An idea generation process in creative design

I don't claim that I come up with a multitude of equally valid and novel ideas every time, but aiming to do so I employ a vaguely specific and prescriptive technique. The methodology is aimed at non-routine and innovative classes of design where the expected outcomes are weakly defined and instead intend to anticipate the curiosity of users, and in turn motivate them to set out new goals.

1. Given a brief or a prospective invention, I sketch freehand as many roughs as possible resisting any tendencies to refine elements within. At this stage "I think of: WHAT?" and intentionally focus on capturing my responses to the given problem through motor actions alone, consciously suppressing cognitive expressions of common sense.

This approach allows a multitude of STRUCTURES to emerge without forming attachment to any individual instances of thought. When similarities or repetitions become evident I generally treat them as refinements and terminate the task allowing myself to divert my attention away from what I'm trying to solve. This process is similar to what an architect does at an early stage - e.g. sketching lines not knowing if the line will represent a form boundary or an ornamental part.

2. Upon return, ideally the next day or after a lunch break etc. I reflect on the sketches "thinking: SO WHAT?". Generally three or more candidates stand out for further refinement or cross fertilisation with elements of the discarded lot. If my intuition supports a strong conviction about the captured forms e.g. diagrams or layouts, I'll present them for a preliminary "everything is open to change" critique by any stakeholders at hand. The rougher and more ambiguous the better - when faced with loose and obviously unrefined forms people are least intimidated to change or contribute their own alternatives.

3. “Thinking or asking myself: WHAT NEXT?” I refine the early structures in terms of BEHAVIOURS and FUNCTIONS the user may evoke when confronted by the product I'm trying to design. In the ideal situation, the functions and behaviours suggested by each sketch elicit the intended attributes of the conceptual product or the brief represented in my designs.

Once again I face other project stakeholders, regardless of completeness, but this time I'm also focusing on the metrics which would be appropriate in the event that the design(s) were to undergo heuristic evaluation or a preliminary user panel test. For example, drawing on B.J. Fogg's model of simplicity, I may attempt to identify the scarce resources which are most likely to be relevant in context of the prospective/targeted users. Simplicity is a function of the scarcest resource for a given person in a particular situation. They include: time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance and non-routine.

A decision on the flow of iterative cycle

At this stage, if all goes well, we may have a compelling ”birds eye view” of one or several competing designs of the product (salient features of the whole system, but lacking any depth) ready for low fidelity prototype tests (rough and still quite ambiguous for the same reasons as before) or otherwise informed by the failure I return to step 1.

Providing that a sufficient consensus to move on was reached and testing or heuristic critique confirmed this decision, an interpretative or metric analysis of outcomes will elect the wining design if a number have survived this far. Next, I opportunistically (whatever seems the easiest to solve) pick individual components/elements to develop through the same workflow pattern of WHAT?, SO WHAT and WHAT NEXT? With a bit of luck, completing the easy parts may give me insights towards solving those which eluded me at the outset.

brainstorming primed for invention

A follow-up post to “creativity and invention in brainstorming scenarios”.

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conception scenario

In essence, I create in a three step process. First, I contemplate and research the context of the problem and consider possible ideas, this step rarely results in an actual design. Then, as I gain some distance from the initial task – generally preoccupied by something else, the answer dawns on me and I record it in a freehand sketch. Similar experiences are reported by the majority of people with extensive experience in design, invention and creating all manner of things. Beginners tend to understate the connection and the structure of these three phases and are likely to say that the idea just came to them out of the blue.

The pattern of these three stages: seeding, subconscious reflecting and the synthesis or discovery is worth focusing on in an attempt to identify a methodology for creative problem-solving. The task of defining an effective technique, especially in context of brainstorming scenarios, will readily benefit by harnessing that pattern and in particular the introduction of a priming/seeding stage. Ronald Finke (Finke et al 1992) describes this as “generation of preinventive structures”, a key stage of the Geneplore model - a methodology for collaborative creative design process.

Finke's (Generate/Explore) model prescribes a deliberate temporary suspension of professional expertise in order to maximise the emergence of unique solutions. Habitual application of expertise carries the implication of routine outcomes limited by mental blocks imposed by existing heuristics. Novel and original solutions, and invention in particular, require a fresh and open minded approach to the problem at hand and the consideration of the likely possibilities.

In my opinion, this is an ideal opportunity to exploit the synergy offered by brainstorming sessions instead of expectancy and reliance on the conscious avoidance of conventional thinking by people with deep and specialised field expertise. The procedure would consist of a priming brief presented by experts e.g. scope and usability objectives of the proposed project, followed by a period of reflection, which may involve other activities and finally a core session for the exploration of multiple contributions in a traditional brainstorming meeting.

