Chocoberry Case Study
Idea Generation
The techniques that I would propose for CB would be Matrix Analysis (Creative Advantage, 2000), brainstorming (EinsteinDiva, 2010) and whiteboarding (Matimore, 2011). It is important to note that matrix analysis analyzes the situation based on a number of criteria that are then cross evaluated through the matrix, which is basically like a table that it used to represent a set of variables for the top row and another set of variables for the leftmost column. Through the use of the matrix analysis technique, CB could develop new ideas based on the possible combination of variables that are identifiable in the situation of CB. On the other hand, the brainstorming technique involves an in-depth discussion of ideas in a close group, such as the leaders in the case of CB. This discussion would be used to ensure that the different ideas of these leaders would be considered for the decision that would be made in order to make the changes that are needed in the organization so that the company could take advantage of the changes in the market. In contrast, the whiteboarding technique involves the use of a board or a whiteboard. In this technique, the whiteboard would be used to write or paste certain ideas onto the board for a given period of time. These ideas would then later be analyzed in terms of their connections to each other.
It is arguable that whiteboarding is considered as the most appropriate for the case of CB, because the company needs to be able to make the decision based on disparate ideas among the leaders of the organization. These leaders have different ideas that seem to be disconnected or not strongly linked to each other. It would be difficult to make use of the matrix analysis technique because this technique does not allow the organization to be flexible enough, as the matrix used limits the variables as well as the definitions of the variables of interest. Through the use of whiteboarding, CB could make sure that it would be able to make connections among the disparate ideas as well as the emerging ideas in the market, so that the leaders would be able to determine the best ideas that should be included in the decision later on.
It is arguable that the CEO should be selected to facilitate the ideation, but all of the leaders identified in the case text should be involved. For instance, the entire team for this ideation session should include the CEO, the VP for new product development, and the VP for manufacturing. In addition, market researchers and a consultant can be included into the session so that they could provide a more realistic set of inputs into the whiteboarding session. It would not be advisable to select IT persons because they are not directly involved in the development of the product and the manufacturing of the product. Other personnel, such as those in the accounting department or the finance department, should not be included in the whiteboarding session because they are also not directly involved. However, if CB is concerned about the potential costs and budget limitations of the company, the Finance Officer should also be included in the whiteboarding session.
The concepts can be generated from the idea by making the connections among the various ideas that would arise from the whiteboarding session. The whiteboarding session would yield various ideas, and the most important ideas could be selected and connected. The resulting connected set of ideas would then be used to determine the characteristics of the new product that CB should develop. The concepts should be developed at least a day after the whiteboarding session, so that the team would have time to get additional insights regarding the ideas that were presented via the whiteboarding session.
Idea Evaluation
In order to properly evaluate the ideas that are generated through the whiteboarding session, it is arguable that the team should focus on the use of the strengths of these ideas and compare these strengths against each other. In addition, a cost-benefit analysis could be used on each idea to determine how they would fare against each other. In this way, the best ideas for the actual situation of CB would not be lost.
The criteria that would be applied to evaluate the ideas would be (a) the business benefits of the idea in terms of financial value and non-financial value for the short and long term; (b) the costs of the idea in terms of financial value and non-financial value for the short and long term; (c) capacity of the organization to sustain the implementation of the idea in the short and long term.
The CEO, the VP for New product Development and the VP for manufacturing should be the ones who would evaluate the ideas, because they have the high level perspective of how these ideas would relate to the business. The evaluative criteria that these people could use would be the actual financial costs, the actual financial benefits based on market research, and availability of equipment and resources to support the development of the new product from such idea.
The same three officers could use such tools as cost-benefit analysis in order to evaluate the concepts. In addition, the team could use matrix analysis for the concept evaluation only to determine acceptability based on the criteria. The student would play the role of an additional input maker for the whiteboarding sessions, similar to the case of a consultant. The company could even select the student as the outside consultant for a fresher look into the situation.

References
Creative Advantage (2000). Matrix analysis. Retrieved November 5, 2011 from http://www.creativeadvantage.com/matrix-analysis.aspx
EinsteinDiva (2010). Great creativity techniques. Retrieved November 5, 2011 from http://einsteindiva.com/great-creativity-techniques
Matimore, B. (2011). Ideation techniques. Retrieved November 5, 2011 from http://www.innovativeideators.com/IdeationTechniques.pdf