Innovation Management

Chapter 4

Creative connections
Power Tools
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Pursue a large quantity of ideas
and make connections between
these ideas.
The great connection could arrive
at the second, eighth or thirtieth
idea.
One never knows when a great
idea will arrive.
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A football coach rarely asks his team
to run the same play time after time.
Instead, the coach finds new ways
to connect the players on the field
to outwit the opposing team.
By combining and recombining
different player movements, the
coach is able to devise creative ways
to out-maneuver their opponents.
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Creative thinkers tap into their
imaginations by combining and
recom-bining different ideas or
concepts to make new connections.

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Creative thinking is really about
discovering new connections through
the use of:
(1) The imagination,
(2) Diverse stimuli, and
(3) Creative-Connections Power tools

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The ways to burn new pathways and
strengthen your imagination:
Imagine more than one use for your
product or service.
Children are great at transforming
objects into new ideas. Watch them
transform a soft drink can into a
microphone or pasta into a neck-lace.
They play with ideas to see the
possibilities that lie within. 7
A com-mon warm-up exercise for
strengthening creative-thinking skills is
Name five uses for a rubber band or a
paperclip.

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Newspapers can be used as a cushion
or packing material while giving first
aid.
Colgate toothpowder is very effective
for cleaning and shining the silver
utensils.
An old toothbrush with a sieve, can be
used to spray watercolor onto the
drawing paper.
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Use your imagination to do the
opposite of what is expected.
Until 1968, most high jumpers used the
scissor-kick or front-roll techniques for
clearing the high-jump bar.
Then along came Dick Fosbury, who cleared
the bar the opposite way, using the back
flop. His radical backward style, nicknamed
the Fosbury Flop, won him the gold medal at
the Olympics and redefined the sport of high
jumping forever.
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Look to other industries or areas for
inspiration.
Imagine the wildest idea you can and
then tame this wild idea. Your wildest
idea might be to put a picnic table in
the car.
Encourage all team members to use
their imaginations.
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Honda of Japan holds a contest where
employees use company money to
develop ideas for new vehicles and
transportation concepts. Practicality is
not necessarily a criterion for success.
Prizes awarded include the Mechanical
Prize, the Dream Prize, the Nice Idea
Prize, and the Unique Prize. The
spectators also award the Golden Icon
Prize for the most popular idea.
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Use Diverse Stimuli (Something that
encourages activity in people)

If the team is looking for ideas to

improve the school's fundraising
efforts, they might want to look at
other schools' fundraising efforts as
well as at examples from other
nonprofit organizations.
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The team might want to bring in
examples of previous programs and
advertisements from other fundraising
campaigns as stimuli for fresh
connections.

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Alternatively, the team might want to
seek out unrelated stimuli.
For example, they might want to look
at how banks attract new customers,
how lotteries are conducted, or how
the Army recruits new soldiers, in order
to find new insights that could help
them design a better fundraising
program.
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 Look internally as well as externally for
diverse stimuli. Sources of diverse
stimuli are:
Historical review Television The mail

Children Old files Paint Colors

List of trends Travel Other companies

Photos Complaints Ads

Opinions Catalogs Children’s books

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The simplest way to collect new ideas
generated from stimuli is, obviously, to
write them down.
Carry a small idea notebook or use a
Palm Pilot to capture these fleeting
thoughts, or they might disappear
for-ever.
Many great ideas surface during
meetings. Where do they go?
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Make sure the team develops an idea-
capture system such an Innovation
Bank or Idea Bank so that these ideas
can be referenced at a later date.

IDEA

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Using the Ten Creative Connections
Power tools
The mind is full of ideas from past
experiences and from observations
gained through television or
conversations.
Some people rely on their
subconscious mind to access these
ideas.
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However, unfortunately, they never
know when these ideas might surface-
it could be early in the morning; late at
night, on a walk, or in the shower.

Other people prefer to take a more

structured approach to finding new
ideas, using specific tools and
techniques. Here are the Top Ten
Creative-Connections Power Tools.
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Creative-Connections Power tool 10:
Rummaging in the Attic
There are many great ideas simply
sitting in the "attics of our minds" as
well as in the "attics of our
organizations".
We have a tendency to trash the past
and hold the perception that an idea
from five years ago will be of little use
in helping to solve our current
challenge. 21
Creative-Connections Power tool 10:
Rummaging in the Attic
However, elements of previous
solutions or ideas can prove to be very
valuable fuel for jumpstarting our idea
engines.

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Creative-Connections Power tool 9:
Cultivating Obsession
Take the time to understand the
market, the client, the technology, and
the perceived constraints of the
problem.

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Creative-Connections Power tool 9:
Cultivating Obsession
Observe real people in real-life
situations to find out what makes them
tick—what confuses them, what they
like, what they hate, and where they
have latent needs not addressed by
current products and services.

