This document discusses various ideation techniques for generating new ideas, including brainstorming, daydreaming, forced relationships, attribute listing, morphological analysis, checklists, and SCAMPER (substitute, combine, adapt, modify/magnify/minify, put to another use, eliminate/elaborate, reverse/rearrange). It provides descriptions and examples of how to apply each technique to identify improvements or new uses for products, processes, and solutions. The document emphasizes that regular practice with different techniques is important to effectively generate innovative ideas.

1. Ideation Techniques and Cases
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2. What is a Idea?
• An idea could be: Whatever is before the mind when one thinks
(arising in a reflex, spontaneous manner, even without thinking
or serious reflection)
• A personal view or Representational images; i.e. images of
some object.

3. What is Ideation ?

4. What is Ideation ?

5. Source of Ideas
Solving people’s problem
Combining two or more ideas
New ways of doing old things
Improving the product/service
Limitation by modification
Adding new values to old product
Doing market research
Use of “hobby”
Skill based/ education based
Use of waste material into something useful

6. Brainstorming with friends
The engineering ng and other universities, schools etc.
Remember, a great idea does not guarantee success
Brainstorming
Checking published list
Talking and listening to people
Day Dreaming
Commercializing Inventions
Channing fashion and life style
Demographic changes
Government policy
Industry trends and gap

7. Idea Generation
Brainstorming
Focus Group
Observation
Survey
Emerging trends
Research and development
Tradeshows and Association'smeetings
Other techniques

8. Brainstorming
• The most common way to explore ideas is to talk about them with other people.
• This technique is particularly beneficial when people wish to break out of
conventional thinking styles, so they can look at a problem from a new
perspective.
• A diverse team increases the productivity of concepts explored, allowing you a
greater chance to achieve an optimal solution.
• It also creates a bonding experience between team members contributing to an
overall positive work environment.

9. Six Simple Rules for an Effective Brainstorming Session
Do not criticize: criticism prevents people from making proposals and expressing possibilities.Any
idea is valid in brainstorming.
Keep the process manager-free: the presence of dominant ego figures inhibit the flow of ideas from
the team.
Time pressure: Setting a time by which the session should end keeps the pressure on, forcing
generation of more ideas.
Avoid resolve: Do not start agreeing to an idea that looks like a potential winner during the session.
Carry on generating ideas during the allotted time. Ideas can be resolved during the evaluation stage.
Bulk ideas: Focus on quantity, not quality.
Let go: Participants must not be frightened of contributing odd, crazy or wild ideas, although this
does not mean participants should not take the session seriously.

10. Daydreaming
The term ‘daydream’ automatically brings out a playful uninhibited thought process,
involving just your resourcefulness and creativity to tinker around with the problem at hand.
It allows a person to connect with their issue emotionally, which is valuable to generate a
good idea.
With a vivid imagination, manipulation of ideas is quick and effective for predicting and
overcoming obstacles.
Productive daydreaming focuses towards a specific goal. It does not matter if it appears like
an impossible task.
Many famous inventors have done so in the past and have sparked off ideas that led to
lifechanging inventions, most notably, the airplane.

11. Forced Relationships
• It is a simple method of combining to unrelated ideas to come up with
something new. While it is not a strictly unique solution, it often
results in a variety of combinations that are often useful in society.
• Currently there are a vast amount of products born out of forced
relationships, for example a digital watch which includes a calculator
or an mp3 player, The Swiss army knife, birthday cards with musical
tunes etc.

13. Attribute Listing and Morphological Analysis
• This is an analytical approach to identify new combinations of inventions, services
or structures by identifying methods of improvement.
• To improve a product the physical attributes of each component within the product
is noted down, every function of the component is described and examined to
check if changing it will improve or damage the product.
• Morphological analysis is similar to forced relationships, allowing combinations
not just with the individual components of the product, but with other components
from different products.
• These techniques have been particularly successful in creating new technologies.

14. Checklist
• Simply put, they are a list of thought-provoking questions. These questions help
you target your search for detailed information and stimulate ideas at the same
time.
• People can apply the questioning on ideas and products already developed to come
up with new concepts.
• A popular example, the checklist for new ideas‟ from (Osborn, 1957) consisted of
a series of questions under specific that would be asked to enquire about a product
or concept.

