Ideation and Design Thinking: the Innovation Toolkit

What is ideation?

Ideation is the phase of the innovation process in which ideas are generated to solve a problem or seize an opportunity. It rests on a simple principle, set out as early as the 1950s: you produce better ideas when you separate the moment of imagining from the moment of judging. Mixing the two holds creativity back, because everyone censors themselves to avoid criticism.

A successful ideation session therefore runs in two phases: a divergent phase, where the aim is quantity and boldness, and a convergent phase, where ideas are sorted, grouped and selected against explicit criteria. Ideation is not an end in itself: it sits between understanding the problem and prototyping the solution.

Design thinking

Design thinking is a user-centred approach to design, made popular in the 2000s by the design agency IDEO and by the d.school at Stanford University. Its principle: before looking for solutions, you need a deep understanding of the people they are meant for.

The five stages of design thinking

1. Empathize. Observe users, interview them and immerse yourself in their daily lives to understand their real needs, which often differ from the needs they express.
2. Define. Reframe the problem, based on these observations, as a clear and inspiring question.
3. Ideate. Produce a large number of possible solutions without judging them.
4. Prototype. Quickly give shape to the best ideas: a mock-up, a storyboard, a simulated service.
5. Test. Show the prototype to users, draw conclusions and start again if needed.

These stages are not strictly sequential: teams often go back to earlier ones, and this back-and-forth is the strength of the method. Design thinking is particularly suited to situations where the real problem is a poorly understood customer need and where there is time for fieldwork. In the UK, the Design Council's Double Diamond (discover, define, develop, deliver) describes the same logic of divergence and convergence.

Creative Problem Solving (CPS)

Creative Problem Solving is a historic method of group creativity. It was developed in the 1950s and 1960s by Alex Osborn, an advertising executive and the inventor of brainstorming, and Sidney Parnes; people often speak of the Osborn-Parnes model, developed around the Creative Education Foundation in Buffalo.

Its main rule is a strict alternation, at every stage, between divergence (producing many options without judging) and convergence (sorting and choosing). In its modern form, the CPS method has four broad stages:

• clarify the challenge: gather data, explore the vision, reformulate the problem;
• generate ideas: the ideation stage proper;
• develop solutions: strengthen the selected ideas, anticipate objections;
• prepare implementation: build an action plan and find support.

CPS is very close to ideation and design thinking, but starts from a different point. Design thinking starts from the user and their needs; CPS starts from a stated problem and, above all, equips the convergence phase, all the way to the action plan. It applies to very varied topics, including organizational ones, and can be run in a single session. The two approaches combine well: design thinking to understand, CPS to decide and act.

Brainstorming and its rules

Brainstorming, invented by Alex Osborn in the late 1930s, remains the best-known tool, and the most often misused. Osborn set out four rules that still apply:

• no criticism of any idea during the generation phase;
• go for quantity: the more ideas, the better the chance of finding a good one;
• welcome the most unusual ideas;
• combine and improve the ideas of others.

Most failed brainstorming sessions break the first rule or have no facilitator. A useful variant is brainwriting: everyone writes in silence first, so the most talkative people do not take over the session.

Other ideation techniques

• SCAMPER. A list of questions to transform an existing product or service: substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, reverse. Proposed by Bob Eberle on the basis of Osborn's questions, it is well suited to incremental innovation.
• Six thinking hats. Edward de Bono's method looks at a topic from six successive points of view: facts, emotions, risks, benefits, creativity and the organization of thinking.
• Mind mapping. Explores a topic from a central word and reveals unexpected connections.
• Crazy 8s. Each participant sketches eight ideas in eight minutes: a short exercise that forces people beyond their first, usually most obvious, ideas.

Which method should you choose?

The right tool depends on the situation:

• to create a product or service when customer needs are poorly known: design thinking;
• to quickly unblock a meeting or a specific organizational problem at low cost: Creative Problem Solving;
• to improve an existing product: SCAMPER;
• to get out of a debate that goes round in circles: the six hats.

In every case, the tool matters less than the facilitation. An ideation session needs a neutral facilitator, a well-framed problem, protected time and, above all, visible follow-up: ideas that lead nowhere demotivate teams for a long time.

From innovation lab to half-day session

Some companies create an innovation lab, a dedicated space where teams come to work on their topics with these methods. Others prefer occasional sessions held close to the field. Both work, as long as ideas are connected to decisions: a clear selection process and a portfolio of projects followed by senior leadership. This is the focus of our consulting work on innovation and of our training course on innovation for managers.

FAQ

This article was written by Marc Prager.