Forced ranking

Forced ranking is a technique where a group is given a list of options and asked to rank them in order of importance or relevance. This technique can be useful when the group needs to prioritize many ideas or options quickly.

Here's an example of how forced ranking can be used in service design ideation:

• Let's say a team is tasked with designing a new mobile app that helps people manage their finances. In the ideation phase, the team comes up with a list of 20 potential features that could be included in the app.
• Including all 20 features would make the app overwhelming and confusing for users. The team needs to narrow down the list of features to the most essential ones that will provide the most value to users. To do this, the team can use forced ranking to identify the top 5 most important features for the app.
• Each team member would rank the 20 features from most important to least important, and then the rankings would be combined to determine which 5 features were ranked the highest overall.
• These top 5 features would then be included in the app, while the remaining 15 ones could be either discarded or reconsidered in a later phase of the design process.

While forced ranking can be useful in reducing the number of options in service design ideation, there are also some drawbacks to consider. The method can be influenced by personal biases, leading to rankings that don't accurately reflect the quality or potential of each idea. It can also limit the ability to consider more unique or unconventional ideas and can be a time-consuming process. Additionally, it doesn't provide much context or reasoning for why certain ideas were ranked higher or lower, which can lead to disagreements and misunderstandings among team members.