COCD Box

Subject

Delivering business and customer values/Product development

Participants

The whole team, project stakeholders, sponsors

Facilitator

Agile Coach / Agile Master

Summary

The COCD box is an idea selection technique that categorizes ideas according to their feasibility and originality.

Definition

A collection of ideas, which can be gathered beforehand using creativity methods, is required for the COCD box.The ideas are evaluated according to two criteria:
First, how difficult is it to implement?
Second, the degree of originality.
Ideas that are not very original and difficult to implement are discarded, regardless of their origin. This method is named after the "Centrum voor de Ontwikkeling van het Creatief Denken", the Dutch centre for the development of creative thinking.

Motivation

This method provides a good visualization of a complex world with complex ideas. This method supports the agile team in planning its product roadmap in both the short-term and long-term. The team brainstorms and sketches a clear picture of the features and releases they have to deal with in the future. The product owner can also prioritize the product backlog and the product roadmap together with the stakeholders/sponsors by using the COCD box. This ensures that the organisation's primary focus is on delivering value to customers.

Results

The use of this method gives the team a good overview of which of the many ideas collected should be pursued and which can be discarded.

Benefit

This method requires almost no preparation, can be completed within 30 minutes and is very easy to carry out.

Procedure

This activity usually starts with a presentation of the context of the project and the ideas, then the facilitator draws the COCD box on a flipchart/whiteboard. It consists of four quadrants (fields):
The vertical axis contains the fields feasible and not (yet) feasible.
The horizontal axis contains the fields common ideas and original ideas.
Ideas that are very original and easy to implement, i.e. those that are real WOW ideas, are the most important and valuable. Dont't forget to explain the quadrants to your participants.
Each participant receives a jointly defined number of stickers (e.g., two per color) to select their favorites. Then, the group scores points together and selects the favorites from the mass of ideas, whereby the moderator makes sure that the participants submit their points "uninfluenced" (they do not deliberately wait until others have scored first in order to "save their points"). Then, all the ideas that have received points are grouped in the three categories of the COCD box.
If the team only has one or two WOW ideas and they're only affecting the fringes of your business, take a look at the NOW ideas next. These are those that are easy to implement, but have only a low degree of originality and therefore may soon lose their appeal. You should tackle these now. Finally, deal with the HOW ideas. These are the ideas with a high degree of originality, but which are difficult to implement or which the team does not yet know how to implement. Keep these ideas with all the material you have already collected during the creative activity. You can then bring up the HOW ideas at the next creative session. You will have a better idea of how to realize these original ideas.

Tools

Whiteboard/flipchart, markers, yellow, blue and red stickers

Hints

This method can be used either alone or in a group. Working in a group is more effective. The ideal number of ideas collected beforehand is around 20 to 30.

See also

Business Makeover Plattform "COCD BOX"