Imagination Ideation
By: Nia Braccidiferro
Most people commonly think of the process of ideation as writing down ideas and making them into a reality during prototyping. Nothing more, nothing less.
Since companies mainly focus on the first few ideas that are written down, they never find the opportunity to get nonconventional thoughts onto paper. While using the Ideation phase of the Design Thinking process, people go about generating ideas differently.
In Stefan Mumaw’s Creativity Bootcamp, he states that another common misconception implied throughout this process is that creativity is connected to artistry, talent, and even luck. This, however, isn’t the case. Creativity, itself, is problem-solving.
We can make it a skill that we possess if we practice it enough and get better at it. Mumaw believes that creativity isn’t a singular moment, it’s a process. And we must not rush that process or the innovation in general. He also reiterates that the majority of companies pick the first idea that comes up, this shouldn’t be the case. Every single idea that runs through a team member’s mind should be written down on paper.
This is because the “stupid ideas” need to be released to generate more creativity, and you never know when a “stupid idea” could be your company’s next breakthrough. Mumaw also elaborates on the shape of ideation. It starts out high and begins to decrease as you run out of ideas. He dubbed this valley the “Throne of Agony”.
As you release more ideas that were buried in the back of your mind, you increase the ideation until the process ends naturally. As humans in today’s society, we need to step away from improving and attaching and begin innovating products. This can simply begin by thinking of what we already know. When we are faced with challenges, we’re unwilling to start over or start from scratch.
This may be necessary to create the best products for the company. During the time where people are explaining and discussing their many ideas, judgment needs to be completely suspended. This is because, in each person, there is an inner critic saying that their ideas are stupid but in fact, they are the most innovative, as well as an outer critic.
In David Kelley’s TED Talk, entitled, How to Build Your Creative Confidence, he explains that one can gain confidence in their ideas and learn to overcome their fears through a process he discovered called, “Guided Mastery”. He redesigned this entire experience to help people stick with their ideas and processes.
Kelley learned that most people have a fear of judgment and despise receiving criticism. With his revolutionary redesigned process, he convinced the people participating in the experiment to try harder and persevere longer in the trials that they were put through. After the trials, they became more confident in their abilities as well as their ideas.
In the Institute of Design at Stanford’s An Introduction to Design Thinking Process Guide, they believe that you should get obvious solutions out of your head and drive your team beyond them to uncover unexpected areas of innovation. They also encourage you to combine your conscious and unconscious mind to blend your rational thoughts with your imagination.
This is the point of the Design Thinking process is where you get the chance to finally unite the understanding you have of the initial problem with the people you are designing for to create a viable solution to change the world.