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A few years ago I had the good fortune to work with Monica Bussolati and the magazine design team at Bussolati Associates. I reconnected with her briefly at the Association Media & Publishing conference and she told me that a practice they started with the magazine they designed for me had become a staple for her studio--almost a calling card. The practice was this: A team of designers worked out ideas in a collaborative process: a messy but exhilarating affair where people came with ideas and they brainstormed around those ideas with a concept or two that emerged as the chosen ones to move forward. Then, rather than plow ahead, the group meeting ends with the direction for everyone in the group to take the top idea to their desk and make it better in the next 30 minutes or hour. They would come back to the table, and the results were often spectacularly better.

I tell the story because there's no reason this practice wouldn't work outside the creative atmosphere of a design studio. It could be an excellent challenge to any work group: Develop the absolute best solution you can as a group, then go back and make it even better.