WHIdeator
(WH)Ideation is the “creative process” of creating, developing, and communicating new ideas. Furthermore, it comprises all the stages of the thought cycle, from innovation to development to actualization.
Ideator definition: Broadly speaking, ideators are individuals who are constantly thinking about new ways to solve problems or challenge the status quo; One who ideates; is one who holds or generates an idea, or synthesizes a concept.
Ideators are global thinkers, comfortable making guesses, offering hypotheses, using intuition, seeing connections, and simply making things up. They fuel innovation with novelty, originality, and aesthetic flare. Ideators are energetic, spontaneous, playful, curious, social, flexible, and adventurous.
Other words for ideator:
One who conceives, who has an idea or concept. concipient · conceiver · inventor · originator · thinker · visionary.
5 Ways to “Ideate” like a PRO:
1. Question Everything
Whatever your challenge,
Whatever your challenge, whatever the problem, wherever you are in your career, whatever your role… you should question the orthodoxy.
In your career, you will usually encounter the “that is how we do things around here” attitude. But if you challenge the status quo, you usually end up taking off the blinders for not only yourself but for your boss, your team, and others you collaborate with. And opening up a realm of possibilities that can be converted into ideas, opportunities, and solutions is very valuable.
Start by framing your challenge creatively. Come up with 20 assumptions you might be making about this challenge. Now look at these assumptions. Turn them on their head. Use them as springboards to think up new ideas, and new approaches. Ask the question: what if?
2. Make a Wish
Ideation is about thinking big. So make a wish. Yes, a wish. Got it? Now sit down with your team, your boss, or your colleagues and brainstorm a bunch of different ways to make that wish a reality. Start by making your wish tangible. And go crazy by all means. Let your imagination set the boundaries. Next, take a couple of these far-fetched wishes and use them to stimulate your ideas – come up with something a bit more realistic, but no less novel. Already you will have taken great strides from solving by numbers and will be opening up to new approaches.
3. Unblock the Creativity
A good technique as you are ideating – and one that can fuel the creative juices – is to link totally unrelated concepts. If you and your team are stuck in the idea development process and starting to feel blocked, force yourself to find connections between seemingly disparate things.
Start by pairing the concepts; they can be as far unrelated as these examples are: Food and rugs; shoes and lanterns; cats and coffee. Then brainstorm the potential link between them. What might it be? This process can unblock the creativity – and probably yield a little laughter along the way.
4. Reverse the Challenge
This is fun. Take your challenge and frame it. So it might look like this: How can I ensure that our corporate WiFi is always working and available to delegates at company conferences?
Then reverse it: How can I ensure that our WiFi never works for guests?
Now create a list of actions that address your reversed challenge. And bingo! Work through that list and get inspired to find solutions to each challenge that you have.
5. Worst Idea Ever
And if reversing the challenge seems like fun, try brainstorming the “worst idea” with your team. It is pretty simple: Ask everyone to create a list of bad, terrible, stupid, illegal, or gross ideas. This will have people laughing and engaged.
Once you have generated a list, challenge your colleagues to turn these horrible ideas into good ones by either considering their opposite or by finding some aspect within a terrible idea that can be used to inspire a good one.
WHIdeators – one who takes ideas from their mind and brings them to life!!!