logic. I know what I have to learn! You are my inspiration today!