15. • The headers included : put to other uses? Adaptable? Magnify? Minify?
Substitute? Rearrange? Reverse? And so on. Questions under the rearrange
heading would probably be: rearrange layout? Rearrange sequence? New
patterns? And so on.
• SCAMPER, a technique developed by Bob Eberie, is a well-known checklist
helping you think of changes that you can make on existing products.
• Checklists are often quite flexible and useful when people are stuck with a
particular problem

16. • Several techniques are available for idea generation, such as visualization,
which involves think of problems visually in order to better understand the
issue.
• The incubation & illumination process, where you take a break from a problem
you are stuck on, focusing on something completely different while your mind
continues to work on the idea subconsciously.
• This develops into a period of illumination where you suddenly get a variety of
solutions and you quickly write them down, developing new parallel lines of
thought.
.
Other Techniques

17. Importance of Method and Technique
• Idea generation techniques require a certain degree of skill in order to produce
innovative solutions effectively.
• As mentioned earlier, with the vast amount of idea generation techniques, it will
take practice of several ideas in multiple scenarios before being able to select an
ideal method intuitively.
• In addition, certain techniques require practice to perfect their idea generation
process, especially when it comes to brainstorming sessions where one must learn
how to keep the momentum going without straying too far from the task.

19. What is SCAMPER?
• The SCAMPER idea generation technique is founded on the belief that
everything new is an alteration of something already in existence.

20. Substitute
• The substitute technique focuses on the parts in the product, service or solution
that can be replaced with another.
• During this part of the discussion the meeting attendees focus on making decisions
to substitute part of the process with another.
What part of the process can be substituted without affecting the whole project?
Who or what can be substituted without affecting the process?
What part in the process can be replaced with better alternatives?
Can the project time or place be replaced?
What will happen when we replace part of the project with another?
Where else could you sell the product?
Could we use another alternative of X?
Can we substitute the current device with another better one?
Can we replace the process with simpler one?

21. Combine
• The combine technique tends to analyze the possibility of merging two ideas,
stages of the process or product in one single more efficient output.
• In some cases, combining two innovative ideas can lead to a new product or
technology which leads to market strength.
Can we merge two steps of the process?
Can we apply two processes at the same time?
Can our company combine resources with another partner in the market?
Can we mix two or more components together?
Can we combine X and Ytechnologies?

23. Adapt
• Adapt refers to a brainstorming discussion that aims to adjust or tweak product or
service for a better output.
• This adjustment can range between minor changes to radical changes in the whole
project.
What would we need to change to reach better results?
What else could be done in this specific task?
How can we improve the existing process?
How can we adjust the existing product?
How can we make the process more flexible?

24. Modify, minify or magnify
• The modify technique refers to changing the process in a way that unleashes more
innovative capabilities or solves problems.
• This change is more that just adjustment as it focuses on the overall process.
• For example, it can target reducing the project’s process or change our
perspective of how to look at the problem.
How will modifying the process improve results?
What if we had a double consumer base?
If the market was different, what would the process look like?
Can we change the process to work more efficiently?
What if the product is double the current size?

25. Put to another use
• This technique concerns how to put the current product or process in another
purpose or how to use the existing product to solve problems.
• For example, this technique can be used to learn how to shift an existing product
to another market segment or user type.
What other parts in the company can use the product?
What are the benefits for the product if used elsewhere?
What if we target another market segmentation for the current product?
Can we add a specific step into the process to replace another?
What are other ways can we use it?
Can we recycle the waste for another use?

26. Eliminate or elaborate
• As the name implies, this technique aims to identify the parts of the process that
can be eliminated to improve the process product or service.
• It also helps to explore the unnecessary parts of the project.
What would happened if we removed this part?
How can we achieve the same output without specific part of the project?
Do we need this specific part?
What would we do if we had to work with half the resources?

27. Reverse
• The reverse or rearrange technique aims to explore the innovative potential when
changing the order of the process in the production line.
• Reversing the process or part of it can help solving problems or produce more
innovative output.
What would happened if we reverse the process?
How can we rearrange the current status for better output?
What if we consider it backwards?
Can we interchange elements?

28. Business Model Canvas