5.1 IDEA GENERATION 5.2 GROUND RULES FOR DIVERGING 5.3

5.1 IDEA GENERATION

5.2 GROUND RULES FOR DIVERGING

5.3 TOOLS FOR DIVERGING

CHAPTER 5

– BDA 10602 –

har/jkp/fkmp/2019 BDA 10602 1

5.1 Idea Generation


Diverging –Coverging –What??

• The six stages of the Creative Problem Solvingmodel are concerned with both divergent andconvergent activities.

• Each stage starts with a divergent search for sometype of data (e.g., facts, problems, ideas, criteria,obstacles).

• During this portion of each stage, you should"stretch" your thinking to gather as much data asyou can.

• The second half of each stage is devoted to aconvergent narrowing down of whatever data youcollected.

• In this half, you must choose from the data yougenerated during the divergent phase.

• The CPS model involves basic cycles of diverging-converging, diverging converging and so forth untilthe problem is resolved.



Divergent thinking: the creative generation of multiple solutions to a given problem.

Convergent thinking: the deductive generation of the optimum solution to a given problem, usually where there is a compelling inference.

“Scientists and Engineers typically prefer convergent thinking while Artists and Performers prefer divergent thinking”

In Science and Engineering, this is followed by evaluation of the answers and a choice of optimal solution.


• In the creative process we

use the female approach

primarily in the divergent

thinking

• and the male approach in

the convergent thinking.


5.2 Ground Rules for Diverging


https://youtu.be/zeX1ClTtapshar/jkp/fkmp/2019 BDA 10602 8

Divergent Thinking Principles


1. Defer judgment

❑ Withhold all evaluation.❑ Because judging seems to be such a natural behavior, it can be difficult to

defer.

❑ Just keep telling yourself (or gently reminding others in a group setting) thatjudgment will come later.

❑ Evaluation can be both positive and negative.❑ It sometimes can be just as harmful to make an untimely positive evaluation

as a negative one.

❑ For example:❑ You might train yourself to stop commenting on how terrible someone's idea is as soon

as you see it.❑ You would also loudly exclaim how wonderful an idea is upon first hearing it, you would

be just as guilty of violating this principle.

“Whatever idea comes to mind, go with it.Don’t evaluate ideas while you are generating them”


2. Go for quantity (Think of as many ideas as you can)

• Really push yourself to seek quantity of data.

• Quality isn't very important during divergence.

• Whenever you are diverging, purge your mind of whatever idea pops up and write it down.

• The more ideas you have, the greater chances of getting a good one.

• Lay out all the usual approaches to the problem, then push to consider new ideas


Activity 1: A Hundred Questions

• This is an exercise that needs to be completed in onesitting.

• Write quickly; don’t worry about spelling, grammar, orrepeating the same question with different words.

• Make a list of a hundred questions that are important toyou. Your list can include any kind of question as alongas it’s something you deem significant: anything from“How can I save more money?” or “How can I havemore fun?” to What is the meaning and purpose of myexistence?” and “How can I best serve the society?”

• When you have finished, read through your list.Consider the emerging themes without judging themand highlight them. Choose your top 10 questions thatseem most significant. Rank them in importance fromone to ten. Do not make any attempt to answer them.

- The purpose of this exercise is to let your explore your thoughts and perspective in a free-flowing, incomplete, and non-judgementalmanner.


3. Seek Wild & Unusual Ideas –Be receptive to all ideas

• Whether generated by yourself or someoneelse, you should try to accept every ideaproposed.

• No matter how silly or outrageous an ideamight appear when first mentioned, youmight be able to transform it into somethingmore workable.

• Freewheel -the wilder the ideas the better.

• It’s easier to tame a wild idea than toinvigorate a weak one. (Osborn)

• Stretch your thinking to create some wildideas.


4. Build on Other Ideas

• Let one idea spur other ideas.

• Build, combine and improve ideas

• Build on others‘ ideas to generate more ideas fast.


Stages of Divergent

• What if?

• Why not?

• What associations can we find

• What rules can we break?

• What assumptions are at work?

• What is this like?

• What analogy could we use?

• What metaphor suggests itself?

• Suppose the problem were a solution?


o What if no one was ever absent from work?

o What if employees couldn't wait to get to work?

o What if employees begged to work longer hours?

o What if employees were never sick?

o What if employees could take care of personal business while on the job?

o What if employees were always absent for legitimate reasons?

o What if employees found a suitable substitute to do their jobs whenever they were absent?

o What if employees became managers and docked their own pay every time they took an unauthorized absence?

o What if employees thought of their work as play?

