Techniques for Narrowing Down Ideas

Dot Voting

As the name suggests, this is a method of voting using dots (🔴).

In a professional context, it is important that the criteria for voting is not "what I want to do," but "what is important for the team."

Besides the rules described below, voting may also be done in a simplified manner.

• 3 votes per person (adjustable based on the total number of ideas)
• 1 vote per idea, or up to 2 votes per idea

Regardless of the rules, to avoid splitting votes among similar opinions, categorize the ideas beforehand before voting.

N/5 Voting Method

When there are too many options, this is a method to first narrow them down to 1/5 of the total.

How to proceed after narrowing them down is decided based on the agenda.

1. Assign dot stickers
   1. If there are 20 ideas, 20÷5 = 4 votes per person; if 50, 50÷5 = 10 votes per person
2. Each person casts 1 vote per idea
3. Proceed with discussions on the voted ideas

Other rules can be added, such as:

• Increasing the reduction factor to N/7 or N/10 depending on the total number of ideas
• Applying the "Borda Rule" described below

Borda Rule

When there are three or more options, the best idea can sometimes lose due to vote splitting.

While it takes a bit more effort to calculate, it is a method with mathematically proven effectiveness.

1. Assign weights
   • For 3 options: 3 votes for 1st place, 2 votes for 2nd, 1 vote for 3rd
2. Each person votes for all ideas
3. Rank the ideas based on the total number of votes

In the "Retrospective Guidebook for Building Agile Teams," the following weighting schemes were also introduced (based on the author's empirical rules):

• Few ideas (8 or fewer): Each person has 4 votes; 3 votes for 1st place, 1 vote for 2nd
• Average number of ideas (9–14): 6 votes for 1st place, 3 votes for 2nd, 1 vote for 3rd
• Many ideas (15 or fewer): Each person has 10 votes; 6 votes for 1st place, 3 votes for 2nd, 1 vote for 3rd
• Very many ideas (16 or more): Each person has 10 votes; 4 votes for 1st place, 3 votes for 2nd, 2 votes for 3rd, 1 vote for 4th

Run-off Voting

This is a method of voting again by narrowing down the top candidates when a single round of voting does not yield a clear result. This is commonly seen in presidential elections or party leadership elections.

Approval Voting

This is a method where you give an "approve" or "disapprove" for every idea. It is said that the voting burden is low and that it easily reflects the collective will.

Round-robin

This is a method where all ideas are pitted against each other to determine rankings based on points or win rates. While it takes a significant amount of time, it covers all possible patterns. Sports regular seasons use round-robin formats to determine rankings.

Traffic Light

This is a method to visualize feelings using three colors of dot stickers.

The greater the anxiety, the more it becomes a priority issue that should be resolved.

• 🔴 (Red): Significant anxiety/concern
• 🟡 (Yellow): Some anxiety/concern
• 🔵 (Blue): No concerns

Random

If you feel that things are becoming a bit repetitive or stale, it's also an option to skip the prioritization and simply pick randomly.

Payoff Matrix

Visualize priorities using two axes: "Impact" and "Feasibility."

• The vertical axis is "Impact (Return)"; the higher it goes, the greater the effect.
• The horizontal axis is "Feasibility (Cost)"; the further to the right, the easier it is to implement.
• The top-right quadrant is the highest priority.
  • If there are no sticky notes in the top-right, choose from the top-left or bottom-right.
    • Top-left (High impact but high cost): When relatively many resources can be allocated.
    • Bottom-right (Low impact but low cost): When you want to start small first.

In addition to "Impact" and "Feasibility" in the Payoff Matrix, "Effort & Pain / Feasible & Useful" uses the following two axes:

• Effort & Pain
  • "Labor/effort required to execute the action" and "How much pain it resolves."
  • The lower the effort and the higher the pain resolution, the higher the priority.
• Feasible & Useful
  • "Degree of feasibility" and "Degree of usefulness."
  • The easier it is to implement and the higher the usefulness, the higher the priority.