The document provides guidance on formulating a compelling creative question to help generate new ideas. It recommends narrowing, broadening, or deepening the original brief into a question that begs to be answered. The creative question should leverage insights from research and articulate a more relevant way to look at the problem. It should paint the contours of a "solution space" to springboard many new ideas and get to the real problem or system to be disrupted. Examples are provided on how to structure the question using a formula and find the right level of abstraction to stimulate creativity without being too broad or narrow.

1. CREATIVE QUESTION
NARROWDOWN,BROADENORDEEPENTHE ORIGINALBRIEFINTOA
COMPELLINGQUESTIONTHATBEGSTOBEANSWERED
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2. WHEN NEEDED RATIONALE
CREATIVE QUESTION
Leverages the new findings from your
Sensing work
Helps to articulate a more relevant way
to look at the original brief. It should be
much different from the first brief and
should feel relevant to you
Provides a direction and even paints
the contours of a ‘solution space’ that
will be your springboard for generating
many new ideas
I want to get to
the real problem
to be solved
I want a potent
starting point to
generate ideas
I want to disrupt
the current
system
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3. ESSENCE POINTERS
CREATIVE QUESTION
Narrow down,
broaden or
deepen the
original brief into
compelling
questions that
beg to be
answered
Formulate a Creative Question (CQ) based on
intriguing insights, user needs and/or inspirations.
Use this formula:
HMW [Action Verb] for a [User] who [Insight] and/or
with [Need]
E.g. HMW improve education for kids who cannot afford private
school?
Aim to “have your cake and eat it too”: find the right
level of tension or paradox for the CQ to stimulate
your creativity
How might we give poor kids a better learning experience at a lower
cost?
Take an unreasonable stance to stimulate radical
rather than incremental innovation
E.g. How might we give poor kids the best learning experience in the
world for free?
Pick the right level of abstraction for the CQ: don’t boil
the ocean, don’t boil an egg. Ask “what” if too
abstract, ask “why” if too concrete
Too abstract: How might we redesign desert?
Too concrete: How might we create a cone to eat ice cream without
dripping?
Source of Inspiration: IDEO method cards; Stanford d-school
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