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left vs right brain

A core criteria in adopting a suitable methodology is actually a very personal thing. The critical guiding principle is the compatibility with individual tendencies in cognitive disposition. At large, people can be classified as left or right hemisphere dominant in their processing of mental tasks. A balance of both is a desirable trait in everyday life, but problem solving situations benefit from a fusion of the two extremes. Collaboration between people representing the opposite sides of the spectrum, generally approaches optimal results by combining the strengths of their respective predispositions.

A number of cognitive dimensions can be identified as characteristic of the left and right brain dominance. These include: decomposition vs holistic (reductionist vs systems view), sequential vs random, symbolic vs concrete (diagrams vs prototypes), logical vs intuitive, verbal vs visual and reality vs fantasy. On one hand, left hemisphere dominant people are more productive at decomposing problems into components and meticulously constructing the desired outcome. Yet on the other, the right hemisphere dominant people work in a less structured manner, tending to veer off on tangents and discover unexpected results. Creative problem-solving situations call for a combination of both groups in order to deliver innovative and disruptive outcomes.

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our objectives

The dimension of innovation can be distilled as a continuum from routine craft to creative invention. The routine path is grounded in specialised insight and leads to predictable results with great certainty, but little or nil innovation. As the process tends towards the creative path with an increasing potential for discovery of novel and disruptive product, the confidence in reaching valid outcomes inevitably diminishes. For every innovation in the marketplace there are thousands of failed concepts we may never hear about, even if some of these possess ample characteristics of killer applications. Similarly, countless mundane “me too” products will never reach the proverbial 15 seconds of fame for anyone to take notice, regardless of the stated objectives; like aiming to change the landscape of the industry or other claims expressed at launch time.

The salient question is: how to increase the likelihood of desirable results on the unpredictable path of invention?

The big-picture answer of course isn't simply a design process issue, many other factors contribute to success and countless examples readily illustrate this. What would iPad's chance of success be, without Apple and its religious consumer loyalty born with the iPod and iPhone range. Even without brand equity as such – consider Google without the initial support at Stanford or Facebook launched at some two-bit school instead of Harvard. All three examples are very cryptic, so I'll forgo any attempt at a deep analysis beyond a few thoughts to ponder on.

Apple is a company specialising in easy to learn and a pleasure to use products without any user research. Google's success has more to do with the demise of Altavista under consecutive takeovers of the parent company Digital, first by Compaq and in turn HP, than its page rank algorithm, the speed or for that matter the proposed business and monetisation model – there wasn't one. Similarly, Facebook only began to look like money when MySpace was strapped onto News Corp. for a hefty 580 million dollars and slapped with a very ambiguous expectation of delivering the online market to Murdoch – a disaster considering the widely reported stats like 4 in 10,000 click-through rates on ads in SN.

The company and its culture is yet another aspect on the bumpy road to product success. We need people with the conviction and the passion that Steve Jobs had selling jelly-bean iMacs despite the dated bubble design in the days of sexy and slim LCD screens. When Jobs returned to Apple, then on a brink of bankruptcy, he found the frustrated Jony Ive who showed him the iMac designs shelved by previous management and so the company was salvaged, to top the profit stakes now. Can such a transformation be replicated? Certainly it can, but tweaking the knobs while making exaggerated claims is not likely to deliver the results.

The answer is: talent, audacity, open-mindedness and of course a suitable process.

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take the world by storm

Give or take some prescriptions and the earlier priming session, a brainstorming event could closely follow the well known process and guidelines. Anything goes as far as the idea capture and documentation are concerned. Those comfortable with verbal or bullet point descriptions should be mindful that input from other group members needs to be integrated on ad-hock basis, even if the resulting lists aren't quite so orderly or as neat as intended. Mind maps should be considered for their inherent flexibility of structure. However, feehand visual representation provides the most fluid and open-ended means to capture the rich picture of the problem and solution domains and my “doodling and sketching” article may be worth reviewing.

The idea generation process, should diverge as wide as possible at the early stages. In the event that an emerging concept reaches a wide acceptance or various ideas appear to converge on a common theme, the process shifts into deeper (more specific) exploration of its entities and personas or actors, including all implied aspects of context situations. Each stage of the divergent “what if?” exploration should reach an optimal phase when different “stories” present common attributes (converge) and this may be documented in greater detail.