1) Start an organization-wide program to encourage higher attendance.

2) Give a bonus to employees who have no unauthorized absences during a certain period of time.

3) Allow employees to work overtime when they want (if no logistical problems are created) and count this time toward leaves of absence.

4) Give employees extra sick time for not being absent within a certain time period.

5) Try flexible working hours (employees schedule their own hours before and after a specified "core" period).

6) Allow an employee council to reward and/or punish other employees for absences.

7) Where appropriate, allow certain employees to work at home.

1) What if?


A more efficient way to free associate is to use attributes of the problem

Attribute-association chains

How can we improve an overhead projector?

The major attributes might be listed as follows: lens, mirror, light, fan, and projection.

2) What associations can we find?


3) AnalogiesFundamental: ✓ The basic principle underlying analogies is that new

perspectives on a problem can be gained by freeing yourself from familiar patterns.

“too close and familiar to a problem, not likely to think of unique ways of viewing it”

Method✓ Analogies technique helps by allowing you to

take a temporary "vacation" from your problem✓ Taking a vacation from your problem is simply a

matter of considering what else is like your problem.

✓ Then, select one of these comparisons, describe it in detail, and use your descriptions as idea stimulators.

Guidelines

1) Use animate analogies if your problem involves inanimate objects and inanimate analogies if your problem involves living things.

*Thus, if your problem is a "people" problem, select an analogy involving nonliving things*

2) When generating analogies, concentrate upon the major concept or principle underlying your problem

Ex: the problem of improving an overhead projector was concerned with the general issue of changing something for the better.

3) Use analogies that involve considerable action

4) Don't be too constrained when thinking of your analogies.


How do we increase the employee retention rate

Some potential analogies:

• reinforcing a dam with additional earth or concrete

• adding layers of clothing to keep warm

• installing a wire grid to reinforce a concrete floor

• using a second paper plate with a hot picnic meal

• chemically spraying trees to increase their survival rate

Elaborate:

• Coverage should be thorough, covering all tree surfaces.

• You must be careful not to kill other plant life.

• Spraying requires uses of an airplane for large-scale application.

• Growth progress should be checked periodically.

• Large trees are pruned to permit smaller trees to grow.

• Technicians walk among the trees for close inspections.

• Dead or diseased trees should be removed.

• Some healthy trees need to be harvested periodically.

❶ ❷


❸❖ Ensure that all employees feel they are treated equally and receive equal attention(thorough coverage)

❖ Provide incentives to stay with the company for so many years(be careful not to kill other plant life)

❖ Award airplane vacations for meritorious retention records (requires airplane)

❖ Allow employees greater choice of job assignments (requires airplane)

❖ Require managers to maintain more personal contact with employees and take a greaterinterest in personal problems (check growth progress)

❖ Conduct regular, informal job attitude surveys (check growth progress)

❖ Strengthen early retirement incentives to promote more junior personnel (large treespruned)

❖ Reward upper-level managers for spending more time "walking the floor" and talkingwith employees (close inspections)

❖ Improve employee health benefits (diseased trees removed)

❖ Give more authority and responsibility to lower-level employees (harvest healthy trees)


5.3 Tools for Diverging


TOOLS •Brainstorming

•Brainwriting

•Reversed Brainstorming

•Stepladder

•Starbursting

•SCAMPER

•Mind Mapping


BRAINWRITING


1) Clearly identify the problem or challenge, and write it down.

2) Reverse the problem or challenge by asking, "How could I possibly cause the problem?" or "How could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?"

3) Brainstorm the reverse problem to generate reverse solution ideas.

4) Once you have brainstormed all the ideas to solve the reverse problem, now reverse these into solution ideas for the original problem or challenge.

5) Evaluate these solution ideas. Can you see a potential solution? Can you see attributes of a potential solution?


WHAT MIGHT BE THE NEXT RESTAURANT CONCEPT??

LIST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT RESTAURANT

Reverse your assumptions to create breakthrough ideas for new restaurant concept

Food is cooked for you You cook the food

Order the food from the menu Order attributes (indulgence. Adventure)

Sit at a atable in a chair Living room furniture in the eating areas

Food comes on a plate Serve food on a frisbee

Go there with a group Singles dining


• Instead of asking a direct question like “What can we do to make customers return to our store?”

