Innovation and Enterprise

This document discusses the importance of idea generation and creativity in innovation and enterprise. It explores the process of generating and evaluating ideas, as well as techniques for problem-solving and brainstorming. The document emphasizes the role of creativity in driving growth and development in organizations and the economy.

Innovation and Enterprise
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5
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Introduction
Every great business starts with an idea. Idea is an abstract thought which need to be
visualised, communicated and developed to bring the concept to reality. Creativity is the key to
innovative ideas but creativity alone is not enough (Huber, Kaufmann and Steinmann, 2017).
There is a need to build a systematic process for evaluating the quality of those ideas, for every
time one cannot come up with innovative ideas stuck in their routine life.
Main Body
“Idea generation is described as the process of creating, developing and communicating
abstract, concrete or visual ideas”. This thought was proposed by Julia Kylliäinen. She proposed
an idea management funnel and presented idea generation as its front end part which focuses on
refining and evaluating possible ideas available to solve problem in hand or converting the
opportunity available into a sweet reality. It is not possible for a single person to bring out
innovative idea every time. Every organisation works in team and so, whenever a leader is stuck,
it is best to encourage creativity of team members and let them present their ideas to help
organisation make positive change.
It is often seen that some people are more creative than others. Mel Rhodes in his Theory
of Creativity Research asserts that creativity is not an elusive quality but can be defined with a
clear-cut composition (Frich, J. and et.al, 2019). He defined four aspects which influence the
creativity and represent cornerstones of creativity research – person, process, press and product.
Person includes information about personality traits, value system, behaviour, etc. while the
process refers to factors such as motivation, perception, communication, etc. Press refers to the
connection between people and their environment and product refers to the thought which is
being talked about. Product can be communicated to people orally, written, symbolically or
artistically expressed such as painting, music, song, dance, etc. He believed when an idea
embodies in a tangible form, it is called a product.
Creative thinking inspires innovation and it is innovation that drives growth and
development of an organisation and economy at large. There are various techniques that assist in
shedding conventional thinking and improving creative brainstorm such as SCAMPER
Technique, Brainstorm Card, Analogy Thinking, Mind-mapping, story-boarding, role playing,
reverse thinking, etc. Few are below mentioned:
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SCAMPER Technique was created by Bob Eberle is a holistic method to inspire and
encourage creative problem-solving thought process. It suggest alternations to existing ideas to
reach best solution and consists of seven actions – substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to
another use, eliminate and reverse parts of idea or process to check if that benefits the overall
result. Brainstorm Cards is a tool that inspires new ideas by providing a basis to challenge the
problem. It suggests external sources to instigate innovative thoughts such as technological
trends, customer trends, regulations, societal trends, etc. It helps teams in shedding conventional
ideas by finding the answers to long held assumptions that are obstacle to develop out-of-the-box
ideas (Chu, X. and et.al., 2018). Analogy Thinking is another technique that uses prior
information to source out problem and determine solution for it. Usually source of information is
the same kind of problem company has faced earlier or the solution adopted by the benchmark
company in the industry. Thus, here the efforts are usually inspired and pre-validated ideas are
promoted.
Mostly organisations focuses on adopting innovative and creative ideas to solve a
problem or exploit an opportunity. They follow either problem centric approach or solution
centric approach to identify challenges and develop solutions for them. I personally find
brainstorm cards as the best technique to manage ideas and present a creative solution. This
approach helps in generating so many structured ideas which cover multiple dimensions.
Brainstorming shall be done both individually and in team. First of all, leader shall be thorough
with the problem or opportunity and then shall choose right people to build a team that will
engage in genuine brainstorming. Team members shall be provided proper do's and don'ts before
they start ticking their creative bones. Team members shall be given freedom to present their
without fear of criticism, no matter how bizarre their ideas are. For even the bizarre ideas can be
blended in some ways to develop best idea to the solve the problem in hand.
Conclusion
Idea generation process is to build a culture of innovation within an organisation
(Greiner, 2020). It inspires management to encourage creative thinking within all employees.
New employees can present different ideas from the pre-validated and conventional mindset of
senior management but idea management of senior management shall be flexible enough that
new ideas or change in ideas can be incorporated whenever and wherever they deem right.
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References
Books and Journal
Chu, X. and et.al., 2018. Adaptive brainstorm optimisation with multiple strategies. Memetic
Computing. 10(4). pp.383-396.
Frich, J. and et.al, 2019. Strategies in Creative Professionals' Use of Digital Tools Across
Domains. InProceedings of the 2019 on Creativity and Cognition (pp. 210-221).
Greiner, D., 2020. The basics of idea generation. CRC Press.
Huber, D., Kaufmann, H. and Steinmann, M., 2017. Bridging the innovation Gap: Blueprint for
the innovative enterprise. Springer.
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