Brainstorming is a great way to tap into collaborative creativity and generate innovative ideas. But too often, open-ended brainstorming lacks focus and leads to ideas that are not realistic, don’t have a clear ROI, and are hard to prioritize.
Leveraging structured frameworks can make brainstorming sessions more impactful. One such framework is opportunity mapping, a structured way to identify and prioritize ideas to solve key challenges. It starts with a clear focus area and relevant quantitative and qualitative data. This will help identify opportunities and actionable ideas to achieve your goal.
1. Define the focus area or goal
What problem are you trying to solve? Which metrics are you aiming to improve? Be clear about the outcome you want to achieve.
Example: We want to increase monthly recurring donations.
2. Gather relevant quantitative data
Quantitative data can be measured, counted, or expressed using numbers. This could include past performance, metrics, benchmarks, and user demographics. Quantitative data will tell you what is happening.
Examples: How do donors donate? Through your website, Facebook, events, email campaign links, or elsewhere? Which past campaigns have been successful? What are the demographics of your donors? What percent of new donors convert to recurring donors? What are current donation trends?
Also read: What “user-centered” could mean to you
3. Gather relevant qualitative data
While quantitative data tells the “what,” you will need qualitative data to understand why something is happening. Qualitative data is non-numerical and captures subjective experiences, opinions, or observations. This could include survey feedback, user interviews, stakeholder feedback, and other qualitative research.
Examples: Survey results about why donors choose to give, what motivates them. Insights from one-on-one interviews with donors to understand their giving priorities and what made your organization stand out to them. Insights from user research by watching users navigate your donation platform or interact with your campaigns to identify pain points or barriers to donation.
4. Identify opportunities
This is where some of the magic happens. Analyzing all the quantitative and qualitative data will help you identify opportunities. Maybe you realize that most of your donations come through Facebook, but the number of daily users visiting your website is far larger than the engagement with your social posts. You might realize that you have more questions: Why aren’t website visitors converting to donors? What are website visitors looking for, and is there a potential to increase conversion? Since only qualitative data can answer your “why” questions, you might need to gather more qualitative insights if you don’t already have the answers. Opportunities should be specific and focused on the user who is key to your focus area. Write the opportunities in the voice of the user, whether that’s a donor, volunteer, or beneficiary of your services.
Examples: I can’t set my donation as recurring on the website. I want to know what my donation will be used for before I donate. I want to be recognized for my contributions in a public way.
5. Opportunity mapping workshop
Gather relevant stakeholders from different parts of your organization for diverse perspectives (staff, board members, volunteers). During the workshop, walk them through the quantitative and qualitative data you collected. Explain the opportunity you have identified and how it ties in with the data. Using a whiteboard and sticky notes or digital tools, encourage everyone to contribute ideas related to the opportunity. Optionally, ask workshop participants to group ideas by theme to identify trends and vote on the strongest ideas to get a temperature check from the group that might help during prioritization.
Example agenda:
• Introduction to quantitative and qualitative data (10min)
• Write ideas on sticky notes (20 min)
• Group ideas by themes (5 min)
• Everyone votes on the top 3 ideas or themes (5-10 min)
6. Prioritize ideas
After the workshop, use prioritization frameworks to identify which ideas to act on. I like using the Impact/Effort matrix: A 2x2 matrix showing Impact (high/low) vs. Effort (high/low). For this activity, I define “Impact” as the likelihood that the idea will help us get closer to achieving our goal and “Effort” as the combination of time and resources needed to implement the idea. Sort the generated ideas in the four quadrants, then focus on the ideas that fall within the high-impact quadrants:
• Quick wins: high impact, low effort
• High-priority opportunities: high impact, high effort
If you have identified multiple opportunities, you can hold a longer workshop and pivot from one opportunity to a second halfway through. More than two is a lot to ask of engaged participants and I recommend scheduling a separate workshop if you have more than two. As a Product Manager, I hold these types of opportunity mappings several times throughout the year as we uncover more quantitative and qualitative data and better understand the opportunity spaces around our focus area.
Nicole Jendro
she/her
Senior Product Manager, Blue Barn Farm & Sanctuary
I am a Senior Product Manager at Geocaching HQ.
Since 2023 I am exploring how to use my Product Management expertise in the non-profit sector. I am currently the Board President at Blue Barn Farm and Sanctuary, and volunteer with Welcome Home Animal Sanctuary, both located in Oregon.
