Ideation Toolkit
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Innovation rarely starts with a perfect solution.
It begins with ideas.
Ideation is the phase in the innovation process where creativity, insight, and exploration come together to generate possibilities. It is about intentionally stepping into a space where imagination, collaboration, and critical thinking drive the discovery of pathways toward new products, services, or ways of working. Ideation helps bridge the gap between identifying challenges and designing innovative solutions by encouraging individuals and teams to think broadly before narrowing down to the most impactful options.
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Why is this important for innovation
In any innovation process we sometimes jump too quickly to solutions or rely on familiar thinking patterns. Ideation ensures that problems are explored from multiple angles and that truly novel opportunities are uncovered. Ideation...
- ... expands creative potential: By pushing beyond obvious solutions, ideation increases the diversity and originality of ideas considered. Being bold and thinking outside the box, not limiting oneself with the striving for perfect possibilities but rather looking out for all ideas, even the ones that might me impossible or too big.
- ... encourages collaboration: Bringing different stakeholders together allows varied expertise and perspectives to meet, often driving unexpected breakthroughs.
- ... encourages collaboration: Bringing different stakeholders together allows varied expertise and perspectives to meet, often driving unexpected breakthroughs.
- ... strengthens innovation culture: A structured approach to idea generation fosters openness, psychological safety, and a willingness to experiment which are all vital for long-term innovation success.
What to expect from this toolkit
This toolkit is designed to guide you through practical resources that support effective ideation. You will find approaches that help you as an individual and together with your team generate a wide range of ideas in structured yet creative ways, build on and combine ideas collaboratively and develop a mindset that values curiosity, exploration, and creative confidence.
Tools & Methods
- Scamper: Creativity technique based on the assumption that all new ideas are modifications of something existing
- How Might We: Bridges the gap between problem definition and idea generation by rephrasing the problem statement into the simple format "How might we..." or "How can we...?"
- Disney Method: Well-structured form of brainstorming helping to make creative and imaginative ideas more realistic
- Idea Napkin: Individual ideas are recorded as a rough concept and contribute to a common understanding of the idea within a group
- Crazy 8: A Core Design Sprint method with fast sketching that challenges people to sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes
- Divergent Thinking: The ability to create multiple ideas or solutions to a given problem
- Quantity over Quality: A large quantity of ideas often leads to better outcomes than focusing solely on quality.
Read & Watch
- Six Thinking Hats: A simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. Check out the book by Edward de Bono.
- How to come up with creative ideas in 20 Minutes: A workshop style video by a UX Designer to help you find momentum and an easy approach to Ideation.
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