What is brainstorming?

In simple terms, brainstorming can be defined as generating new and innovative ideas in a group. The term was first coined by Alex Faickney Osborn in his book Your Creative Power(1948)  where he described brainstorming as

‘brainstorm’ means using the brain to storm a creative problem and do so in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective.

The word gained popularity and really took off after Osborn’s other publication called Applied Imagination.

Why Brainstorm?

Brainstorming is actually not so strenuous on the brain as one may think, even though the word implies it. You are not storming your brain down with ideas, nor are you causing any catastrophe in the wake of your storming session. In fact, it is meant to make the origin and development of ideas easier, and more seamless. According to Osborn, every participant storms the group with ideas and from those ideas, other brains derive even more ideas until there is a storm of ideas. It is best done in small to medium groups, as ideas seem to evolve and take shape when there are a controlled number of participants.

But that is not to say that one can’t brainstorm individually.

Brainstorming is meant to drive the creative process and bring out innovative and out-of-the box ideas.

Who Should Brainstorm?

Recently, the act of brainstorming has spread far and wide. It has become a common technique of synergizing ideas during meetings in large corporations, small businesses, school classrooms, start-up businesses, and even family meetings.

Anyone can brainstorm. Brainstorming can be used from creating world-class technology, to finding creative solutions to real-world problems, to planning your next vacation. There are not limitations on when to use brainstorming. You can use creatively generated ideas in any aspect of business and personal life.

The misconception

A lot of people believe that brainstorming is just a free flow of ideas by anyone involved in the session. While this may be true, a shouting match where ideas are only being said and not really heard, is not really considered brainstorming. Sometimes, people even use this word interchangeably with any form of meeting where there was a discussion of ideas. But it is important that we differentiate plain meetings from brainstorming sessions.

One important difference between just a meeting and a proper creative brainstorming session is structure. Without structure and direction, a brainstorming session is unlikely to lead to any successful outcome. Most sessions that people think are brainstorming sessions might not even qualify as one, especially, if the session ended up stunting people’s creativity instead of enhancing and benefiting from it. We must save the creative brain from ill-run sessions!

How to get the best out of a session

If you want your brainstorming session to be of any use, there are one thing that you absolutely need to remember.

It is of the utmost importance that someone is in-charge. You need a facilitator. This may sound like the opposite of a creative session which brainstorming is supposed to be, but without someone in control, only the loudest ones in the group will contribute to the session, while others with brighter, bolder ideas may not even speak up. A facilitator is required who can strategically lure out all creative ideas while setting a mood of non-judgment.

10 best tools to brainstorm successfully

As I mentioned before, not every group session where ideas are discussed is qualified to be a successful brainstorming session. So, what makes a great, creative brainstorming session? What are the techniques that you as a facilitator can employ to get the best out of your sitting? What are the tools that you can use?

If you search online, you will be bombarded with multiple ideas left, right and centre. It is hard to choose which one is best for you with all the options out there. And you don’t even know if most of these techniques work.

Well, you have come to the right place to eliminate all the confusion. We have picked out the best tools for you to creatively brainstorm and get the most out of it. Each of the next ten articles in this series, will identify and discuss one technique or tool that you can use to run your next brainstorming session.

These ideas are tried and tested, and have stood the test of time. Many great innovations, advances and decisions have come out of using these techniques. These techniques bring out the best in creative thinking and problem solving. Imagine just bringing a bunch of people together and asking them, “what are your ideas?” How forthcoming do you think people will be? Not that much. But if you allow people to think differently by asking them the right questions and using the right tools, the creativity you can stir in people’s minds will astound you.

To give you a bit of an idea, here are the 10 ideas or techniques things that we will cover:

• False faces
• Slice and dice
• Cherry split
• Think bubbles
• Scamper
• Tug of War
• Idea Box
• Idea Grid
• Lotus Blossom
• Phoenix

I can see that you might be getting overwhelmed and there might be phrases here that you may never even have heard of. But with each post, you will get clarity and confusion will dissipate. We will discuss each technique in detail. You may even find that you are using some of these techniques or a combination of them without even being aware of it, and that’s great!

Now, of course you know that each individual person responds differently to the different techniques. Some brains just work differently than others, but the good news is that these techniques can be applied to the majority of the types of thinkers out there.

False Faces, also known as problem reversal or assumption reversal, is a very powerful brainstorming technique, that challenges the norms. It challenges the way that we think.

The problem with human beings is that we are fed assumptions and we tend to live with these assumptions that are historical. Things have always been done a certain way, and they are so simple and so familiar that we never think to challenge these assumptions. We assume that these assumptions are true, and that they will always remain true. But assumptions can be tricky and they can definitely send us down the wrong track.

You cannot keep doing the exact same things you have always been doing and expect something different to happen. Let’s examine how our brain tricks us by using a few examples.