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low fidelity prototypes

Lo-Fi prototypes provide a very rich form for exploration and capture of ideas. Paper, pens and scissors, post-it notes, Lego or even screen based contraptions; whatever the medium - prototype props will aid and empower the brainstorming process. By making a simulation of Use Cases more tangible especially for the “right brain” participants, prototypes extend the dialogue and motivate both different and deeper persona descriptions. I strongly encourage role-play and the use of props (Lo-Fi prototypes) with particular attention paid to the scarcest resources (see below) for each persona and situation, with a view to minimise the effort where it is feasible.

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guiding principles

The core guidelines are: simplicity and reflection in action. BJ Fogg proposed a very convincing model of “simplicity” as a function of the scarcest resource in a given situation. The scarce resources include: time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance (unfamiliarity) or non-routine actions. Ideally a use case would present just one scarce resource, but more often a combination of of a few will need to be balanced out.

My own interpretation of Gary Rolfe's “Reflection in Action” (or Reflective Practice Model) comprises three questions posed by practitioners at each stage of concept exploration or production cycle. What if? So What? and What Now? In this form of analysis a description of the situation is obtained, which leads to scrutiny of the outcomes and construction of knowledge learnt in the process. The net effect of this approach constantly improves the product itself and promotes individual mastery of the practitioner.

Aside note: In context of workplace Performance Reviews and self improvement, the principle of Reflection in Action provides an opportunity to elaborate on the integrity of one's responses and the influence of the impressions arrived at in the process of asking the three questions.

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judgement

Providing that ideas are elicited in the brainstorming scenario, electing the most promising candidates for further development and obtaining a consensus in order to reach a shared vision and a sense of commitment, is likely to present a formidable problem in itself. Competent design professionals should be able to address this dilemma by recognising and championing the merits of outstanding concepts, however, the validity of this methodology and the whole process is clearly in someone's hands or rather at the peril of their emotional intelligence.

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handover

While not a terminal stage in absolute terms, the design and engineering members of the team would take over the project at this stage, introducing the regular delivery process e.g. Agile, Kanban, Lean etc. Further critiques and reviews of the product under development lend themselves to additional iterations in settings analogous to the described brainstorming sessions and benefit from the “check-in” of results against the originally stated goals and objectives.

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why not?

If company culture and value structures are greatly at odds with the notion of unpredictability and trust placed on methods with a relatively low level of confidence, perhaps a more pragmatic approach of routine processes should be adhered to, forgoing the potential for invention and the goals of delivering disruptive products.

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REFERENCES

Ronald A. Finke, Thomas B. Ward and Steven M. Smith, 1992, “Creative Cognition: Theory, Research and Applications”.

Another worthy read on the subject: "The Brainstorming Process Is B.S. But Can We Rework It?".

creativity in brainstorming scenarios

Fundamentally, the situation is that of a small team engaged in the process of problem solving in a commercial setting.

Brainstorming is an approach to collaborative idea generation. Its proponents emphasise the benefits of high levels in novelty, quantity, diversity, unusualness and imaginativeness of the identified solutions. (Finke and Bettle 1996)

The term “brainstorming” and its methodology were introduced by Alex Osborn in 1956. It is defined as a set of objectives, which a small team (ideally seven people or less) should observe as they take turns in a loosely organised and casual in nature meeting. These are: Defer judgement. Encourage wild ideas. Build on the ideas of others. Go for quantity. One conversation at a time. Be visual. The last two guidelines have in time been appended to Osborn's concept and countless other variations have been proposed since, including an anonymised computer based version, but these are beyond the intended scope of this post.

If you are not convinced you aren't alone and parodies aside, I'll attempt to outline some of the criticisms of brainstorming with a notion of “harnessing” the intended benefits of crowd based creative power through a conscious realisation of its likely pitfalls.

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no such thing as bad ideas?

The main objective of brainstorming is the generation of multiple ideas in an unstructured manner looking at problems from different perspectives and allowing possible solutions to emerge in a natural and unconstrained way. However, typically it is employed to solve particular problems, rather than a means of exploring new possibilities. Additionally, as a result of conformance it tends to result in “groupthink”, which all too often, leads to adoption of low value, impractical or unrealistic solutions. (Finke and Bettle 1996)

The assumed openness to elicit untested ideas and explore a wide range of possibilities is implied by the prescribed freedom from critical comments and evaluation. In my opinion, this can be a weakness in the process. In brainstorm speak this is called: a “no bad ideas” environment. The rationale behind this prescription is: that there isn't a greater killer of invention than comments like “that won't scale” from one's peers. (Bernard and Summers 2010) Perhaps remarks like “that won't scale” should be acknowledged by all parties as a contextual fact in the consideration of the proposed idea. Terminating the exploration due to a single constraint would be premature, but I hate the thought that the above mentioned vocal person would be later assigned to deliver the execution of the flawed concept against her or his judgement, simply because the team committed to develop it further without hearing their expert opinion.

