Innovation and Design Thinking — Part 02
Our goal is to generate ideas that promote innovation and Design Thinking in the company.
Here’s the deal, you’ve been selected or promoted to begin an Enterprise Digital Transformation process including innovation and Design Thinking.
So, the first step you take is to leave behind the old mindset and the obvious solutions from the past, giving enough space to the disruptive and innovative new ideas which you are going to work on.
“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”
- Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Cross through the barrier and going beyond the obvious.
The problem.
Imagine just for a moment you are working on a project that aims to redesign the children’s chair at school. What is the right path you would take to overcome the obvious solutions?
How to tackle this problem?
When you focus on innovating, an unexpected combination of ideas generates new ways of thinking, pushing the team to solve the problem differently. Sometimes you just need to go a bit beyond the obvious solutions and adopt wild ideas.
The Mash-Up.
If you’re in charge of innovation and Design Thinking implementation, the best way to practice divergent thinking is the Mash-Up. Just because it helps you to gather strange proposals, usually not related to each other or unexpected to generate new ideas.
Below are four steps you can take to develop your spirit of innovation.
STEP 1: Pick two broad, unrelated categories within which you can brainstorm about products or services e.g. transportation and medicine.
STEP 2: Generate as many responses as you can, one category at a time dedicate an equal amount of time to each one
STEP 3: Combine items from the two different lists to develop new ideas.
STEP 4: Describe your idea and communicate its value in a way that could be relevant to the problem.
Generate fresh ideas from unexpected idea pairings.
This exercise is designed to implement innovation and Design Thinking as a disruptive idea generation process, it allows you to exercise your creative muscles and overcome obvious solutions.
Go for wild and unorthodox ideas.
Sometimes the line between ridiculous and brilliant is thin, so there is not much difference between them. In this way, strive to imagine beyond what is comfortable or familiar.
Don’t judge the way you think.
A common issue that strikes those of us who introduce the concepts of innovation and Design Thinking in the company is that one about limiting our thinking by constantly judging ourselves and worrying about what others will think about our ideas, proposals, or thoughts.
However, once you have overcome and managed to resist those urges, you will be pleasantly surprised at how creative you will feel.
How can we help people meet their personal goals?
Let’s think about below three images.
STEP 1: Generate lists
In two minutes, generate as many responses as possible in the two lists below. It doesn’t matter which list you fill out first. Just make sure to add a few responses to both lists.
- CATEGORY 1: Things that motivate you
- CATEGORY 2: Moments of the day
STEP 2: Describe the value of your idea
After you have randomly combined items from your two lists. For each combo, come up with a new idea inspired by the Mash-Up.
Briefly describe your idea and its value about the problem you have chosen regarding one of the stories of Peter, Valeria, and Esteban.
If you are stuck, remember the inspiration you gathered. What unmet need did you observe? Try to come up with ideas that address that.
CATEGORY 1 + CATEGORY 2 = DESCRIBE YOUR IDEA
Final thoughts.
After diverging to brainstorm, it’s time to select a few top ideas.
But that doesn’t mean ditching all your wacky ideas and only selecting what’s safest.
Instead, consider what’s special about wacky ideas and work backward for more practical versions of them. Keep this in mind during the next activity, where she will take one of her ideas and make it tangible.
Playing is key to innovation and Design Thinking
After completing the Mash-Up, you may wonder:
- Is there room for this type of play at work?
- How could I justify the use of the activity with my team?
Over the years, we have seen that play is key to innovation and Design Thinking. Bringing the game to work means creating space for your team to discover, fail, and test new ideas.
Gambling can cause mindset shifts that can lead to creative solutions that respond to today’s complex business challenges.
