What if instead of coming up with new ideas you would steal ideas of others?

"Good artists copy; great artists steal" - Pablo Picasso

When we steal an idea, meaning we get inspiration from something that already exists and adapt it to our context and needs we can create some pretty great solutions.

A lightning demo is basically an exercice in stealing and  adapting. 

In the first round you'll give to participants about 20-30 minutes to search for three services, products or company that have solved similar problems that the one you are looking for ideas. For each of the competitor the person has to create a little visual summary of what are the interesting elements we could steal.

In the second round, each participant shares to the group what he has found, while people take notes for themselves.

In the third phase, each participant generates a few ideas based on the notes he has taken.

If you want another description of this method you can check out this 8-minutes long video that describes how Lightning demos are used by designer and innovators who use it within Design Sprints: