Working with Wild Ideas

A germinal idea requires the sanctuary of a mindspace that is totally nurturing. It requires a space to grow so that its wildness is not nipped in the bud. Who knows what weed will become the coffee bush? Develop sanctuaries for wild ideas. Let the wilderness flourish in a totally non-threatening atmosphere. Let the ideas grow high and tall. Leave all pruning for later. New ideas need to play freely, like crawling, naked babies with no discipline. Suspend judgment, postpone reaction, extend effort. Hindustan Lever has its innovation centers. Cognizant has budgets for its mavericks and no stop signs within those budget allocations. Ask all participants to make an impossible wish – zero cost, zero rejections or doubling productivity. Then proceed to tame them bit by bit by using the innovation tools already learnt, like 6M. This process can be extended as you learn all the tools. So, go ahead and spend time setting impossible goals and developing wild ideas.

PMI

This is a simple mapping tool. PMI stands for P - PLUS M - MINUS I - INTERESTING PMI enables all individuals to study the three important aspects of the problem. School children in many countries use this to gain insights to all sides of a problem or mapping a situation. This a simple scanning tool to understand the geography of a problem.

Bug List Technique

Hendry Petroski - “Evolution of Useful Things” The bug list technique was developed to capitalize on this tendency of faulting things around us to lead to corrective action. Identify things that irritate or “bug” them. Consolidate a list. Vote and resolve the Bug.

Metaphor

Procedure for Use: Identify the issue you would like to innovate on. eg: “How to make customers your raving fans?” Ask each member of the group to record their feelings about movies. Experiential metaphor may include having the group to go for a movie. Apply these ideas to the problem using force-fit and record all ideas. Role-play of a movie can be used to extract ideas.

Experiential Attribute Matching

Experiencing an event is totally different from thinking about it. Adapt to the environment, live each moment fully and never be a spectator. For spectators get nothing out of life, participants get everything.

Tent Thinking vs. Marble Place Thinking

A tent can be put up, shapes can change, it can expand or reduce and it can be put up elsewhere. Marble Place thinking involves fascination with permanence. Adaptability according to the situation.

TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN (TUD)

• Step 1 Hospitals are places for the sick. How to make sure more people use the hospital? • Observations : It is difficult to market illnesses because no one believes they will fall ill. They are protected by what insurance people call the immortality complex. • Step 2 • Turn it upside down Hospital is a place where people go when they are well. • Solution Start preventive health and perfect health programme to attract people who are well. • Benefits 1. The market segment increases to cover a vast population: There are lot more people who are well than those who are ill. 2. The relationship starts on a happy note. The basis for a life time relationship is achieved.

A Holistic Approach to Health

Sushruta Samhita, the ancient Indian work by the physician Sushruta, describes perfect health as a state where all body parts function at their optimal level and wherein the body, mind and spirit are in perfect balance and in a state of bliss. This is the highest goal. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely an absence of diseases or infirmity. Really speaking, health is not a state but a continuous adjustment to the changing demands of life and the environment. Positive health implies perfect functioning of body and mind in a given society. Ayurveda defines health as: Svasthya—to be one’s own spiritual self. It is a state of balance between the three doshas (which are mind body energies: vata or wind; pitta or bile; and kapha or phlegm) that govern our external and internal environment, leading to a contented state of the senses, mind and soul.

Force Field Analysis

The name comes from the technique’s ability to identify forces contributing to or hindering a solution to a problem and can stimulate creative thinking in three ways: 1) To define what you are working towards (vision). 2) To identify strengths you can maximize and 3) To identify weaknesses you can minimize.

Crawford Blue Slip

This is one of the simplest, yet very effective, creativity generation techniques. It can be used to collect a large number of ideas in a short time. Because the ideas are recorded and shared without the name of the originator, people feel more comfortable about expressing ideas. There is less concern that their ideas will not be considered useful.

Snowballing

Every idea can be developed and grown by snowballing. Ideas are added to the original thought. The use of check-lists can be useful. Each idea can be developed by 4 or 5 groups and then put together for the main group.

PO

PO is a tool perfected by Edward De Bono and is a word used to protect delicate new ideas from destruction. Create a sanctuary for a wild idea. PO1 : Intermediate Impossible: PO1 is used to protect an impossible idea from immediate destruction. The tool used here to protect the idea is intermediate impossible. PO2 : Similar to Attribute Matching: PO2 is very similar to attribute matching. They help us put together a dissimilar idea and expect solutions from different fields. PO3 : Generating Alternatives: PO3 is a tool to generate alternativeness. When a system is working well, as a matter of routine, PO3 should be used to encourage one to think of 10 alternative ways of doing it better. This is an important and interesting tool to prevent stagnation.

Free Fall

Free fall is like bungee jumping. You let go without knowing definitely what will happen. Creative ideas are a kind of free fall. You generate ideas that have never been suggested / heard before. You risk the contempt of your peers; their jeers and laughter.

Beauty And Its Power To Expand The Mind

• Look into the purple heart of an amethyst. Register the colour in your heart and illumine every part of yourself with that colour. Beauty has the power to open the secret doors of human personality. You become relaxed, alert, comforted and nurtured. • Your mind becomes fluid and flowing. All that is harsh and dissonant melts away. Thoughts bloom like flowers on a tender branch. Immersing yourself in the grand silences of nature can help you to start the process of becoming more interestingly ‘YOU,’ the you God created. The ‘YOU’ who can become self actualized and peaceful.

Experiential Metaphor

• Experiencing an event is totally different from thinking about it. • Access dreams, visions, floating thoughts and synthesise them into your plans. For example, the best way to understand a tree is to become a tree in a storm. • Adapt to the environment, live each moment fully; never be a spectator.