The concept of false faces is based on two truths:

1. All human beings have some assumptions
2. All assumptions can be challenged.

Let’s look at a famous experiment conducted with a group of people as an example. A facilitator divided the group into sub-groups and gave them all a challenge. He gave them three things: a candle, a book of matches and a box of thumbtacks to fasten the candle to the wall, on the condition that the candle can be lit and that the wax must not fall down. The participants tried several different ways, tacking the candle to the wall by it’s wick, puncturing holes in the candle’s body, but they struggled and none of them could get it right. Until the facilitator removed all the thumb tacks from their box and put it aside as another tool.

To the participants, he had provided three things, and none of them could look at the box of the thumbtacks as a tool to hold the candle and be fastened to the wall. By saying that he is giving them three tools, the facilitator had already created an assumption in the mind of the participants that there were in fact only three things that they could use. They looked at the box only as the thumbtack holder, but with all thumbtacks removed, they could now look at it as a tool to complete the challenge. They changed assumptions.

We can say that all assumptions are false faces.

Our assumptions limit us, and using this brainstorming technique helps us in identifying these assumptions, questioning them and creating new ideas by breaking paradigms.

So how do we employ this technique effectively?

Well, here are some simple steps that you can follow:

1. Write down your main idea, challenge or problem

Let’s say, for example, that you want to start a new business. Let’s say you want to open up a boutique, because you love fashion and you want to spread this love. You want to stock and sell the best brands.

2. List all your assumptions about a certain idea or problem
   Some common assumptions about a boutique may be:1. A boutique is a physical store
   2. A boutique sells products
   3. A boutique is open throughout the day

3. Reverse each assumption that you made:

The next step is to state the opposite of the assumption you just made. For example,

1. Your boutique is not a physical store
2. Your boutique does not sell products
3. Your boutique is never open

4. Figure out how you can make each one happen.

Turn your reverse assumption into an actual idea. Get creative. Every reverse assumption is doable, if you just think about it.
Your boutique is not a physical store

 Maybe your boutique is an online store, a website or an app. Imagine the amount of costs you will save on rent and workers to man the boutique.
Your boutique does not sells products.

Maybe your boutique sells services instead. Maybe it is a delivery service that buys products from other places and gets it straight to the customer. Maybe you love to sell clothes, but buying them, stocking them and paying for warehouse storage may not work for you. Since part of the reason you wanted to open up a boutique is because you love fashion, you can still fuel that passion by shopping for others.
Your boutique is never open

An online shop has no working hours. It is never open yet always being open at the same time.

5. Select one assumption and make it into a realistic idea

You don’t have to work with all your reverse assumptions, but at least one of them can create a spark. For example, your boutique can be a delivery service only. Or it could just be an online boutique. Or it could be a combination of any of your assumptions.

This was a very simple example, but the same technique and steps can be applied to literally any problem, or challenge. It can be used to create a cavalcade of brilliant ideas. You can state as many or as less assumptions as you want. There are not limits.

Imagine doing this technique in a group of great minded people. Not only does this technique broaden the mind, but it opens up a pathway to ideas and concepts that you wouldn’t have imagined in any other way.

Some of the great minds have been challenging assumptions. In a time when more and more mobile phone companies were adding full keyboards to mobile phones, one man challenged the assumption of a physical keyboard, and created a phone with a single button. That is how Steve Jobs gave us the first iPhone.

So, my friends, that was the first technique that you should definitely use in your next brainstorming session.

Next time when you are stuck on a problem or just can’t get that idea to evolve, just remember, any assumption can be reversed. Nothing you know is absolute, and everything you know can be challenged. So challenge those false faces away!

As the name implies, this technique requires us to compartmentalize or divide the problem or challenge into smaller more manageable chunks.

The slice and dice technique builds up on something called the Opel-Kundt illusion.

Let us look at the rectangles below. Which one is wider? Now, the person in you who has come across tricky questions like these will say that they are all the same size. But if I were to ask you, which one appears wider, you would probably say the one on your right. The more subdivisions we add to the shape the wider they look to us.

By not changing the actual width of the shape, we still are presented with the illusion of an increase in shape. This concludes that our perspective or the way we look at something and perceive it can be changed by how may divisions that object has.

Let’s take a literal slice and dice example to illustrate this technique. Imagine you are making green beans for dinner, and need to cut approximately 30 beans in half. What are you most likely to do? Take all the beans in a bunch, and try to cut them all together or take 2 or 3 at a time and cut them in batches? Obviously you will take them in batches. Taking all the beans together and trying to cut them would be difficult not to mention dangerous. By taking a few beans at a time, you can cut them with very little effort and it takes no time at all to go through the whole batch.

When you aim to slice and dice a problem that you are facing or a new challenge that has presented itself, the same trick applies. Break down the challenge into smaller chunks and take them on one at a time.

By slicing and dicing ideas during brainstorming, you can come up with better products, better services or solve problems that you may think are too big to solve.

There are a few reasons that this method works amazingly well.

• It decreases the stress on our brain.

When we look at a big problem or situation, or a big project, it looks intimidating. It looks scary. Being scared causes stress and stress inhibits any creative thinking. So, by breaking the problem down into manageable pieces, we remove the intimidating factor from it.

• It provides new perspective.

