IDEA GENERATION AND

INNOVATION
 Starbursting
 Like a repor ter tr ying to discover the pivotal information to a
stor y, the starbursting method of brainstorming requires you
to think about the who, what, where, when, why, and how for
any new idea.

 Place your main idea at the center of a star diagram, labeling

each point of the star with those 5WH questions.
 Next, develop a series of questions about your idea for each
point. Starbursting is popular among brainstorming methods
because of its explorator y nature: One question triggers
another question, and before you know it, you have the
beginnings of a solid strategy within the answers to those
questions.
 With brain-netting, par ticipants use vir tual collaboration
software to share ideas in real time and can save ideas to a
cloud-based storage platform or within the collaboration
software itself. The way teams go about virtual collaboration
can var y—team leaders may ask a general question like “What
do we want our customers to experience? ” and have
teammates contribute their responses, or teams may engage
in other techniques mentioned in this piece including
rolestorming, reverse brainstorming, and rapid ideation.
 Brain-netting
 Brain-netting has become a popular brainstorming technique
in the modern workspace, where vir tual collaboration and
remote teams are much more common. Email communication
can be effective but can take too much time and can be more
formal than needed.
 Round robin brainstorming
 To engage in this brainstorming technique, begin with having
ever yone sit in a circle. A team leader or facilitator will then
pose a question or offer a request for ideas and have
ever yone in the circle contribute one by one.

 This strategy is great for middle - to large-sized teams who

may have quieter team members.
 Rapid ideation
 By setting a time limit on team members to contribute as
many ideas or solutions as possible, team managers can
maximize productivity and results.

 Rapid ideation works well for a few different types of

workers—for teams who dislike meetings, or who tend to get
sidetracked, rapid ideation is a great way to approach the
brainstorming stage of project execution.
 Gap filling
 Gap filling, also known as gap analysis, requires you to
identify your current state and your end goal and then find
gaps between the two states. It asks the question, “How do we
get from here to there? ” Gap analysis is especially helpful
when it comes to problem solving because it requires you to
find workable solutions.
 WHAT IS CONVERGENT THINKING?

 Convergent thinking

is a problem-solving technique involving bringing together

different ideas from different par ticipants or fields to determine
a single best fit solution to a clearly defined problem .

 In other words, this is a kind of thinking that concentrates on

finding out the single best fit, correct, workable solution to a
problem or answer to a question .
 EVALUATION CRITERIA TO NARROW DOWN THE
NUMBER OF POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO A DEFINED
PROBLEM
 Evaluation criteria: Standard measures established to
evaluate the degree to which alternative solutions, proposals,
or individuals are able to meet expectations or objectives
through direct comparisons of their strengths, weaknesses
and trade-offs.

 NOTE: The process CPS (Creative Problem Solving) Model

requires in stage # 5 (selecting a solution) to evaluate the
ideas to select solutions for best “fit.”
 Example of generating a criteria
 As you search for solutions, instead of tr ying to find the one
best solution, your goal should be to develop a good solution
by evaluating, modifying, and improving on your ideas. After
generating as many alternatives as you can, assess each one
carefully.
 Using objective criteria helps you avoid making decisions
based on emotion or snap judgements.
 Successful
 Solves the Problem Effectively.
The solution achieves the stated goals, meets a need well. "It
works.”, "That does it.”, "Problem solved.", "That's per fect .“

 Meets Constraints.
 The solution works within the stated constraints to the
problem (or overcomes or circumvents them in some
acceptable way).
"It’s on time.", "It meets the specifications.", "It's under
budget.", "This is well below the target maximum weight .“
 Efficient
 Good Cost/Benefit Ratio.
 The solution is economical, with high price/per formance ratio.
"We can afford it.", "It ’s wor th the money.", "It ’s wor th the
effor t."