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Creative-Connections Power tool 8:
Analyzing Frustrations
"Solving cus-tomer problems sparks
innovation." One of the most fertile
areas for identifying new ideas is
discovering what frustrates others
about the cur-rent product, service, or
process.
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Creative-Connections Power tool 8:
Analyzing Frustrations
While it is always great to focus on
what is wonderful, the team might
want to take a quick look at what is not
so wonderful.
In the field of innovative thinking,
sometimes these very deficiencies are
the origin of a breakthrough idea.
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Creative-Connections Power tool 7:
Identifying the Gold Standard
Identify organizations that have
achieved excellence in your particular
challenge area.
For example, if you are looking for new
ideas for "organizing cus-tomer flow,"
you might want to investigate what
Disney has done to orga-nize their
customer flow.
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Creative-Connections Power tool 7:
Identifying the Gold Standard
You also might want to investigate
what McDonald's has done in order to
serve their customers quickly.
If you are looking for ideas for
advertising, you might want to look at
examples of recent award-winning
advertisements.
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Creative-Connections Power tool 6:
Adopting and Adapting
Great ideas already exist somewhere
else in the universe. All you need to do
is find them and adopt them as your
own.
Find out what others are doing well. Do
not limit the stimuli to your own
company and only "fast adapt" ideas
from within the four walls of your own
organization. 29
Creative-Connections Power tool 6:
Adopting and Adapting
Banks could adopt the numbering
system many bakeries and
gov-ernment offices use to serve
customers so that their banking
customers could sit and relax while
waiting their turn.
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Creative-Connections Power tool 5:
Combining Ideas
McDonald's was one of the first fast-
food restaurants to introduce value
combos: a combi-nation of sandwich,
fries, and drink.

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Creative-Connections Power tool 5:
Combining Ideas
Practice combining objects in everyday
life.
How could a computer keyboard be
combined with a printer?
How could a doctor's office be combined
with a school?
How could the concept of a "book-of-the-
month club" be com-bined with wine?
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Creative-Connections Power tool 4:
Finding Similarities
For example, find similarities in nature:
How is the organization like a tree, or how
is the process like a tornado?
The Vel-cro hook and loop design was
invented by someone who studied the way
the burrs stuck to clothing.

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Creative-Connections Power tool 4:
Finding Similarities
What similarities can you find between
fast-food restau-rants and your
organization?
What similarities can you find between a
baseball team and your team?
What similarities can you find between
your sales process and eBay's?
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Creative-Connections Power tool 3:
Breaking Down the DNA
Sometimes the problem or situation is
overwhelming in its complexity.
A good tech-nique in this case is to break
the problem down bit by bit so that the
focus is on the "bits" instead of on the
whole problem all at once.

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Creative-Connections Power tool 3:
Breaking Down the DNA
Pulling apart a product or service to find
the underlying "DNA" elements is easy.
Simply list the characteris-tics or attributes
of the product or service and then ask
questions or play with each of the
elements.

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Creative-Connections Power tool 3:
Breaking Down the DNA
Doing the DNA breakdown is similar to a
technique called "reverse engineering."
The process of working backward from the
finished product to discover how the
object was constructed is called "reverse
engineering."

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Creative-Connections Power tool 2:
Listing and Twisting
Use your imagination and the following
chart as stimuli for "twisting" ideas:
Add a step Find other uses Slow down

Eliminate a step Find other customers Add sound

Rearrange the steps Improve the quality Add motion

Outsource a step Decrease the quality Add texture

Add an ingredient Make it easier Change packaging

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Creative-Connections Power tool 1:
Becoming a Visual thinker
It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci created an
early version of the storyboard technique.
Walt Disney perfected this technique to organize
his animation projects.
By visually displaying the scenes involved in the
plot, Disney was able to add, delete, or
rearrange them to produce the most
entertaining program.
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Evolving from Brainstorming to Innovation
Groups
Brainstorming has grown to be one of the
most popular methods used by groups all
over the world to tap into different
participants' perspectives and experiences
in order to generate many alternative
ideas.

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Although the participants start out with
good intentions, there are numerous
problems that are usually encountered, in
some form or other, with brainstorming as
it is now practiced:
-Lack of Process
-Lack of a skilled facilitator
-Lack of skilled participants

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-Listing of rules
-No agreement on the problem
-Lack of stimuli
-Pressure to be creative on queue
-Pressure to converge quickly
-Lack of follow up

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A preferred method for idea generation is
holding an "Innovation Group,"
which, because of its comprehensive and
rigorous design, goes beyond the more
common brainstorming method.
The Innovation Group method addresses
the previous list of problems by
recommending the following:
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A more complete process:

a) Pre-work to establish the goals of the process

and ask participants to explore the subject area;
b) The first group meeting to explore and clarify
the problem definition;
c) Time away to reflect on the chosen problem
area and conduct more research;

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A more complete process
d) A second group meeting to explore the
subject area and generate ideas;
e) Time away to reflect on the ideas and add
more ideas; and
f) A third group meeting to discuss the ideas and
select the "best" ones.

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Reducing the pressure to be creative in
one meeting
Choosing a skilled leader
Choosing the best participants
Providing guidelines
Clarifying the real problem
Introducing stimuli
Using the Creative-Connections Power
tools
Ensuring follow-up
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THANK YOU

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