Up and away: five ways to harness creativity, spark innovation and harvest ideas

Citation

Owens, T. (2012), "Up and away: five ways to harness creativity, spark innovation and harvest ideas", Strategic Direction, Vol. 28 No. 11. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2012.05628kaa.003

Up and away: five ways to harness creativity, spark innovation and harvest ideas

Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 28, Issue 11

Owens T. and , Fritz C. Quality Progress, June 2012, Vol. 45 No. 6, Start page: 18, No of pages: 7

Starts from the basis premise that creativity is inside everyone and, although this creativity can contribute to innovation efforts, some people may need structure to draw out ideas. Argues that, by using a rigorous approach to the innovation process, it is possible to involve and empower teams, and generate good ideas for the organization to harvest into products or services. Describes a four-step innovation cycle that involves: finding the opportunity; connecting it to a solution; making it user-friendly; and getting it to market correctly and quickly. pays particular attention to ways of harnessing creativity through this type of structured programme that will help ensure that the team is empowered to participate in the creative process and that good ideas are not lost, but instead are developed into something that will produce great results. Reviews some approaches to harvesting good ideas for development that are grouped into those that pull ideas from the team whenever the ideas arise, and those that push the team toward idea generation for a specific purpose. Suggests that there are three ways in which cross-functional teams can work in a structured setting to generate solutions more quickly, more thoroughly and at a lower overall cost than secret development or pet projects, including: DeepDive; Million Dollar Meeting (M$M); and Seven Ways. Concludes with a summary of success stories in implementing this type of innovation process. Article type: Viewpoint ISSN: 0033-524X Reference: 41AP021

Keywords: Creative thinking, Innovation, Product development, Product innovation, Quality management techniques, Teamwork