By looking at parts of an idea, problem or challenge, you may be able to devise new and creative ideas by evolving certain parts of it.

• It may require less work than you thought

When a car breaks down, you do not need to replace your car with a new one. You just need to find the source of the problem and solve that part only. Maybe it’s just the battery that is dead, or the fuel that needs refilling, or one part that needs to be replaced. Looking at each component in isolation may lead to solving a problem by applying effort only in that area. You may find that your problem might not be so huge after all.

Of course, there is a method to conduct this technique effectively. You can’t just go about hacking down your problem without any direction.

Let’s look at the steps in detail with another simple example:

1.   Identify your challenge/problem/idea

For example, let’s take a hammer. Let’s say we want to make a better quality hammer. If you look at the hammer as a whole, it might be tricky to figure out how to improve it. We wouldn’t know where to start, or we might change everything about it to make it better. But what if we were to divide the hammer.

2.   Look at the challenge and assign as many attributes to it as you can.

The best way to slice and dice something is to first look at its different attributes.
Attributes can be physical, for example, how a thing looks. For example, a chair has four legs. It has a seat. It has a back. It is made of hard material.
Attributes can be related to abilities. For example, a fish swims in water. It eats. It runs away from predators. It mates. It uses gills to breathe.
Attributes can also be process related, like manufacturing, marketing, advertising.
They can be also be social, political, or environmental attributes.
The hammer has a few physical attributes.

• It has a wooden handle that is long with ridges to grip it properly
• It has a metallic end, one side of which is blunt and round shaped. That is the end we hammer with.
• On the other side of this end, is a fork shaped tool to pull on any nails.

3.   Now, pick each attribute, and devise ways to improve that attribute.

We are going to do this with each attribute no matter how unrealistic it may be. Do not limit your thinking. Think of how you can make each attribute better. What can you do differently?

Now, if we wanted to make the hammer better, we could either use better wood for the handle or change the ridge design to get a better grip. Alternately, we could use better metal at it’s hammering end etc. Basically, we can pick just one attribute and make it better thus making the whole hammer of a more superior quality.

4.   Do not limit your thinking. Think as unrealistically as possible.

Can you add another attribute to the hammer? Is there something you can add to the hammer to make it even better? A hammer uses nails, so maybe you could add a magnetic disk at the bottom of the hammer handle to hold nails easily while you hammer away.

5.   Pick as many improvements on attributes that you can do and run with it.

Going with the hammer example, let’s say we improve the hammer handle using better wood, better grips and a magnetic nail holder. All of a sudden you have a smarter hammer than what is usually available on the market. You only changed one attribute of the hammer and added another attribute. By dividing the hammer, you could work on different parts and make subtle improvements. But the end result is a hammer with an improvement on quality and usability that is not so subtle.

Overall, the slice and dice technique allows individuals in a group or on their own to look at big problems or challenges in a different light. You can even divide the slices or attributes to different individuals to exclusively improve on their area alone. Parts of a whole come together to make a great idea greater and a big problem smaller.

The Cherry Split technique is based on the principle that all problems carry their solutions within themselves. This technique forces us to look inward, within the problem instead of outward. It is named so, because of the first illustration that was used to describe it and document this technique.

In the diagram A below, we see two circles within a square. On splitting the two circles (our cherry), we see a square form within a circle in diagram B. The thing is that the square actually doesn’t exist. It is not drawn. It is only implied by the splitting of the two circles and pulling them apart.

So how does cherry split work?

This tool divides and then sub-divides your problems into smaller parts that you can then jumble around to reveal the solution to your problem.
Similar to the slice and dice technique we use attributes in this technique as well. Once you have enough attributes you can mix and match them and see the magic happen right in front of your eyes.

Why does it work so well?

This technique works because it is extremely creative without putting much creative thought into it. So, if creativity is not your strong suit, then here is the perfect tool to get you started.

Steps to use this tool

The cherry split technique can be effectively employed by following a few easy steps. Let’s look at these steps with an example:

Step 1: State your problem

The first step to this technique is to state your problem or challenge. Now, the first rule is that it should use as little words as possible. We want to keep it as focused as possible. The second rule is that it should be focused on the result that you want, instead of blindly stating the problem. The third rule is that it should be phrased as a question.

Let’s say, for example, that our problem is that our employees, specifically the front-liners or workers, are consistently showing up to work late. You may have given warning letters, reprimanded them, but not seen any progress. So, our problem here is: “Employees are showing up to work late.” Our desired result is to have employees come to work on time.

So, our challenge statement could be, “How do we make sure employees come to work on time?”

Step 2: Choose your two halves of the cherry

The reason we keep our challenge question simple is that we want to pick only two key words from this statement to work with our cherry technique. In essence, we are using these two words as equal parts of a cherry that we have split.

In our example, our phrase could be “Employees, Time”.

You may feel like you could choose different key words. For example, we could also choose “work-employees” or “work-time”. For the sake of this example, let’s pick “Employees and Time”.