This guideline (defer judgement) is most commonly broken in real life and I may be encouraging it further, but being exposed to or rather supported by the breadth of a collective team expertise, is a well recognised strength in collaboration.

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everyone can be creative

The assumption is that; given the right environment, an incubator with all the right conditions to stimulate ideation and making it fun - props, toys, drinks and snacks, a clearly stated free from constraints attitude - “no bad ideas”, a means to capture the ideas - whiteboard, pens and paper, cameras, voice recording etc., when every member in the group shares their inspirations given an equal chance, an invention is likely to emerge spontaneously. This idealistic view is widely accepted, but is it a realistic and reliable path to generate creative work?

Going by my experience, I can only say: sometimes and not very often. As an exclusive approach it simply represents a try-hard design utopia, if not a means to undermine the importance of roles traditionally defined as creative. After all, not everyone fixes their own car or builds their dream kitchens hands-on. Skills are a combination of both, the learnt technique and an inherent intuition we have for the subject of work we pursue, hence the expectations placed on brainstorming may actually be somewhat naive.

First, a number of personality issues quite at odds with brainstorming need to be considered; Pulling raw ideas out of one's head and expressing them for the benefit of the team might encounter some barriers, after all not everyone is an extrovert. Then we need to think outside of the box, when most people feel more comfortable with low risk regular routines. And finally, the sudden impulse/flash of creative insight is recognised as strongly associated with intrinsic motivation, which by definition is the opposite of the more common extrinsic motivation based on set goals, scores/gains and the recognition of value by others.

Further, we have the issues of productivity and tangible value outcomes, which need to be addressed. If the un-primed ideas actually flow, will other members of the team really be challenged to take ownership of the implied potential of this creativity or simply idle awaiting their turn or worse - freeze with apprehension of their own defeat. Rather than perceiving it as an opportunity to express their own ideas and views, many people feel quite confronted by the notion of addressing their peers. The 'productivity loss' relative to working individually, is well documented by various studies; evaluation apprehension despite the prescribed rule, social loafing as a result of shared responsibility and limitations of short-term memory resulting in forgetting one's inspirations while others express their own - to name just a few. (Finke et al 1992) The evidence of cop-out contributions by employees expected to come up with individual pursuits towards the common good is abundant and YouTube is a great beneficiary of those.

There is more, just look at various cultural values ingrained through education and life experience at large. For example, Confucius philosophy with deep influence on the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese cultures, fosters hierarchies of mastery and a great regard for traditions, the past and its wisdom. This has a profound impact on the individuals' concept of professional practice, knowledge and its masters entrusted with responsibilities. In many ways, these principles are at odds with the notion of informally guessing or stumbling upon solutions, which brainstorming embraces at its core. Of course this doesn't stop Asian people from being good brain-stormers, but it certainly undermines the sense of respect and trust in the adopted results.

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can we fix it and should we try to?

Apart from providing an aspect of fun at work, brainstorming gives us a personal voice. At a time when social culture at large strays further and further from stereotypes, the work environment suffers from a 'job hat' syndrome and the hat appears to be worn ever tighter. Therefore a personal voice is an increasingly important asset, a forum with an attentive audience is valuable in terms of feeling involved, empowered and responsible for reaching high level objectives.

Above all, brainstorming offers a means to suspend the routine approach to tasks and one's reliance on expert insight and instead, act in a freer or fresher manner. This indeed, is where we may discover the genius inventor within us.

Problem solving based on specialised expert insight provides a high level of confidence in both, productivity and predictability of results. In other words, if a problem is trivial and the desired outcomes are well known in advance, there is no need to embark on discovering anything new and a craft-like approach will be the best fit for the job. However, an expectation of disruptive outcomes or invention calls for maximum spontaneity in the creative process, proverbial “thinking outside the box” in order to reach optimal results. I feel that non-routine thinking presents a significant enough value in design to dedicate my next post "brainstorming primed for invention" to an attempt at making brainstorming really “work” in creative pursuits.

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Ronald A. Finke and Jonathan Bettle, 1996, “Chaotic cognition: Principles and Applications”.

Alex F. Osborn, 1956, “Applied Imagination”.

