Mastering the Art of Ideation
In 2002, the former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan noted that “we are entering the era of Ideanomics.” Nowadays, most senior executives understand the vital importance of creativity and innovation to achieve long-term sustainable profitable growth for their firms. Innovation can be defined as great ideas (or creativity) plus action, and innovation starts with ideas. Not surprisingly, I am often asked, “How can I get better ideas for this problem I’m facing?” Like with most complex questions, there is no easy answer.
First of all, you need to understand that generating ideas is just one part of the creative process. In order to do proper thinking in an innovation case you first need to understand and define your real challenge. Then generate raw ideas. Next, develop these into meaningful solutions or value propositions, which you then evaluate in order to find those vital few solutions that really deserve being brought to life.
Idea generation is less of a science and more of an art, which probably explains why so many businesspeople have problems with it. Effective ideation depends on the situation you are in.
Do you have to solve a problem alone, or can you tackle it in a team? How important is the problem or challenge that you face? And how much time do you have at hand? Let’s capture these different contexts in a four-field matrix as follows:
On the vertical axis, we distinguish two basic scenarios related to the number of people involved - whether you’re working alone, or in a team.
On the horizontal axis, we cover the other two aspects. First, decide how important a successful resolution of your challenge is for you or your organisation. If the stakes are high, commit sufficient time for the ideation. If it’s of low to medium importance, then you can cut down the time you invest.
Scenario 1: The Notebook
Charles Darwin’s notebook with his famous breakthrough idea that triggered the theory of evolution. Darwin used a combination of the Notebook and Eureka Seeker.
In our first scenario, we assume that you work alone and need some ideas for a challenge that is not of high importance. For example, “How to provide meaningful rewards for highly active participants in a training session?”
Start to ideate by listing down at least 25 ideas in an idea notebook. I agree with the American business author and former management professor Michael LeBoeuf, who noted: “When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few, if any of us, can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.” In addition, use a simple creativity technique (such as free association, word association chains or concept mapping) to generate a pool of associations that may trigger further ideas. Continue until you reach 50 ideas.
Across the centuries, many artists, scientists and other creators applied the notebook approach to capture ideas for creative projects they work on, and - like the US poet Mary Oliver - made it a positive habit to carry a notebook to wherever they go: “I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.” So if you don’t have a personal idea notebook yet, buy one - and make sure that it’s got unlined, blank paper to free your mind from the constraints of lines and boxes and to give you space to doodle, sketch and map out your thoughts and ideas.
