Classical theory of idea development and contemporary relevance and extensions

1. How are great ideas generated?
EUREKA!

2. Graham Wallas,
social psychologist
and co-founder of
the London School
of Economics,
argued that great
ideas evolve in 4
stages
1. Preparation
2. Incubation
3. Illumination
4. Verification
Art of Thought –
The Model of Creativity
(1926)

3. Stage 1: Preparation
Research, gather knowledge, profoundly understand your subject
Chance favors the prepared mind
Louis Pasteur

4. It takes a lot of time to
be a genius,
you have to sit around
so much doing nothing,
really doing nothing.
Gertrude Stein
Stage 2: Incubation
Set the subject aside from all deliberate work,
let it remain only in the unconscious mind.

5. Stage 3: Illumination
Associations & combinations, dreams & fantasies
conspire to offer an “aha!” moment of discovery!
Eureka! Eureka!
Archimedes

6. Eureka! Gravity
Newton sees an apple falling and the
moon suspended out there and wonders
if it’s the same force
Relativity
Einstein imagines he is
travelling on a beam of light
Richard Feynman’s
breakthrough ideas came
when he was playing
Picasso’s
creativity always began
with an act of destruction

7. Eureka! Arthur Koestler
argued in 1964 that breakthroughs
come with bisociation – association of
unrelated frames of reference
Great ideas
are not driven by logic,
but by seeing things from
new points of view

8. Stage 4: Verification
Prove your idea works
All good ideas are logical a posteriori,
though they may not be so a priori.
Scientists (as opposed to pseudo-scientists)
must test and validate their claims.

9. Practical lessons from Wallas and Koestler
Creativity needs
 Groundwork
 Tranquillity
 Stimuli
 Proof

10. Contemporary creativity practise builds
on the thinking of Wallas and Koestler
Using
 methods to make creativity
deliberate & efficient
 techniques for idea generation
and evaluation
 rapid prototypes for fast
verification

11. Contemporary creativity practise also
Emphasizes
 teamwork and collaboration
 structure for purposeful idea
management
 culture to create the context
that supports innovation

12. Innovation pulses 12 slides
Contact info@dimis.org to discuss your
innovation issues, or for a keynote
EUREKA!
EUREKA! How are great ideas generated?