Innovation and Design Thinking: A Comprehensive Guide
Divergent Thinking: It is based on associative thinking, focused on generating many creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It’s the ability to form many associations between seemingly unrelated and previously unconnected ideas and relationships.
Application: Divergent thinking is often applied in brainstorming sessions, creative endeavors, and situations where innovative solutions are required. It encourages exploring different perspectives, fostering creativity and originality. In design, divergent thinking might involve generating a wide range of concepts, exploring different design elements, and pushing the boundaries of conventional approaches.
Convergent Thinking: Convergent thinking involves narrowing down options to find the best solution to a problem. It’s a more structured and linear process focused on evaluating and selecting the most suitable idea among alternatives. Application: Convergent thinking is applied when making decisions, problem-solving, and refining ideas. It involves critical analysis, comparison, and elimination of less viable options to converge on the most effective solution. In design, convergent thinking might involve evaluating various design concepts against specific criteria, refining them based on feedback, and ultimately selecting the most feasible and impactful design solution.
In summary, divergent thinking is applied in situations where creativity and idea generation are needed, while convergent thinking is applied in situations requiring decision-making and solution selection. Both types of thinking are essential components of the design thinking process, complementing each other to achieve innovative and effective solutions.
THE INNOVATION PENTATHLON FRAMEWORK:
The 5 areas/drivers of innovation management:
Business drivers are the key inputs and activities that drive the operational and financial results of a business.
1) Ideas generation
2) Ideas selection
3) Implementation, quick and efficiently developing
4) Clear and shared innovation strategy and vision
5) People, shared innovation culture, and organization
THE SWEET SPOT
Any invention is a successful innovation if we achieve four things:
- A desirable solution, one that your customer really needs and wants
- A viable solution:
- Technological viability (readiness of technologies, software, materials, etc.)
- Commercial viability (readiness of distribution and logistics, price viability, etc.)
- Feasible solution, it can be built on the current strengths of the operational and technological capabilities of the company
- A profitable solution, it is going to generate benefits and a sustainable competitive advantage
What is creativity? The use of imagination or original ideas to create something. The generation of ideas, insights, or solutions that are novel and useful for a given situation or problem.
Drivers of creativity:
– To be proactive rather than reactive.
– Try to progress
– Learning from experimentation, fostering trial and error
. Learning by doing
Self-reflecting, …
5 SKILLS THAT BOOST CREATIVITY
1) Divergent thinking → Generate multiple ideas or solutions to a problem. Explore different possibilities, non-linearly.
Convergent THINKING → Narrowing down options to find the best solution.
Analyze + evaluate the idea through divergent. Logical, critical + decision
2) Questioning → Questions provide new insights, connections, possibilities, and directions. A creative person is a questioner.
3) Observe/Explore → Watch the world around you. Observations help you gain insights into and ideas for new ways of doing things.
4) Networking → Spend time + energy finding and testing ideas through adverse networks + search for new ideas by talking to people who may offer different points of view
Cognitive processes we can add:
. Expertise (knowledge)
. Motivation, – Open-mindedness
. Environment that is supportive and rewarding of creative ideas
Willingness to take risks
Unit 2: TRADITIONAL INNOVATION APPROACHES:
The traditional problem:
It follows a linear, analytical, logical, and structured approach to describing and resolving an issue:
A) At the beginning, we assume that we have identified the problem
B) We look for different causes/reasons for this problem
C) We come up with different preconceived solutions (alternatives) to the problem
D) We rank, evaluate, and select the different alternatives/solutions
RATIONAL DECISION-MAKING PROCESS:
1) Define the decision situation
2) Identify decision criteria
3) Allocate weights to the criteria
4) Identifying alternatives
5) Evaluating alternatives
6) Selecting the best alternatives
7) Implementing the chosen alternative + evaluation result
The three most important aspects that are taken into account in the evaluation are:
– Profitability-> potential business benefits
– Viability + feasibility–> alternative is more viable and feasible
– Selection–>
The traditional creative process
A) Problem or need recognition or sensing
B) Preparation: Gathering information, data, knowledge, opinions, and materials,
C) Incubation: Generate new ideas
D) Illumination or insight: The inspirational moment. The decision-maker thinks of all possible solutions at all times.
E) Evaluation stage: the reasoning/rational stage. So you ask yourself: Is it worth pursuing? Is it going to add value? How? To whom?
– Many people tend to struggle in this stage because it requires a lot of: self-reflection, honesty, self-criticism.
It’s also good to consider the opinions of
F) Verification and application: elaboration, testing, and refinement: The decision-maker proves by logic or experiment that the new idea or insight can solve the problem and, therefore, can be implemented through a new project
The new approved ideas and insights are developed, tested, and implemented.
The new design thinking approach: Design thinking is not only focused on the sweet spot of innovation
– It is a human-centered design approach that is totally focused on the sweet spot of UX (user experience) and also as an innovation it is focused on the sweet spot of innovation
– Starts with the sweet spot of innovation by understanding the needs of the users/stakeholders (desirability) Follows with the sweet spot of UX (user experience)
- Finally brings the viability, feasibility, and profitability aspects together.
UNIT 3: DESIGNING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
The selection of a theme for a given new service concept:
A theme typically refers to the central idea or concept that guides and unifies various elements of the service:
-Empowers users to take control of their experience
-Fosters meaningful connections and interactions between customers/ people, creating a sense of community and self-belonging.
. Supports users’ physical and mental well-being – ensures inclusivity and accessibility for all users
– Creates a service that brings joy and entertainment
UNIT 4: UNDERTSANDING STAGE
Problem: Situation/condition that presents difficulty, uncertainty or challenges and requires a solution Something that needs to be addressed/resolved because it hinders the achievement of a goal.
Problem recognition: 5w+h questions
Who owns the problem?
The problem owner is the person, organization or society:
- Who ultimately owns the problem
- That is affected by the consequences of the problem and the issues to be solved –
- Who would benefit from the solution of the problem
4 perspectives to deal with problem ownership:
- Other persons, organization or social groups own the problem but not us (the problem is external to us)
- No problem area–> we recognize that we do not have any problem. we think that all our needs are satisfied. are we sure?
- I own a problem–> we recognize that we have a problem that we must solve – there is never a conflict of needs, – there is only an internal conflict of ideas and solutions
- Both of us own a problem–> there’s a conflict between the different interests of groups of personas, companies, etc.
We recognize that we have a problem that we cannot solve alone because it is affecting other parts that should be involved in the solution since – there is a potential conflict of needs – there is a potential conflict of ideas and solutions
Divergent Thinking: It is based on the associative thinking. Focused on generating many creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It’s the ability to form many associations between seemingly unrelated and previously unconnected ideas, relationships
Application: Divergent thinking is often applied in brainstorming sessions, creative endeavors, and situations where innovative solutions are required. It encourages exploring different perspectives, fostering creativity and originality. In design, divergent thinking might involve generating a wide range of concepts, exploring different design elements, and pushing the boundaries of conventional approaches.
Convergent Thinking:Convergent thinking involves narrowing down options to find the best solution to a problem. It’s a more structured and linear process focused on evaluating and selecting the most suitable idea among alternatives. application: Convergent thinking is applied when making decisions, problem-solving, and refining ideas. It involves critical analysis, comparison, and elimination of less viable options to converge on the most effective solution. In design, convergent thinking might involve evaluating various design concepts against specific criteria, refining them based on feedback, and ultimately selecting the most feasible and impactful design solution.