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Idea Generation and the Systematic Approach to Creativity

• Creativity is the ability to create, bring into existence, invest with a new form, produce using imaginative skill, or make something new.
• For an idea to be considered creative, it must be novel/new and useful.

Traditional View of Creativity

• Creativity is unstructured and doesn't follow rules or patterns.
• One must think outside the box to be truly original and innovative.
• The process should start with a problem, followed by unrestrained brainstorming.
• Wild analogies related to product services or processes should be considered.
• Breakthrough ideas can come from straying as far afield as possible.

Creativity Judged By Output

• Structure and organization should not be confused with a lack of creativity.
• Unfettered, unguided ideation should not be confused with creativity.
• Both structured and unstructured methods can generate creative solutions.
• The efficiency differentiates these general approaches.
• The optimal path generates the least resistance and highest concentration of creative ideas.

Creativity For Everyone

• Creativity is a skill that can be learned and mastered.

• Creativity is not that different from other skills acquired in life and business.

• Practice is the key to improving creative skills.

• Systematic Inventive Thinking combines street wisdom with scientifically validated knowledge.

• Marketers may suggest customers are the best source for new product ideas.

• Customers lack the imagination to envision innovative products that address their needs.

• Focus groups often prefer product innovations with minor changes from current versions.

• These products often fail due to incremental improvements uncompelling enough to sway customers.

• Steve Jobs advised against relying on market research, stating the task is to reveal to people what they want prior to them knowing.

• Developers are encouraged to "think outside the box" to imagine products that fulfill customer needs beyond predictable extensions.

• Brainstorming can produce ideas too far removed from the company's brand image or capabilities.

• Traditional brainstorming must be overhauled, replaced with a disciplined "inside the box" approach.

• Unlike most new product development methods, systematic inventive thinking starts with an existing product and its characteristics rather than customers and their unmet needs.

• Begin by identifying both its physical components and its attributes, such as color and expected useful life of a product.

• Identify the product’s immediate surroundings.

• This includes its physical components and properties.

• Manipulate these elements using five generic innovation patterns to develop something new.

Systematic Innovative Thinking

• Systematic Innovative Thinking (SIT) helps people generate innovative ideas on demand by breaking away from thinking patterns.

Genrikh Saulovich Altshuller

• Genrikh Saulovich Altshuller was a Soviet engineer, inventor, and writer.
• Altshuller created the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, influencing Systematic Innovative Thinking.
• Altshuller collaborated with colleagues to analyze over 200,000 patents to identify the formula of innovation.
• Altshuller identified 40 common inventive principles.
• "The Other Way Around", "Blessing in Disguise”, and “Continuity of Useful Action”
• Creative solutions share an underlying logic that can be defined and taught.
• Inventive solutions share patterns that regulate thinking, channeling the creative process.

Five Innovation Techniques

• Innovators have used templates in their inventions for thousands of years.
• These templates are encoded into the products and services around you.
• A majority of new inventive products result from just five templates.
• The more you study the templates, the more you'll see the five techniques applied to tough problems to produce new inventive products.

The Five Techniques

• Subtraction
• Division
• Multiplication
• Task Unification
• Attribute Dependency

Subtraction

• Innovative products often result from removing something previously considered essential.
• Spirit and Frontier Airlines subtracted the frills.
• Subtracting the polymer from permanent markers created the dry erase marker.
• Apple made the iPod Touch by removing the calling feature from the iPhone.
• Sir James Dyson invented the dual cyclone Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner.

Division

• Division can take these forms:
• physical division (cut along a physical line)
• functional division (components with different functions are separated)
• preserving division (product is divided so that each part preserves the characteristics of the whole)
• Computer printers let you separate the ink cartridge for easy replacement.
• Boom box components separated into speakers, radio, and tape players.

Multiplication

• A component is copied and changed in a way that initially seemed odd or unnecessary.
• Children's bicycles feature regular and training wheels.
• Picture-in-picture TVs let people watch one show while keeping track of events on another.

Task Unification

• Certain tasks have been unified within one already existing component, that previously seemed unrelated to that task.
• Odor-Eaters socks keep you warm and deodorize.
• Facial moisturizers now provide sunscreen protection.
• Advertisers place ads on vehicles, such as taxis, metro buses and even school buses.

Attribute Dependency

• Two or more previously unrelated attributes correlate.
• As one thing changes, something else changes.
• Cars windshield wipers change speed with amount of rain, radio volume adjusts to vehicle speed, headlights dim for oncoming cars.
• Smartphones offer tailored restaurant and shopping suggestions based on current location.

Function Follows Form vs. The Traditional Form Follows Function

• Function Follows Form (FFF) overcomes some drawbacks of research-led or design-based innovation.
• Conventionally, consumer needs are identified and translated into functions.
• Product form is designed to fit these functions.
• The traditional method may not be the best because consumers struggle to articulate unmet needs or imagine non-existing products.
• Visualizing the virtual situation and exploring its potential benefits can lead to the discovery of previously unforeseen needs, market segments, and opportunities.
• Product commercialization uncovers hidden value and customer needs in existing products.
• New ideas may be created based-on existing knowledge, filtering to overcome anticipated challenges.
• Rather than a one-time novelty, long-term innovation plans can systematically explore variations of a product.