Chris Bernard and Sara Summers, 2010, “Dynamic Prototyping with Sketchflow in Expression Blend”.

Ronald A. Finke, Thomas B. Ward and Steven M. Smith, 1992, “Creative Cognition: Theory, Research and Applications”.

agile or fragile software development

Agile methodology is widely accepted and has been adapted to many specific applications. The motivation to develop “lightweight” processes for accelerated production of software, lead to the formulation of the very ambitious Agile Manifesto in 2001. 1999 was a low point for the software development community, not only did revisiting old code to hunt for Y2K bugs seem like punishment at the peak of the .com boom, but more critically – the process exposed fundamental weaknesses of the documentation heavy processes in the past. It was time for a disruptive change; the pragmatism behind a general reluctance to adopt new approaches evidently failed us.

The appeal of Agile was by no means a discovery of new techniques, we've seen or done it all before, but this time a methodology was elegantly distilled into a few pages rather than a book. The Agile Manifesto offered a convincing vision of preferred values and principles focusing on collaboration, responsiveness, the individuals and their roles instead of a rigid processes and documentation. Other benefits ascribed to Agile include: satisfaction through rapid delivery and high ROI (return on investment).

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more agile

The informal and often cuddly nature of the face-to-face workflow has at times been vulnerable to parody in its less successful applications, but the wide acceptance speaks for itself. The long emphasised focus on the user and the problem domain is finally an integral part of the process and not an 11th hour contractual necessity. From a design point of view, this aspect alone opens up the scope for exploration of truly creative solutions. Shifting from the closed shop research of the problem space towards stakeholder interaction, enables the developers to go beyond delivering 'what the client asked for' to gain the insights which increase the likelihood of discovering innovative and disruptive outcomes.

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but still fragile

But isn't all this bonding and hugging amongst stakeholders just as fragile as other partnerships we form in everyday life. Well, yes it is and either party may shoulder the blame. On the developer side, the integrity of the routine daily progress/problem updates can be compromised for various reasons, including the reliance on interpersonal relationships. However, the client representative role is far more vulnerable to failure. The mantra and reality of the partnership and the sense of engagement will inevitably lead to emphatic attachment to the notion of validity and value in the project without the safety net of ongoing checks and balances from the peers. Further, the client-side stakeholder isn't necessarily representative of the end-user or worse - the prospective user may for now be just a speculative 'persona' profile.

The methodology falls short of full coverage in a number of key scenarios of the product development lifecycle and delivery situations. The Agile stereotype of client – developer relationships, typical of the last century e.g. building business process software, are not universal. The above-mentioned vendor as a commissioning party and the direct to public deployment paradigms are increasingly common in today's market yet neither seems to fit the magical stakeholder interaction scheme. My deliberations on those two examples revealed the most glaring omission. The inherent rush to produce application code, due to the value placed on software as a primary measure of progress, appears to overlook the need to integrate the critical early stages of the process; research, idea generation, design exploration and prototyping.

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what about design?

It is one thing to declare catchy principles like openness to changing requirements and regular adaptation to changing circumstances and yet it is an absolute mistake to embark on code without a design and prototype validation. Under those circumstances, the unexpected manifestation of changes and the necessary adaptations are almost guaranteed and consequentially would compromise the expected delivery timeline, ROI and ultimately result in poorly designed and unmaintainable code. Yes, the core aspect of Agile – iterations and the prescribed code re-factoring may address the latter problem to some degree, but surely not without further compromises of the primary objectives.

I'd like to entertain the notion that Agile methodology can be readily mapped to the design and prototyping stages, just as it has been adapted to other processes. However, besides the strong appeal of the core values and user-centric principles, I fail to see further complementary features. Perhaps it is time for the early stages of development to be specified as additional steps extending the Agile iteration methodology at a cost of diminished elegance and simplicity.

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is there a fix?

Many designers agree that, the correct way to accommodate design in Agile is to define “an initial phase zero that takes a long-term and holistic view of the project needs before moving into agile process” [Bernard C. Summers S., Dynamic Prototyping with Sketchflow in Expression Blend]. A common approach, in real-life application, is to embellish Agile with attributes of a familiar or industry recognised process, for example, see “Kanban Development Oversimplified” or “How Scrum Induced Sub-Optimization Kills Productivity (And How To Fix It With Kanban)”. However, none of those exaples cover the User Centric Design model. Unfortunately, all attempts at pimping up Agile with 'process' simply water down and often compromise its core principles and create a patchwork of less appealing prescriptions rather than a crisp well defined methodology.