Step 3: Assign attributes

Now that we have our two halves of the cherry, we are going to assign attributes to it. Attributes could be anything. Do not be afraid to associate your words with whatever comes to your mind. For example, we chose the words “Employee” and “Time”.

We will now divide these words into two attributes like below:

You can choose any kind of attribute. It could be a description or meaning of the word. It could be reason, it could be a position, its appearance or just an idea.

Step 4: Assign Attributes to your attributes

We follow the exact same step as we did before, and this time we add attributes to our earlier words. So in this case we breakdown the words, management, worker, early and time into further attributes like below.

You can further divide your sub-attributes until you are satisfied with it. For this example, we have enough to work with.

Step 5: Look to your attributes for ideas

The best part of this exercise is that just by defining and refining the problem, we can see what issues may be causing this situation. From our example, it may seem that workers are not being managed properly which may mean that your management needs more training. We can shift responsibility and that might make the problem go away. Another factor could be that managers have their own cars and workers use public transport which might be making them late. So, maybe we could introduce a shuttle service or company transport. It may add to our cost, but may make up for it by having everyone start work on time. There are many options to be explored.

Step 6: Shift your attributes around to look for more creative solutions

If the answer is still unclear we can shift all our attributes around and mix and match them until something clever comes up.

In our example, we can match our workers with our starting time, and change our workers starting time by delaying it by a half hour. Maybe this way workers can bypass the heavy traffic times and show up to work on time.

Things to remember

Cherry split is one of those techniques that will yield very different results every time you use it. Even if were to do this exercise again with the same two words, we can assign different attributes to those words, and go in a completely different direction.

It will also differ greatly from person to person. No two people will ever have the same results. But that is the whole point to this technique, that it can open so many doors and examine the same problem from so many different aspects. And more often than not, you will find a solution to your problem just by defining the problem in great detail, as this technique allows you to.

We can even say that this tool is really the cherry on top of the cake, when it comes to problem-solving brainstorming techniques.

Think bubbles, or mind maps, as they are more commonly known is our fourth brainstorming technique. This is probably the most common technique of brainstorming used most widely when compared to our other thinking tools. This is also one of the most easiest techniques to use as it is visual and appeals to many, and also because it is very much in synchronization with the way that we think.

Let’s test our brain in action. What do you see in the figure below?

You may at first have thought that it is three triangles, or three groups of four triangles each. Rarely would anyone say that it is a group of 12 triangles, even though that is also true. Our brain would instead, be more comfortable to compartmentalize four triangles into three groups, because that’s how the brain works.

Now if we were to map out our thoughts or ideas in the same way, in different compartments, we would see them in a whole new light. The basic process of thought bubbles is that you start with an initial thought and then branch out from it into different thought bubbles. Similar thought bubbles go together, and you make connections between them. You can use thought bubbles from planning out the simplest of events to the most complex of problems.

Why does it work?

This is a very visual way of mapping out ideas and thoughts and often provide utmost clarity. By compartmentalizing your thoughts, you can deal with them in a manner that is easy on the brain without overloading it.

How do we do it?

Unlike other techniques, this one doesn’t follow a series of steps. It is quite simple to start and execute. What we do recommend is that you do this on a whiteboard if you are in a group. You can also do it on a piece of paper, but it can get limiting due to the amount of space you may require.

Start with a main circle in the centre of your board or paper. This is your main problem or idea or challenge. From this circle, we will branch out into different sectors. If you are facing a problem you could start with the classic questions: who, what, when, where, why, how. Or you can simple take your own direction. Categorize your idea into different branches, then have branches come out of those branches. The whole idea is to branch out your thoughts in the way they are coming to you naturally.

As usual, we will take an example to illustrate this technique.

Let’s take a very simple non-business example this time that everyone can relate to.
Let’s plan a trip to Europe using thought bubbles. Planning trips can get really hectic, and most people resort to some form of checklist. Checklists are great, until you find out there were some items you forgot to add to the checklist. But if we start with a mind map, we can actually create even better vacation checklists and are likely to not miss much.
Since this is just an example, we will go through a full mind-mapping process but will not go into full details.

Let’s start with our thought bubble in the centre and call it “Eurotrip”.

Let’s use the basic questions to further help our thinking process: The W questions. The W questions help to enhance the thinking process, while covering all aspects of your event, idea or problem.

Next choose a thought cloud and expand on it. Each item becomes its own cloud which you can keep expanding on, until you reach a layer where you don’t need any more clarification.

Basically, you keep expanding each thought bubble into more thought bubbles. You can even connect thought bubbles that have a direct relationship with each other.

Let’s see a further version of this:

This is still not a complete mind map for a trip, but it’s a great start, and things are finally coming together in an easy to understand format. As you can see, it can really become complex, while remaining clear at the same time, which is why we initially suggested that you start with a bigger space.

Why are think bubbles so great?

Besides being super easy to understand and work with, and being visual for those who need visual clarity, the best part about mindmaps is that you can erase any thought bubble if it doesn’t fit anymore. Because everything is in its own space independently, you can make changes very easily without affecting the rest of the thought process. Of course, group of bubbles will go away when a main bubble with branches goes away, but those branches may not be relevant anyway, if the main bubble does not exist anymore.

