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Innovation Tools



Worst Idea

Worst Idea is a group technique for idea generation. It asks participants to come up with really bad and silly ideas that would never work, or are even illegal.

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Wishing

Wishing is a technique used to stimulate creativity by allowing its users to make extraordinary wishes for the business. These wishes may be impossible to realise and place no restrictions on budget, time, or resources.

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Waterfall Model

A Waterfall Model is a process model used to map out the sequence of steps in an activity. It supports the rigid planning and evaluation of each process step that collectively constitute the entire process.

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Value Analysis

The value analysis technique is used to determine the value of a product, process, or idea by evaluating the benefit of its components.

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Triggered Brainwalking

Triggered brainwalking is a technique used for the generation of ideas. It is a group exercise that consists of several rounds of idea generation where teams rotate, by physically moving, between ‘idea stations’.

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Synectics

Synectics is a rational approach to creativity and problem solving that is used to solve problems or generate ideas. At its core, it creates a distance from the focal issue that prevents the user from becoming stuck or limited to what is already known about it.

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Sticking Dots

Sticking dots is a simple group technique used to prioritise ideas. It is suited to the early stages of idea selection.

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Six Thinking Hats

Six thinking hats is an ideation technique that employs six different ways of thinking about problems or situations.

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Semantic Intuition

Semantic intuition is a word-combination technique that first specifies the name for an innovative idea or project and afterwards develops the details. The idea/project names are created by generating two lists of words and randomly combining them.

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Scrum

Scrum incorporates a range of principles and practices that allow organisations to deliver products swiftly, enabling fast feedback, continual improvement, and rapid adaptation to change. While this approach has predominantly been used for the development of software, its application has immense benefit in other domains.

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SCAMPER

SCAMPER is a technique used to generate innovative ideas. It is based on the idea that everything new is a modification of something that already exists. The term is an acronym for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Magnify/modify/minimise, Put to other uses, Eliminate, and Rearrange/reverse.

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Role Storming

Participants in idea generation sessions often refrain from sharing all of their thoughts with the group as they fear criticism. In order to overcome this, role storming may be used.

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Revolutionary Idea Generation

Evolutionary ideas are those that surpass traditional ways of thinking and create new perspectives. They involve discarding all existing knowledge about a problem and coming up with new and original ways of doing things.

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Random Word

The random word technique is an idea generation method that uses words generated by chance. These take participants out of their comfort zone to completely unrelated areas and provide new entry points for thinking about a topic.

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Prototyping

Prototyping is an iterative and visual process through which the requirements of users can be obtained with regard to the functionality and appearance of a new product or service. The prototype can be a sketch on paper, created with wireframing tools, or developed using application-simulation software.

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Picture Prompts

For this technique, pictures are used for the purpose of generating strong emotions and initiating creative thinking. It is an easy and fast approach, undertaken in the context of a group that requires participants to write down ideas that arise naturally upon examination of an image.

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Paired Comparison

Paired comparison is used to select the best option from amongst a variety of different possibilities where elements of comparison are different in nature, or criteria upon which to compare options is not clear.

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Opportunity Redefinition

The purpose of Opportunity Redefinition is to understand an opportunity in different ways. It accomplishes this by replacing three important words in a problem statement, or statement of an objective, with various alternatives.

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Nominal Group Technique

Despite the illusion of greater productivity occurring within the context of groups, evidence suggests that individuals are better at generating ideas alone. In order to overcome this issue and those surrounding overwhelmed introverts and those related to ‘groupthink’, the nominal group technique was developed.

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NAF Technique

NAF is a technique used to support idea selection or ranking by individuals, or in the context of a group. NAF is an acronym for novelty, attractiveness, and feasibility.

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Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a technique used to visualise information. A central concept is drawn and associated concepts are then added through linkages depicted by branches.

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Lateral Thinking

Lateral thinking is a popular approach to idea generation that may be applied by individuals or groups. The technique is based on the assumption that people think in known patterns and within certain boundaries.

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Know Brainer

The Know Brainer technique is an approach to guide innovation processes through the use of cards to provoke responses. The card set consists of material to support four phases of innovation development. These contain questions, pictures, nouns, verbs, and quotes that have been carefully selected to trigger ideas.

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Innovation Maturity Model

The innovation maturity model is an approach to assess key organisational behaviours and practices necessary for innovation and to identify areas of strength and weakness.

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Innovation Compass Diagnostic Tool

Innovation Compass Diagnostic is self-audit diagnostic tool for innovation and new product development.

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Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an informal approach to problem solving that uses lateral thinking. It may be conducted individually or within a group context. The technique encourages participants to produce ideas that, at first, may seem unorthodox, but can later be developed further.

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BrainWriting

BrainWriting is a derivation of brainstorming, where ideas are written down. It avoids some of the disadvantages of the latter approach by avoiding the requirement for ideas to be shouted out.

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ATAR

ATAR is an acronym for awareness, trial, availability, and repeat. It is a structured technique with the purpose of assessing new products or services with regard to their potential adoption rate or sales numbers.

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ABC Analysis

ABC Analysis is a technique used to support idea assessment. It is a three stage process that is aimed at identifying the most useful and practical ideas.

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180 Degree Thinking

To overcome the restraints to creativity that result from assumptions, this technique aims to break predictable patterns by taking the opposite view. As a result, it changes the direction of thinking and leads to fresh ideas.

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1H5W

1H5W is a questioning technique that focuses on answering the questions ‘what?’, ‘who?’. ‘where?’, ‘when?’, ‘why?’, and ‘how?’. By directing attention to these queries, the method enables the identification of issues or problems and supports the discovery of solutions.

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