Answering your first question - on how to do it almost anonymosly - we call it in S.I.T “Opportunistic Innovation”.

As you mentioned, most organizations still use brainstorming as their main method, and so are not neccesarily familiar with the possibility of “brain SITorming” as you call it.

So what can readers of this blog do, when they happen to sit in a regular brainstorming session, that is stuck, and is going no where, and are certain that using an SIT tool here, ‘annonymously’ can help ‘unstuck’ the session?

They can use “Opportunistic Innovation”. What is it?

Basicaly this means doing SIT undercover, or as a client who is also a close friend of us, an SIT coach in Bayer, calls it: “Stealth S.I.T.”

How is done?

I will give you some possibilities:
* Doing it during a meeting “In your mind” 1: Use Subtraction to raise questions that will help others overcome other participants’ fixedness and blocks. Think of ways to lead the conversation to what amounts to applying the tool, without actually using the SIT language. For example: “What if we considered not having an XYZ in this ZZ?”. Generate Virtual Products in your mind and then ask for benefits and challenges.
* Doing it during a meeting “In your mind” 2: Lead the conversation according to the FFF chart. E.g. “Wait, lets think first what could be the value of this.”, and then “Now that we realize what it can do for us, let’s see if we can implement it.”

* And now, if you started from an “in your mind” approach, and if your idea was received with enthusiasm, use the opportunity to admit that you have a method, and volunteer to present it: “Give me 5 minutes to introduce you to an interesting concept that I think we can use here.” then very briefly teach the tool or principle you want to use and apply it with the team;
- Dont forget to assign roles; make sure you have someone who knows about the subject enough and a scribe to capture ideas as they come; collect ideas and document them.

Even when you are doing Stealth SIT, and it’s going well, make sure you don’t take over the meeting. Much better that they ask you for more later or next time.

And another suggestion: Share your experiences of opportunistic innovation with your fellow “closet innovators”, learn and teach, grumble together when it doesn’t work out, and share the joy when it does.