This technique does wonderfully in group meetings and brainstorming sessions, particularly for planning on new activities, assigning tasks to team members or just laying out a new event plan. It is also extremely simple to execute and light on text, while being extremely clear at the same time. Thought bubbles are also very easy to grasp and understand even if you were not a part of the team, and it makes it very easy to explain a concept to someone else. Hence think bubbles or mind maps can also be used in presentations when unveiling a new idea of a product of service. It shows the flow of processes, it shows assignment of responsibilities, time lines, and anything else that you want it to show.

So, the next time you find yourself chairing a brainstorming session, start with a bubble.

We are going to learn the art of manipulation today, which is so powerful that you can literally take any great idea that already exists, and is a proven success, and make it your very own by modifying it.

Today’s brainstorming technique number 5 is called SCAMPER which is not so much about creating new ideas but about morphing new ideas from old ones. Scamper is all about searching for alternatives. Let’s test this with an example; what do you see in the below picture?

If you said horse, you are absolutely right. But what if I told you to find the frog in the picture. It might take you a while to look around for the frog. Now just tilt your head sideways, and there it is! A frog in all its glory.

You did not have to look for a separate drawn shape of the frog, instead you just tilted the head or the picture and a completely new thing has come to light, in the very same picture.

The scamper technique allows us to think of alternatives. One idea can have multiple alternatives. What if I were to ask you to give me half of the number 15? You would say 7.5, and that is correct. But that is not the only alternative. The other alternative could be halving the number itself into 1 and 5, or halving the roman version of the number XV into X and V or 10 and 5 and so on. We can come up with even more alternatives.

How do we do it?

So the word scamper is actually an acronym of the techniques it uses to examine and manipulate ideas as below:

S- Substitute something

C- Combine it with something else

A- Adapt it to something else

M- Modify or Magnify it

P- Put it to some other use

E- Eliminate something

R- Reverse or Rearrange it

As usual, we will apply this technique to an example to fully understand it.

Let’s Scamper!

For our example, let’s take a whiteboard market and see if we can make it better and open a new market for it.

Now, before we start, let’s keep in mind that this is just an exercise to think freely. If we implement everything to our marker that we discuss below, we may end up with a useless and impractical product. The aim here is to ask these questions and then see what are the best results to work on. You may also find that some questions may be more difficult to answer than others, and that is alright as well.

#1- What can be substituted in the marker?

Well, one of the things that we keep losing is the plastic cap and our marker tips dry up. So can we substitute this plastic cap. What if were to have a clicking type marker and replace the cap with a click mechanism on the marker. This way we will never lose the marker cap.

#2- Can we combine the marker with something else?

Something that goes hand in hand with a whiteboard marker is a whiteboard eraser. But having an eraser the size of the marker may mean a lot more work in erasing a big whiteboard with content on it. But most whiteboards are magnetic and some come without place holders to hold markers. What if we were to combine the marker with a magnet? That way after usage we could stick the marker right there on the whiteboard without the fear of ever losing it.

#3- Can we adapt some other idea for our marker?

A lot of times during presentations, people use white boards as their backgrounds, and use laser pointers to go through presentations. Can we adapt laser technology into our marker? Our marker can be a regular marker during some sessions and a laser pointer during others.

#4- What can we modify or magnify?

We talked about the marker having an erase at its back. Perhaps we can make the eraser bigger and bendable so that it can be used to rub the whiteboard and be folded away when not in use.

#5- Can we put it to some other use?

Going back to the magnet aspect of our marker, we can use markers to pin up charts, images, or other papers on our white board. Of course, this would be useless if we are using the marker to write as well, but maybe the magnetic part could be detachable, or it could be a holder of sorts, to hold paper in place as well as house the marker when not in use.

#6- Can we eliminate something in it?

A lot of whiteboard markets have chemicals like xylene or toluene in it. These chemicals can be bad for health. We could eliminate these chemicals and create safe and non-toxic markers that are erasable on any surface. This way we could sell to children as safe markers as well.

#7- Can we reverse or rearrange it?

Of course we can. Let’s put a nib at the top, an eraser along the body and a magnet at the bottom of the marker which is detachable. Now we don’t need any other tools for our marker.

As you can see from the above, that we really had no difficulty coming up with ideas when asked the scamper questions. Of course, not all answers and ideas are doable or practical, but if we were to choose just one or two or a combination that compliments each other, then we can actually create a better whiteboard marker.

Even though we used a product in the above example, the scamper questions can also be applied to services. In this case, you can isolate a certain part of the service and apply scamper on that part. For example, if you are a customer care call centre, you can isolate the process of transferring calls only and see how you can make it better by asking the scamper questions.

Before we wrap up, I want to share a recent example of a scamper question used on a product. And this is a question that these developers always seem to ask. The new iPhone7 is famously missing a headphone jack. Apple has long been known to take things away from their phone to make it better quality and they have done it over and over with great results. The new feature or the elimination of the feature in this case, makes room for better speakers and adds to its waterproofing abilities.

