Idea Generation Techniques

1. MODULE III
Idea Generation Techniques

2. Theories of ideation
• Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and
communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic
element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract.
Ideation comprises all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to
development, to actualization.

3. THE GOAL OF THE IDEATION PROCESS ISN’T LOTS OF IDEAS!
• Ideation is all about coming up with the big idea. The key challenge,
however, knows what constitutes a big idea.
• The goal of the ideation process, then, should not be lots of ideas.
Instead, the goal should be to construct the single, best solution to
satisfy the unmet customer needs of the target customers and
segments, enabling them to retain and recall the message.

4. Idea generation techniques
A. BRAINSTORMING: Brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which
efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list
of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members.
Brainstorming combines a relaxed, informal approach to problem solving
with lateral thinking. It encourages people to come up with thoughts and
ideas that can, at first, seem a bit crazy.
Some of these ideas can be crafted into original, creative solutions to a
problem, while others can spark even more ideas. This helps to get people
unstuck by "jolting" them out of their normal ways of thinking.

5. Individual Brainstorming
• While group brainstorming is often more effective at generating ideas
than normal group problem solving, several studies have shown that
individual brainstorming produces more – and often better – ideas
than group brainstorming.
• This can occur because groups aren't always strict in following the
rules of brainstorming, and bad behaviours creep in.
• For example, you might find that an idea you'd hesitate to bring up in
a group develops into something special when you explore it on your
own.

6. Group Brainstroming
• Here, you can take advantage of the full experience and creativity of
all team members.
• When one member gets stuck with an idea, another member's
creativity and experience can take the idea to the next stage. You can
develop ideas in greater depth with group brainstorming than you can
with individual brainstorming.
• Another advantage of group brainstorming is that it helps everyone
feel that they've contributed to the solution, and it reminds people
that others have creative ideas to offer.

7. Steps in Group Discussion
• STEP 1: PREPARE THE GROUP- First, set up a comfortable meeting
environment for the session. Make sure that the room is well-lit and that
you have the tools, resources, and refreshments that you need.
• STEP 2: PRESENT THE PROBLEM- Clearly define the problem that you want
to solve, and lay out any criteria that you must meet.
• STEP 3: GUIDE THE DISCUSSION- Once everyone has shared their ideas,
start a group discussion to develop other people's ideas, and use them to
create new ideas.

8. B. TRIGGERED BRAINWALKING: Brainwalking is the most flexible of the
ideation techniques, because it can be easily combined with other
techniques. It’s also an ideal way to ensure that everyone in your group
gets an opportunity to contribute ideas.
The group first selects several aspects of the problem around which it
wants to generate ideas. These become the creative prompts for the
group to work with. The facilitator tapes several pieces of paper to a
wall. Each member of the group gets a marker. Participants write their
ideas on a paper and then rotate, adding their thoughts, own original
and ideas to the page as well as building upon those of their
colleagues.

9. C. QUESTIONING ASSUMPTIONS: Most industries, companies and
institutions have orthodoxy – a set of deeply-held, unspoken beliefs
that everyone follows when it comes to “how we do things around
here.” This is the functional equivalent of a set of blinders, like horses
wear. We continue plodding straight ahead, unable to see what lies to
the right or left of us. By questioning assumptions during every point of
the product or service development process, we can entertain new
ideas and possibilities.

10. D. PICTURE PROMPTS: Visual techniques have a way of surfacing our intuitions,
emotions and feelings. This makes them especially valuable for brainstorming solutions
to creative challenges that involve people and management of them, or problems that
have a deep emotional or psychological root cause. It’s also an easy and fast technique
that any group can use to generate ideas.
Here’s how to use it: The facilitator hands out a series of pre-selected images, one to
each participant, and asks them to write down ideas that are inspired by what they are
seeing in it.
These images should be visually interesting, depict a variety of subject matter and
should show people in many different types of interactions and relationships with
other people.

