This document discusses techniques for creative thinking and developing new ideas. It provides examples of tasks and activities for a class on creative thinking. The key points are: 1) Developing new and unique ideas helps businesses gain a competitive advantage by having better products/services or lower costs. 2) Various techniques for creative thinking are introduced, like blue sky thinking to generate many ideas without dismissing any, and Six Thinking Hats to organize ideas by perspective. 3) Activities include developing a new game show, investigating companies that gained advantages through creative ideas, and creating a new breakfast product for schools.

1. Thinking Creatively

2. Task 1: Firefly Tonics
 As you watch the video, jot down answers to the
questions on your worksheet

3. Task 2: Group discussion
 In groups, discuss the main implications for a
small business such as Firefly of continuing to
develop new products.
 Record your ideas in the box on your worksheet
and be prepared to feedback your ideas to the
rest of the class.

4. … understand that
creative ideas are
a key aspect in
setting up a new
business
…… appreciate that
creative ideas lead
to competitive
advantage
Learning objectives:
be able to …
... appreciate that ideas come
about through lateral thinking
and blue skies thinking

5. Thinking Creatively
Definition
Coming up with new and unique
ideas

6. Why is it important?
 Coming up with new and unique ideas helps a
business to give a business a competitive
advantage
 This means that it has an advantage that is
distinctive and defensible and allows it to perform
better than its rivals by:
 having a better product or service;
 producing its product or service at lower cost, making more
profit that its rivals;
 giving its customers better service;
 having a product or service which is unique.

7. Task 3: a case study
 The BBC used a particular thinking technique –
opposite thinking - to respond to the success of
Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
 Can you guess the quiz show it created?
One contestant plays at a time
Nine contestants play at same time
Contestant and host sit
Contestant and host stand
Prize fund is always the same
Prize fund varies
Contestant can take their time
Contestant is pushed for time
There is not always a winner
There is always one winner
Host is friendly to contestant
Host is not friendly to contestant

8.  What are the key characteristics of these quiz
shows?

9. Task 4: be creative
 Lots of quiz programmes have been developed
using creative thinking:
 Now it’s your turn!
 In your table groups use creative thinking to
devise a new game show for TV.
 Prepare a short presentation for the rest of the
class on your idea showing how you have used
creative thinking.

10. Task 5: group investigation
 In your table groups investigate one of the
following using your iPad and prepare a short
presentation using KeyNote on how thinking
creatively helped to generate a competitive
advantage:





Glasses Direct
Kleenex’s rebranding of Kleenex for Men
King of Shaves
Lucozade’s repositioning of its energy drink
Taskrabbit

11. Deliberate creativity
Definition
The intentional creation of
new ideas through recognised
and accepted techniques

12. What is ‘lateral thinking’?
‘Thinking out of the box’
The purpose of lateral thinking is to come up with
new and unexpected ideas
Blue skies
thinking
where people are
encouraged to think of as
many ideas as possible
about an issue or problem
Six Thinking
Hats
a technique that helps
organise and focus ideas
by thinking in different
ways

13. How to do blue skies thinking
Start with an
object or
question
Think of as
many ideas as
possible
Write down
anything that
comes to mind
Don’t dismiss
any idea
Stop when you
run out of
ideas

14. Why is it useful?
 Blue skies thinking is great for generating ideas
 It doesn’t rule anything out
 It encourages creativity
 It’s a starting point - once you have the ideas you
can analyse them:
-
which idea is important?
which isn’t important?
which could provide an answer to the problem?
wow can the idea be taken forward?

15. Six thinking hats
Objective
thinking
Intuitive
thinking
Negative
thinking
The
facts
Emotions and
feelings
Problems and
difficulties
What information
do we have?
What information
do we need?
What’s your gut
reaction?
How will others
feel?
What might go
wrong?
What are the
risks?

16. Six thinking hats
Positive
thinking
Creative
thinking
Process
thinking
The
benefits
The
solutions
Thinking about
thinking
What’s the value
of the idea?
What are the
opportunities?
What’s your gut
reaction?
How will others
feel?
Where is this
going?
What have we
learnt?

17. Task 6: breakfast challenge
 Your challenge is to create a new breakfast
product for schools.
 You need to work collaboratively, so one member
of your group needs to set up a Folder in
SkyDrive where you can all contribute.
 You need to prepare a brief presentation
pitch that sells your idea to a panel of judges.

18. Task 6: running the project
 Elect someone to be the Project Manager
 Elect someone who will run the meetings /
discussions
 Take it in turns to write up ‘minutes’ of each of
your meetings
 Each meeting should identify ‘Action Points’ – you
should decide who is to do what and by when. The
Project Manager is responsible for recording
these ‘Action Points’ on SkyDrive