So, if the leaders in innovation use this technique, so should you.

This brings us to our sixth brainstorming technique, dubbed the “tug of war”. Now we have all played this game when were children, where two people or teams on opposite sides pull on a rope and the objective is to pull the rope completely on your side by using force. The tug of war happens when the forces on both sides are more or less equal. This causes a back and forth reaction. In order for one side to win over the other, we will need to add more strength to it, or conversely we can make the opposing side weaker by removing an individual.

The tug of war technique is based on the principle that

1. All situations have opposing factors, positive and negative, attached to them.
2. Positive factors can be maximized
3. Negative factors can be minimized
4. More positive factors can be added to further “win” at any situation

Why does it work?

The tug of war techniques helps us honestly examine our ideas. By listing down negative forces along with the positives, we are forced to see our shortcomings and can work on those. It allows us to take a long hard look in the mirror and make changes to our strategy based on what we find. Even though we are looking at negatives, we must remember that the end result will be positive. Negative and positive forces are inevitable and in some cases necessary.

Take the battery for example, without positive and negative poles, it would not be able to generate power. We need both the plus and the minus for current to flow.

So, don’t let the negatives drag you down.

This method is ideal when you are faced with a challenge or problem as it really helps you build on your strengths and identify your weaknesses.

How do we do it?

As with other techniques, there is a very effective way to execute the tug of war successfully. There are a few simple steps to follow as below.

Step 1: State your problem or challenge.

The first step is to describe the problem you are trying to solve.

Let’s say you are looking for a job in the private sector and are having a hard time. Your current scenario is that you have some savings which you are using to survive and maintain your lifestyle and you are looking for a position as a manager based on your experience and skills.

Step 2: Describe your most desired state and your least desired state.

The state you are currently at is probably the middle, which is not the best. Ideally, we want to move to the most desired state. So, in our example, we can say that the best-case scenario would be: “Find a job that you love and that pays great!”. The worst-case scenario would be: “Remain unemployed and run out of money”.

Step 3: List down the conditions or factors for each situation.

The factors are any conditions that help or hinder your situation. List the most important factors that are pertinent to finding a job and then plot them on a grid on the positive or negative side.

In this case, we can come up with the following factors:

• Experience
• Education
• Skills
• Network
• References
• Job market
• Economy
• Cost of living
• Liabilities

Step 4: Plot your situation based on these factors

Analyze your positives and negatives and determine where you can maximize your positives or add to them, and minimize your negatives. When you plot the factors on the sides, you will begin to see what is in your favour and what isn’t. Where do your strengths lie? What can you improve on? What can you add? What can you do less of?

Now that you have this information it is clear to see what areas you need to work on. As we mentioned before, your situation in the tug of war can be improve in three main ways: By maximizing your positives, by minimizing your negatives, or by adding new positives.

How can we maximize our positives?

Well, our positives in the example include high level of skills and experience. Can we improve on this by taking some specialized courses. We can look for subsidized courses or even free ones, but add to our knowledge in the meantime. Not only would this make your CV look better, but it would also make you feels better and you would be using all the free time that you seem to have now for something productive. We can maximize our other strengths as well.

How can we minimize our negatives?

One of the negatives is the high rental cost. Perhaps this can be lowered. This doesn’t mean you need to move, because moving has its own costs, but you could get a roommate, for example. You can even list your extra space online as an abode for travellers or couch surfers. Not only will you make some extra money and reduce your costs but you might get to meet some very interesting people, and possibly get some great ideas and increase your network too, which is also a weakness.

Another great way to overcome negatives is to convert them to challenges. In this case, we can ask, how do we increase our network? How do we further lower our costs?

What can we add to the positives?

We can use our positive forces together to create additional positive forces to help in our tug of war. In our case, we can use our positive references to leverage our resumes even more. Perhaps we can add employer testimonials to our profiles and portfolios.

So, you can see that the tug of war method, reveals your enemies so you can defeat them and also identifies your allies so that you can captialize on them. So, the next time you are faced with a problem, fancy playing a game of tug of war.

The principle behind this technique is that there are no new great ideas, only a combination of existing parts of ideas. This means that any product or service can be created by looking at the characteristics of existing products and services, and mixing and matching them in different combinations.

Let’s jump right into it.

How is it done?

This technique uses connections between different parameters to reveal a truly unique idea for a service or product. By listing down all parameters in your existing product or service, you can create a new product or service using different combinations.

Step #1: Define desired result or Challenge

As in all other techniques, the first thing we need to define our challenge or what our desired result is.

Let’s say that you run a gym and you want to implement a new service or product. You can take your existing data, and information that you already know and plot it out to show you new paths.

Step #2: Define parameters

Parameters are characteristics or categories that you can have options in. For example, for our weight-loss centre we divide our parameters to customer characteristic, fitness equipment, nutrition, products and centre characteristics.

You can choose any parameter that you find best. Once you have decided on your parameters list them in columns.

