Great to have Woody Bendle back this week with a new creative thinking exercise that, for those of you old enough to remember, will take you back to the 80's while it also has you pointed toward future ideas! Here's Woody . . .
I love this quote from Keynes. In its brevity, it articulates two fundamental realities nearly every business faces.
I have an idea…
Ideas are abundant – they really are. But good ideas worth backing are exceptionally rare. By good idea, I mean a bona fide idea that can uniquely satisfy an important unmet or underserved consumer need. And one that has the opportunity to create new consumer value in the marketplace.
Let’s face it, it feels awesome when you’ve come up with a really cool idea! But, one of the most significant challenges every innovator faces is resisting the temptation to chase a cool idea rather than solving consumer needs. This is a proven path to almost certain failure that we need not go down; but still so many do.
Innovation is a numbers game – just not in the way that many still think. When 80%+ of all new products that launch each year fail, I would consider the current state of innovation a fundamentally broken numbers game. Tossing the proverbial spaghetti against the wall is irresponsible; not to mention an incredible waste of time, effort and money. There is however a better numbers game and that is generally regarded as the needs-first, or jobs-to-be-done approach to innovation.
By methodically and thoroughly understanding consumer needs and appropriately sizing up the market opportunity, you can flip the numbers from 80% failures to 80%+ successes. I don’t know about you but I like those numbers a whole lot better!
So, once you have identified the need(s) you wish to address, what do you do next?
Anyone got an idea?
Now is the time to come up with ideas. Even though ideas can be abundant, coming up with well informed and focused ideas isn’t always easy. Occasionally, you will be lucky and have one of those serendipitous eureka moments; but more times than not, it doesn’t work out this way. Coming up with good new innovation ideas is hard work – really hard work. And, thankfully hard work can often be made easier with creative thinking exercises.
One such creative thinking exercise I often like to use is one I call “That’s just the way it is” (cue Bruce Hornsby… now).
That’s Just the Way It Is, is pretty much what you might assume given the name. This creative thinking exercise starts by identifying things are often regarded as standards, norms or expected protocols. Many of you might have read (or at least remember the title from) Kriegel and Brandt’s 2008 book Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers” (affiliate link).
That’s Just the Way It Is essentially builds upon the notion of challenging existing conventions (and / or sacred cows) as a way to identity opportunities for innovation.
There are five steps to this creative thinking exercise:
Once you’ve completed steps 1-5 for the first thing came up with, keep going because this is where the real numbers game happens!
At this point in your idea generation phase, the more things you can identify that are Just the Way It Is, the better. And more times than not, the things you come up with much later in this exercise are often the ones that have the best opportunity to be real game changers.
So what do you think? Is this a creative thinking exercise you can see adding to your creativity tool box? Let me know!
Now, let’s get innovating! - Woody Bendle
Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic creative thinking and ideas! For an organizational innovation success boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these benefits for you.