• You can start the discussion asking a negative question like “What can we do to make customers never return to our restaurant?” or “What can we do to drive customers away from our restaurant?” This negative question may yield answers like:• Make them wait for too long before entering

the restaurant• Don’t serve them on time• Take their orders late• Shout or make noise• Use tricky pricing strategies• Differential pricing for different customers

EXAMPLE



One of the most intelligent ways to find the answer is to ask as many questions as you can.


Osborn's checklist is a comprehensive list of questions about ideas and problems which can be used either individually or in groupsinvolves applying a series of words, verbs, adjectives or phrases contained in checklists or tables to an existing product or service or its attributes

Adapt? What else is like this? What other idea does this suggest? Does past offer parallel? What could I copy? Whom could I emulate?

Modify? New twist? Change meaning, colour, motion, odour, taste, form, shape? Other changes?

Magnify? What to add? More time? Greater frequency? Stronger? Higher? Larger? Longer? Thicker? Heavier? Extra value? Plus ingredient? Duplicate? Multiply? Exaggerate?

Minify? What to subtract? Smaller? Condensed? Miniature? Lower? Shorter? Narrower? Lighter? Omit? Streamline? Split up? Understate? Less frequent?

Substitute? Who else instead? What else instead? Other ingredient? Other material? Other process? Other power? Other place? Other approach? Other tone of voice? Other time?

Rearrange? Interchange components? Other pattern? Other layout? Other sequence? Transpose cause and effect? Change place? Change schedule? Earlier? Later?

Combine? How about a blend, an alloy, an assortment, an ensemble? Combine units?


S SubstituteIs there something you could put in place of something else? Consider materials and manufacturing processes.

C CombineWhat parts could be put together? Blended? What applications, uses, materials could be provided?

A AdaptHow might your competitor evolve it?What would a super-user do to make it better?

M ModifyWhat can you alter? Consider all 5 senses.Can you subtract, change or alter anything?

PPut to Other Uses

What else can it be used for? Each part?Who else might like it?

E EliminateWhat part can you get rid of or omit?What can you do without?

R RearrangeWhat can be rearranged or reversed? Patterns and assumptions?What can you connect in a different way?

SCAMPERSCAMPER (Eberle, 1971) was developed as a simplified form of some of Osborn’s (1953) brainstorming recommendations, intended originally for classroom use.

Comprises seven verbs describing operations which could be carried out on a product or concept (potentially including even people themselves) to generate new variants or improvements.


http://litemind.com/scamper/


• Every bicycle has typically the following components: Pedals, Frame, Chain, Drive Sprocket, Tires, Handlebars, and Brakes. When the SCAMPER technique would be applied to a bicycle, the ideas below, for improving it, could be generated:

• Pedal grips that strap for the feet to be better secured

• Frames of a much lighter weight founded on new materials

• Stronger chains having special clamps to make changing easier

• Better derailleur gears for the rear sprocket

• New materials for the rear wheel to replace spokes

• Racing handlebars to make the racing position more ergo dynamic

• You want to devise a new kind of pen. By applying the SCAMPER technique, below is one potential output of new ideas for a new version of pen:

• Substitute – replace nib with knife, ink with iron

• Combine – holding with opening, writing with cutting

• Adapt – use the pen top as a container

• Modify – body can be made flexible

• Put to other uses – utilize for writing on wood

• Eliminate – clip utilizing Velcro

• Rearrange – make the nib flow outwards


MIND MAPPING


• commences in the center -

reflects the many-hooked

nature of the brain's thinking

processes

• allows more space and

freedom - develop ideas from

the central core

•Use image and colorLaw One:

A Mind Map commences in

the center of a page within a

multi-colored image or

symbol.

• Main themes are attached

because the brain works by

association

Law Two:

Main themes are attached to

the central image on six lines

using large capital letters.• The connected structure of

the Mind Map reflects the

associative nature of the

brain

Law Three:

Lines are connected to lines.


Law Four:

Words are printed

Law Five:

Words are printed on lines

Law Six:

Single key words per

line.

Law Seven:

Use of color throughout the Mind Map.

Law Eight:

Images throughout

the Mind Map.

Law Nine:

Use of codes and symbols throughout.






Documents

5.1 IDEA GENERATION 5.2 GROUND RULES FOR DIVERGING 5.3