  Step #3: List down the varieties of your parameters or characteristics

Now we will expand on each parameter. You can list as many varieties of each as possible. The more varieties you list, the more options and variations of combinations you can have later. You do not have to limit yourself to variations that you already use, you can add any variations that you imagine as long as they remotely fit within the parameter.

You are at liberty to make this list as exhaustive as you want, but you would be surprised at how many combinations you can come up with, even with just four or five variations of each parameter.

Step #4: Make new combinations

Now that you have variations listed on all your parameters, try to combine one or more variations. You can run through your idea box multiple times. You can choose more than one variation in each parameter, or as many as you like.

For example, maybe we can have a gym specifically for mothers who attend dance classes while we have a grocery shopping service for them based on their lists, and a day care to care for their children. Mothers would pay high prices for such a service, where their babies, bodies and grocery runs are taken care of. It would be a great service for otherwise busy and stressed new mothers.

Or we could go in a completely different direction and have a gym for working people, which offers fast workouts during their lunch breaks followed by scrumptious salads, and shower facilities and we charge them for the towels that they use.

We could go into further different directions. Let’s say we develop an app for disable people showing them how to work out at home with basic tools available to them. We can also create an area in the centre just for these workouts. This would a niche and noble service to provide.

With this very small list that we created, we can actually create a lot of different combinations. I’m sure you can think of a few ideas yourself. And we add a different parameter or even take one out, the results would again be very different.

Benefits of Idea box

So why is the idea box so great? Well, first of all, it can show you new ideas within your products or services that are already there. This would mean that implementing a new product or service would not be costly or labor intensive. The idea box simple allows you to disassemble your current undertaking and add new elements to it by combining each facet to create new service lines or products. It is truly magical to see it happen.

Too often we look for ideas outside when the answer can simply be lying within our very business or life. We are grabbing and panning these ideas from literally activities that are happening under our noses every day.

So, I do urge you to try this technique, even if you are not looking to introduce a new product or service. Just try it in your next group meeting or by yourself after work to see what wonderful concoctions lie in your very business. I must warn you though, that trying this technique would make you think and ask a question to yourself: “Why didn’t I think of this before?”

The eighth creative technique that we are going to look at is called the Idea grid. The idea grid is also known as the FCB grid or the Vaughn grid and was designed by Richard Vaughn, Senior vice president of Foote, Cone and Belding.

The grid helps decide why customers act the way they do and why they buy the products or services that they buy. The idea grid is a great tool for businesses entering into a new market, or for business to reposition their existing product. Sometimes, just by marketing a product or service differently can become the difference between success or failure.

The idea grid takes into account feelings, whether it is boredom, prestige, guilt, excitement or despair. Besides the basic necessities, all other purchases are based on feelings of customers.

Using the grid can allow you to know who you are selling to and why they are buying as well as explaining your product to a client. It is a great way to get a view from top.

Below is what the grid looks like:

The grid has four quadrants: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The quadrants represents different behaviours and associations. On the left, we see the words High Involvement and Low Involvement, and on the top we see Think and Feel.

Here is what each means:

High Involvement: This involves products that are expensive or cost high like cars, boats, houses etc.

Low Involvement: This includes products that are low cost such as paper clips, or clothes or cutlery.

Think:  Any product that requires the consumer to analyse, research and compare before deciding. For example, buying a mobile phone or camera.

Feel: Any product that is influenced by how a consumer feels about it. For example perfume. Buying a perfume is based on if the buyer personally prefers the scent. It is not based on specifications or other features.

So, when we look at each quadrant in isolation, we can map our services against the competition. The first step is to decide who our competition is or what we want to be different from. This can be done by educated guesses or preferably some soft research.

This is what to make of the quadrants:

Quadrant 1: High Involvement thinking purchase

Here the consumer needs information before buying. Feeling is also involved but the final decision will be based on logic rather than emotion. This includes purchases like health insurance life insurance etc.

Quadrant 2: High Involvement Feeling purchase

Here the consumer wants to buy to feed an emotion. This purchase still requires thinking as it is a high cost purchase, but it has to appeal more to the consumer’s pride, ego, style and other related factors. Buying a second car is not based on getting from point A to point B but about making a statement. This type of purchase would fall in this category.

Quadrant 3: Low Involvement thinking purchase

Here, the consumer is paying a low price, and not really thinking of his purchase. In fact he only gets to test his purchase after he has bought it. People do not mind buying the new detergent if it comes with a great offer, even if they have never heard of the detergent before or have proof of its cleaning abilities. But because it requires so little money, it requires little thinking. Household essential items fall into this category.

Quadrant 4: Low involvement feeling purchase

These are really low cost purchase that you don’t even need. They just make you feel good. For example, cookies are not required by us and we don’t really compare cookies for the best specifications. We just love their taste and yum factor. Ice cream and generally any comfort foods can fall in this quadrant. It is not limited to food of course. Any item of low cost, that you do not need to think about and buy just because it makes you feel a certain way.

An example

This time for the grid, we will take a real-world example of apple and how they set themselves apart than the rest, or at least how they began to do this.

