Notes on creativity and innovation facilitation.

1. Creativity and Innovation
Notes on the Marc Tassoul class
By Alejandro Rios <ariospe@eafit.edu.co> - 2012
...
...to the right side
The process is based on IDEO's Human centered
design toolkit: HEAR, CREATE, DELIVER.
In every stage, you can use techniques to
FACILITATE the process and get new ideas,
Create or break walls in order to move on:
Diverge
(expand really wide)
Deliver
Cluster/Categorize
Hear
Converge
(back to the
original purpose)
!
...and Back
ney
I t's a jour
from your left
...
side of the brain

2. Creativity and Innovation
you flight,
Notes on the Marc Tassoul class
Before
By Alejandro Rios <ariospe@eafit.edu.co> - 2012
you need a TEAM!
first
"Good group dynamics is for creativity teams
You need to invest time in the first stages: like a having a soil ready to be planted"
Forming, Storming and Norming.
Plan your schedule.
Create a mental and physical space
before the session.
1. Forming a Ideal teams have 2 to 12/16 members.
team:
Use Icebreak
ers, More than 25 is not a team, is a group
Make them le
arn each othe
r names or community. You have to break them
is important.
in groups of 4 to 6/8 to do normal things,
and break them in groups of 2 for more
complex things.
p conflicts
. I think a single person behaves as a team
g : the grou as verbs. as well. You can also be a facilitator
2. Stormin Extrovert
ert and
Use Introv eptance F
low and of your creativity applying the
Acc
Follow the same techniques to your multiple
on goals.
iden tify comm personalities/intelligences, i.e. to avoid
procrastination.

3. Creativity and Innovation
nderstand
w Hear: u
Notes on the Marc Tassoul class
No
By Alejandro Rios <ariospe@eafit.edu.co> - 2012
th e subject! To FACILITATE, draw the problem to the group:
show some images related, and some qualities
of the product to inspire them.
Problem analysis is about opening and expanding
the solution space like walking and lighting inside
a dark building. Walls can be broken with
4. Norming: combinations/patterns and metaphors, or just
The team is n introducing a random stimulus.
ow organized
and ready to
5. Perform. There are many tools for this: mindmaps, collage
newspaper, 5 Whys+1How, Stakeholder analysis,
progressive abstraction (Why, oh why!), etc.
your e go.
M ake open q uestions, don't confirm
The objective now is to hear and understand
to get to a single Problem Statement:
What next?
(build an understanding)
So What?
(reduction)
What else?
Take Samples (the essence)
What?
(go to the system itself)

4. Creativity and Innovation
Notes on the Marc Tassoul class
Create!
By Alejandro Rios <ariospe@eafit.edu.co> - 2012
disbelieve
Suspension of Just let g
o and th
of Non-s ink
ense ide
as!
After the problem analysis,
wrtite down the first obvious ideas
For a good designer, today is history.
with a brainstorming to PURGE
See where the trend is going,
your brain. pre-sensing future utopias/dystopias.
e session
Then take a Break!, but leave th
with a nam e for the empty boo
er.
k you're Synectics!
about to write togeth
n)
(shadding the know Use clustering, combinations and
patterns to group ideas.
Now when you're back, you are
ready to takeoff. Don't worry, The FACILITATOR has to go group by
once you draw the first line, group moving them to the next step,
you start seeing the horizon. so they don't get lost.
There are many techniques for idea generation: inspiration,
brain-storming, brain-writing, matrices, analogies and metaphors.
random stimulus, and many others but all of them try to make you
suspend disbelive. Fly all you wa
nt if you know
how to land!

5. Creativity and Innovation
Notes on the Marc Tassoul class
Deliver: monster!
By Alejandro Rios <ariospe@eafit.edu.co> - 2012
Sell your baby There are many selection criteria to pick up
the winner idea.
Every company has its own risk taking policy
when balancing new meaning vs feasibility
In general, break trough ideas come
Nice figures u
p there, but when you reformulate the original problem
it's time to co
me back to
the ground!
nster.
, the more it is like a mo
The newer the idea lance
ple do not like it. Find a ba
If it is too new, peo
like
Conceptulalizing is
making a painting:
keleton)
1. S tructural (make a s
mes)
2. Formal (add volu Concept presentation must have:
3. Material (add d etails) -Name
-Short description
-Image (with human being and context)
-Why/How it is interesting
-Concerns (cost,etc.) tions!,
Congratula
safetely.
you landed

6. Creativity and Innovation
journing:
Notes on the Marc Tassoul class
Ad
By Alejandro Rios <ariospe@eafit.edu.co> - 2012
saying goodbye...
Finally, it's important to close the cycle in order to move on.
Don't just let all the people leave the session,
make a closing activity, give them a chance
to say a few words and maybe give them a souvenir.
For me, this class was like a brain massage. The week
started with me memorizing all the names of my classmates
and stating my personal contract:
"I hereby commit myself to understand my own and other
people's creative processes, and to know and adapt any
tools or tips or experiences that help me develop my creativity,
break any barriers and facilitate innovation in all the teams I join".
I think I could achive all of it, or at least enough to write down this
report hahahaha
niel
Laur a, Da fa,
All the class was itself a journey in wich the whole group elga, sim, Huze ndra,
arc, H as leja
experienced all of the stages in team dynamics and in the ha nks M José, W Tracy, A l,
all! T aría ara, Joe
creative process. k you Felipe, M . Juan, S a, Soren,
Than lara, velyn is, Ev
M aria C Daniel, E ablo, Lou
lina, n, P
By thursday we were all tired, because of the intense activities Caro Robinso
o, .
and other responsabilities, like jobs and other classes, but Mate nd Soren
a
in the end everything worked out just well. Jorge