If you’re looking to develop your business strategy or solve a tricky business issue, a little creativity can go a long way. Creative frameworks can be used to innovate new products, services, and processes— anything that needs to be improved. Here's how you can get started.
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1. Identifying the problem
It’s not just about defining the problem but defining the right problem to solve. When brainstorming, always question the problem at hand and try and empathise with the person’s experience you want to improve.
This also needs cross functional insight into each problem by various perspectives as well as constant questioning. When probing, repeatedly ask: "why has this happened, why is this a problem?" until you’re left with the real issues you need to deal with.
Visualising a problem will help here as the more you can see the problem at hand and paint the picture for your peers, the better you’ll be at forming viable solutions.
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2. Create and consider many options
Try and think about things differently. This is why it’s so important to have many different types of people in the brainstorm.
It's key that many different solutions are ideated, regardless of the problem at hand, as the solution can come from unexpected places. However, you must be careful not to overanalyse and stay at one point for too long.
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3. Refine selected options
When a few potential options are revealed, the whole group needs to embrace them. This is where there should be no fear of failure when proposing ideas, and the old ways of thinking need to be put to the side in order to let new ideas grow and flourish.
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4. Repeat (optional)
Often there’s a need to combine several answers and refine these further across several rounds of ideation to ensure the right answers are brought to the forefront to solve the problem.
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5. Pick the winner and execute
Finally, the desired course of action is selected and the appropriate resources are allocated to achieve the objectives.
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