11. E. SCAMPER: IMPROVING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES. It can often be difficult
to come up with new ideas when you're trying to develop or improve a
product or service. This is where creative brainstorming techniques like
SCAMPER can help
SCAMPER is a mnemonic that stands for:
• Substitute.
• Combine.
• Adapt.
• Modify.
• Put to another use.
• Eliminate.
• Reverse.

12. F. OBSERVATION: Two simple and underrated tools for achieving
innovative and creative solutions are listening and observation.
Observation is the sibling to listening. And, like listening, it too is
underrated! Observing the problem and watching it under different
circumstances is one of the best ways to understand a problem’s true
nature. Observation is also helpful for improving practices. There are
many examples of the power of observation.

13. • The saying A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS also describes
the importance of observation. People can describe a problem to you,
but there is no substitute for seeing it for yourself in action. To use
this tool effectively, you have to observe a problem as it occurs
naturally without affecting the behaviour of any people involved.
• If you lead or manage a team, you may have to do discrete
observations of your operation. An alternate approach is to view a
similar operation to gain insights on how they handle an issue.
• Observing what others do is a great way to spark your own
breakthrough thinking. If you manage or lead a group, one way to use
this tool is to give your team observation assignments to complete.

14. G. REFERENCING: One of the biggest benefits of generating as a team is
the ability to use other team members’ ideas to create new ones. By
Referencing to other creative people work and idea, one can alter, build
on or combine original ideas to produce a new, great idea. When we
combine two or more ideas, the possibilities for new ideas become
endless!

15. H. INTERACTION: Prior studies have indicated that innovative ideas can
originate either from intra-sector interactions or from outer-sector
interactions (e.g., company-to-customer). However, idea generation in
virtual brand communities seems still lacking of empirical research,
even though it has become a remarkable issue nowadays. Many study
have reveal positive relationship between consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
interaction, brand knowledge, and idea generation in virtual brand
communities. Studies indicate that C2C interaction is positively
associated with idea generation.

16. I. IMAGINATION: One can use imagination to be playful and embrace
wild and exaggerated ideas. Placing a premium on that which initially
appears too far out encourages team members to expand their
thinking. Also, do not reject a specific idea because it seems too silly or
improbable. Use imagination to convert any idea into a brilliant idea.

17. Five steps to Imagination process
1. First of all Access your imagination more often. Do it deliberately.
2. Have a challenge in mind.
3. Ask your imagination for images, ideas, and suggestions for the
challenge.
4. Realize that your imagination is only partially under your control.
5. You’ll need to learn how to use what your imagination is giving you.

18. J. Dreams: Dreams is a creative thinking technique that uses your
dreams to come up with creative breakthroughs. Basically you set the
scene for your inner dreaming mind to do your creative thinking for
you. This is really neat if you can summon enough discipline at the end
of the day and first thing in the morning to do what you need to do to
incubate dreams. It only takes a few minutes but like anything you are
not used to, it's going to be awkward at first.

19. K. CREATIVE AEROBICS: One new and somewhat radical concept to
express ideas and to develop creativity is the “Creative Aerobics”
method. It utilizes a series of mental exercises that develop elasticity
between the left brain and right brain – the analytical or rational and
the creative or emotional sides. Thus allowing users to access solutions
“out side of the box”, and which is different from their present
problem-solving techniques and optimizing ideation and productivity of
ideas.

20. • The first Creative Aerobics exercise begins with the process of
making lists of facts about the product or the assignment at hand.
Think of each list we build as a custom database (information) for the
assignment on which we are working. Each database is time and topic
sensitive, unique to the and situation when you create it. If we change
the players or environment the information generated – the database –
will also change.

21. • The list is then used as a base for the second Creative Aerobic
exercise.
For instance, if our first exercise generates 20 pieces of information, we
can take each piece and use it to generate lets say 10 more. We
discover now we have 200 pieces of information! If you take these 200
pieces and do the third exercise generating 10 more for each of these
200, we will end up with 20,000 pieces of information or more.

22. THANK YOU