Apple has always been revolutionary. When the first computers came out, they were massive, and were only used by experts. Computers were not devices for the masses. In fact the term “PC” or personal computers didn’t even exist until it was coined by apple.

Where the competitors of apple were selling to customers in Quadrant 1, where only the highest level of intellectual and company giants were investing and a high level of intelligence was required to operate these machines, Apple decided to be different. Apple wanted to be as far away from its competition as possible. They wanted to make computers affordable to all, and wanted to make them user friendly, so that anyone could operate one.

Even though Apple chose a low-involvement feel quadrant, it doesn’t necessarily made those products cheap. They were only in this quadrant compared to their main competitors in the computer business.

Apple found a hole in the market by differentiating itself and putting their products in a completely different quadrant.

Nowadays, we can say that apple has graduated to quadrant 2. It is still appealing to people’s hearts instead of minds, but is now considered a more expensive purchase than a Samsung, HTC or Huawei. Many products out there boast higher specifications and capabilities than iPhones, but Apple buyers are still loyal to the brand, because the user friendliness is still very much a reality. Apple has managed to stay in the feel quadrant for long.

The idea grid is a fantastic tool if you want to look for holes in the market. If there is a business you are getting into, you can study where the competitors are, and then put yourself in the quadrant farthest from them to create a similar product for a different market.

So the next time you are studying a market gap and looking for a niche, try the idea grid.

Too often we get bogged down in our problem to such an extent that we cannot see beyond it. When we are looking at ideas or problems while still being trapped in our paradigms, whether they are departmental, technological or just plain logical, we inhibit our potential to think and grow creatively.The enemy of creativity is tunnel vision. Our 9^th technique to effectively and creatively think and brainstorm is called the Lotus Blossom.

The Lotus Blossom is a complex yet easy-to-execute technique that enhances our level of thinking by giving multiple layers to our idea or problem. Like the flower of a lotus, it has many different petals and layers and each layer reveals more layers underneath it. This technique was created by Yasou Matsumara, and uses a grid box that visually expands your level of thinking.

The lotus blossom technique uses a lotus blossom diagram to plot ideas/ problems and their themes. The problem gets plotted in the middle. Then you plot out the themes for the problem. Once that is done, each theme becomes the centre of its own lotus blossom with additional themes around it. The lotus blossom grid can be made even bigger and more complex, but generally a simple diagram like below is enough to get the job done.

How do we do it?

Step #1: State your problem/idea

As with all techniques the first thing we do is define our problem/ idea. We start with putting our idea in the middle of the lotus blossom. For example, let us say that we run a career development program and we want to expand it with better services for our clients. So we decide our problem and we plot it in the middle.

Step #2: Plot the themes to your problem or idea

The theme can be anything that effects your problem or idea directly. The best way to recognize what themes are more important and worth putting on the grid is to ask yourself the following questions every time you come up with a theme.

• Does this theme really affect my idea/problem?
• If I were to remove this theme, would it make any difference?
• If my idea/problem were a book, would this theme be important enough to have its own chapter?

Once you have your themes, plot them around your problem or idea. You do not need to fill out all 8 boxes on the grid, but the more you add, the better chance you have of generating new ideas or solutions.

Here we chose:

In the above grid, we chose the following themes for our Career development services. Let’s look at them and see why we chose these over others.

Network, because without having a strong network, we cannot connect our clients to the right employers.

Staff, because without the right team, we cannot help anyone achieve their dream job.

Access, because without a way to connect to employers our services are redundant.

Training, because without skills, the chances of getting good jobs is low.

Visibility, because if clients don’t know about us, they cannot come to us for help.

Success rate, because without knowing our results, we do not know if what we are doing is working.

Step #3: Define themes for each of your themes

Now that we have our themes, each theme becomes the center of its own lotus blossom, and we define the themes of each.

In our above themes, we expand on each to see what we can do, are doing or wish to do to successfully execute the above.

We expand on each theme, and try to get ideas on what we can do to improve each theme.

For example, we could grow our network and connections by creating more events where we bring clients and potential employers together through round-table events, speaker events, or even speed interviewing, similar to speed dating events. We can also do a culture match between employers and potential employees by providing a place where employers can showcase their culture and benefits. Only employees who fit within that culture can follow these and when there is a vacancy, employees with similar values will have first chance to reply.

Similarly, for our own visibility, we can take to social media, since most of our clients might be from the youth spectrum. By knowing where young people get their information and spend most of their time, we can target them to use our services.

Under the Training  theme, we added things like CV writing courses. If we teach our clients how to create good CV’s their chances of getting interviews is higher. We can also be a hub to do just courses of work preparedness which can be started even in high schools or universities.

As you can see, by using the lotus blossom technique we can branch out our main areas of focus further and create even better ideas. The best thing to do would be to choose themes that are already your strengths. By working on ideas that you are already good at, you can make a bigger impact, without even touching the themes that are not your core strength.

So, if you are ever stuck and know that you should be doing something more, try the lotus blossom technique to open and peel away the layers of potential.