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How to Improve Your Creative
Process (Cont'd) What do you see, a black dot? Good. What else do you see? How about a very large period? What else can you think of? Here's some other things you might see:
How to create a lot of ideas If you want to impress your friends, you can call this "divergent thinking." It's based on the way that your mind naturally works when you're being creative, and it is something that you can do intentionally when you need to create more options or ideas for a given situation. Alex Osborn (the advertising guy, remember?) created the concept of brainstorming which is a way for a group come up with many, many ideas in a short period of time, and the same guidelines apply for working by yourself to come up with many new ideas. In his book, Applied Imagination, Osborn provides us with four guidelines for doing this:
2) Strive for quantity -- Osborn said that, "quantity breeds quality," or the more ideas you come up with, the more likely it is that one or more of them will be a great idea. 3) Seek unusual or wild ideas -- Osborn said, "it is easier to tame down than to think up." In other words, we can worry about how to make it work later, so look for as many seemingly "crazy" ideas as you can -- the wilder the better. 4) Combine and build on ideas -- "piggyback" or "hitch-hike" one idea to another to create a new idea. An example of this is the combination of a combining an engine with a horse carriage to create the concept of the horseless carriage, or what we now call an "automobile." Give it a try on a real problem and see if you can't come up with many ideas. Before you do though, tell yourself how many ideas you want to come up with, maybe 30 ideas if your problem is well defined or 100 ideas if you want some really bizarre ideas, and then don't stop until you come up with that number. Alex Osborn pointed out the value of creating many ideas by assigning a value of one cent to the first idea. If the next idea is worth twice the previous idea, (for example the second idea is worth two cents, the third idea is worth four cents, and so on), by the time you get to the 30th idea it is worth $5,368,704. The moral here is to stretch for one more idea, because it may be worth a lot! Now that you know how to create a lot of ideas, let's look at how to start evaluating them. How to narrow down your list Just as it is important to come up with a lot of ideas, it is equally important to be able to judge them. Just remember to do them separately -- the second principle of this process for being creative is to judge ideas only after you've created them, not at the same time. You can further impress your friends by calling it "convergent thinking." Since there are rules for divergent thinking, there are also rules for convergent thinking:
2) Check your objectives -- before rushing off with a solution or a great idea, make sure it does what you originally set out to accomplish. 3) Improve your ideas -- If you can make your idea better, go for it! Don't settle for a half-baked idea. 4) Be affirmative -- When reviewing options, spend time looking at the ideas that you like rather than the options you hate. 5) Consider Novelty -- Remember, you’re looking for creative ideas in the first place, so don’t end up selecting the same old idea. Be willing to try something new.
How to make a good idea even better Once you've come up with at least one idea that you like, it may help to look at it closely to see if you can't make a good idea even better. One tool for doing this is called Praise First, or PPCO technique. The PPCO Technique can be used to evaluate and/or improve any idea, whether it is one that you created or one that someone else proposed to you. Remember the professor who said that the concept for Federal Express was not feasible? Using the PPCO Technique will help you to avoid making similar mistakes, whether you're looking at an idea at work, a new recipe, a new design, a book, or even a relationship! Let's say for example that I come to you with an idea that I think is very exciting: Ice cream for dogs, in three great flavors that dogs love; liver, cheese and chicken. What's your initial reaction? "Yuck," right? "Why bother?" "Who cares?" "What a stupid idea." "Jonathan, you're an idiot." Ouch, that hurts. The PPCO Technique lets us look at it another way, by looking for Pluses, Potentials, Concerns and then ways to Overcome the concerns of each idea. This technique is a proven way of looking at the things that are good about an idea (Pluses), things that may have potential or may create opportunities (Potentials), and things that need to be improved -- phrased in the form of a question (Concerns). To use this technique, look for at least three Pluses, Potentials and Concerns in the idea that you're evaluating. Then, look for ways to Overcome the concerns. For example, let's look at the Ice cream for dogs idea:
By the way, there really is an ice cream for dogs. It was invented by Dr. William Tyznik, an animal nutrition specialist at the Ohio State University. Feeding real ice cream to dogs is not good for them since they're not supposed to eat milk products -- they're lactose intolerant. He proposed this idea to an ice cream manufacturer who liked the idea so much that it can be found in grocery stores in the United States under the name of Frosty Paws®. If you still think "yuck," go get some for your dog and see what they think. Chances are they'll see so many Pluses to the snack that they'll gobble it all up. Try it for yourself The tools, not the ice cream for dogs. The next time you find yourself in a situation where you don't know how to solve a problem, try using these tools:
2) Sort through the ideas that you've created in order to find one or more ideas that will work for you. It will help to use these guidelines while decision-making: 3) Look at the idea or ideas that you selected and evaluate and improve on it using the PPC Technique by looking for: Of course this isn't the only way to find ideas or options to solve problems or challenges, merely one way that has been proven to work. When you're working on trying to create ideas or options to help you solve a problem, feel free to add some other tricks, tools or techniques that you may have used in the past to help you. Or when you're evaluating ideas, feel free to judge it against other criteria that may be more appropriate for your individual situation (you can start criteria with the phrase "Will it..." or "Does it..."). The only thing that you can't change in this process is the concept of not giving up. When we're faced with a challenge or a particular problem, it's easy to say, "I can't do it," or "I don't know how to solve it," or "It's impossible." Nothing is impossible, with the possible exception of skiing through a revolving door. So give yourself the chance to look for ideas before you judge them. You'll find that your ability to create solutions may surprise you. Back to "Innovation 101: Tools for Personal and Organizational Breakthroughs" description...
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