 Practical.
 The solution is logical, useful, systematic, understandable,
"do-able," not overly difficult or complex for the intended
benefits. It is as simple and direct as possible for the desired
outcome.
 "We can do it.", "We found an easier way."
 Reliable.
 The solution will continue to work over time with a high
degree of reliability, consistency, and effectiveness.
 "Works in the heat of summer and the cold of winter .“

 Acceptable to Users.
 The solution is agreeable to those who must implement it, to
society, to those affected by it. It is not "technologically
brilliant but sociologically stupid."
"People will use this.", "We enjoy using it."
HOW TO APPLY THE EVALUATION MATRIX

 1- Choose an evaluation method

To select a solution from the alternatives you developed, adopt
an appropriate way to evaluate them. Is the decision small
enough that you can choose intuitively? If not, consider the pros
and cons of each alternative and how you can objectively
measure them.

 2-Select the criteria

 Evaluation criteria are the variables that drive your decisions.
What do you need to know about each alternative to make an
informed choice? Popular criteria include cost, time,
feasibility, usefulness, and appropriateness for the
organization. Use more than one of these when evaluating
alternatives.
3- Weigh your criteria
 To take differences into account, assign weights to each
option. For example, you might be evaluating locations for a
prom event. Two criteria are cost and the distance from the
neighborhood. Because cost is more significant, you could
assign 80 percent of the decision to cost and 20 percent to
the distance. The weights you assign to each criterion
determine how much influence each has on the final outcome .

4- Rate the alternatives

 You can rate the alternatives by ranking each one based on
your criteria and the weight you assigned.
5- Make a decision
 Choose the best alternative and use it to develop a solution to
the problem. Do not be concerned if the selected alternative
is not per fect. Complex problems rarely have ideal solutions.
Make sure you feel comfor table with the alternative you
choose.
 Step 1
 Create a table where the columns represent the evaluation
criteria above, and the rows include the choices. In this
example, ideas A, B, C, and D will be chosen. Establish a
rating scale for each criterion. The rating should range from
1= less impor tance and 5= high importance. Then, add these
rates under each criterion in the table. The figure below shows
that the competency got 3, cost= 4, viability=5, desirability=
4, and alignment=2.

 Step 2
 Now, you need to rate each idea based on each criterion. The
rating is again from 1 to 5. 1 means the idea is least qualified
based on the chosen criteria. 5 means that the idea is ver y
qualified for the selected criteria. For example, Idea A was
rated 1 based on competency, which means the idea is less
desirable in market competency.
 Step 3
 We need to calculate the weighted score for each idea based on
each criterion. The weighted value is a result of the
multiplication of the criteria rank and the idea rank as
demonstrated below:
 Idea A weight = criteria rank X idea score

 The total weighted score should be written in the last column, as

seen in the figure below. Then, the ideas are prioritised from the
highest score to the lowest score.
 In this example, Idea A presents an excellent opportunity for the
company to achieve innovation in the market. Based on the final
result, Idea B is more likely to succeed in the market, while Idea
C is the least idea to achieve market success.

 SWOT analysis
 SWOT analysis isn't exclusively a brainstorming technique:
It's a strategic planning exercise that you can use to evaluate
a product, project, person, or business. However, it may be
valuable to focus your brainstorm with this mindset. SWOT
stands for:
 Strengths: How does the product, project, or business
dominate and stand out from its competitors?
 Weaknesses: What are the flaws that can hur t or put the
product, project, or business in jeopardy?
 Oppor tunities: What oppor tunities could the business
capitalize on?
 Threats: What are the possible downfalls lurking for the
product, project, or business?
 Generate multiple ideas, concepts or solutions independently
and collaboratively in response to defined problems and
oppor tunities.

 Describe and use a creative process that includes: identifying

a challenge; gathering data; clarifying the problem;
generating ideas; selecting a solution; planning for action.
 Explain what is meant by convergent thinking and divergent
thinking.

 Generate and use evaluation criteria to narrow down the

number of possible solutions to a defined problem.