How to Ideate Effectively

A framework for creative thinking

creativityentrepreneurship

Here, I’ll give you a simple 5-step process on how to generate better ideas that have a real impact.

But first, let’s talk about some other things you absolutely must keep in mind while ideating!

Solving Real Problems

Most people don’t realize this but finding the right problems to solve is actually much more difficult than solving the problems themselves. In particular, many startups tend to build solutions to problems that are not “real”, i.e., they assume that others face this problem and decided to solve it without actually testing whether it is a problem.

The key here is that real problems come from real people. So, the only way to find real problems is by listening to real people. More on this later :)

Focus on solving problems, not on building solutions.

When defining a problem, be sure to understand it very well — know your target audience and the specifications/constraints. The details matter too. Depth of understanding is critical.

Hmm… Is now the right time?

And, don’t wait for the perfect time to start working on an idea you have! (Unless you have a very very good reason not to — e.g. the infrastructure/technology you require hasn’t been developed yet)

The only way to really learn something is by doing — experiential learning. This kind of learning is far more superior than intellectual learning, i.e., learning by reading textbooks or watching videos or even attending lectures.

Done is better than perfect!

The Power of Abstraction

In general, the ability to create abstractions and explain something complicated to someone in a manner that they understand exactly how much they need to is an incredible skill. It’s also invaluable when trying to pitch to investors — you only have 2 minutes to describe your idea (that you probably spent 2 months thinking and working on) and excite them to join your journey. Use abstractions to only talk about the relevant details and hide everything unnecessary. In particular, when pitching, focus on the problem + existing solution, and how your solution is better → it is necessary to problematize before talking about your solution so they can see the value of it. Don’t talk about the cool technical aspects of it (unless the other person is super geeky) because they probably don’t care.

Creative Confidence

As people get older, they start to think they’re less and less creative. This is because they do less artistic things (e.g. stop playing the violin, which they used to as a kid), etc. But creativity and artistic talent are very different things. Creativity is what drives innovation — it’s everywhere. One of the key things that you should strive to develop is creative confidence — the confidence that you are as creative as anybody else.

The 5-Step Process of Ideation

Let me introduce to you a framework for ideation that will allow you to express your creativity better and come up with higher-quality ideas and solutions.

It consists of 5 easy steps:

  1. Empathy
    • Conduct interviews to search for problems.
    • Be empathetic — don’t judge — just collect data. Hear the unsaid things. Care about their emotions.
    • Withhold any experience or expertise — this is just a data gathering stage, not a validation stage.
    • Be curious
    • Try to understand the other person better than they understand themselves.
    • Feelings > functionality : at the end of the day, people use apps that make them feel good/cool/happy. Creating the functionality is very easy — evoking emotions is not. (e.g. teenagers tend to stay away from Facebook as they think its “uncool”)
    • Keep asking why (about 5 times is generally good enough) — get to the root problem
  2. Define
    • Verbs > Nouns: it turns out that oftentimes, verbs are more effective at defining problems than nouns (e.g. The goal is to be able to reach a destination faster, travel from one place to another quicker. Then, as an innovative thinker, you can think of how to achieve these goals — instead of describing the problem as increasing the speed of carriages, which would restrict you to only think of ways to improve the carriage, not come up with a radical new idea altogether).

      “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” — Henry Ford

  3. Ideate
    • The crazier the idea, the better
    • Be as radical as you can to solve the problem
    • The only way to increase the odds of hitting the next big idea is to come up with lots of ideas — so just keep thinking from different points of views.
  4. Prototype
    • Fail as soon as possible — cost of failure increases exponentially with time and you’d rather know an idea is stupid much earlier than much later
    • Test as often as possible — the world is rapidly changing and what is true today might not be true a few months later — so you need to test if there have been any changes in user application usage or preferences that you need to adapt to.
  5. Test
    • Get feedback from users by listening to them.
    • Don’t get defensive — use their feedback to iteratively improve your product/solution till it matches user expectations.

Here’s another useful tip for you: know your own strengths and weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses of others. Be sure to bounce ideas of each other and play to your strengths. Self-awareness, i.e., knowing you are not good at something, is great — because you can get people who are better at it to help you with it.

Thanks for reading! This article was inspired by a workshop conducted by Dr. Mikhail and I hope it was useful to those of you looking for ideas for your future-startups or just searching for problems to solve in general 🙌