Unit 3: Ideation and Creative Problem Solving - Subjective Questions

Divergent thinking is the process of generating many different ideas, possibilities, and solutions for a given problem without immediately judging or selecting them.

Its importance in design thinking includes:

• It encourages creativity and exploration.
• It helps reveal multiple perspectives and hidden opportunities.
• It prevents teams from accepting the first obvious solution.
• It supports innovation by combining existing ideas in new ways.
• It creates a broad range of alternatives that can later be evaluated through convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking is especially useful during ideation, when the goal is to expand the solution space.

Divergent thinking and convergent thinking are complementary activities in design thinking.

• Divergent thinking expands the number of possible ideas and encourages openness.
• Convergent thinking narrows down those ideas by evaluating them against specific criteria.
• Divergence is mainly used to explore the problem and generate solutions.
• Convergence is used to identify the most suitable, feasible, and relevant solution.

A typical design process alternates between the two modes: the team first generates many ideas, then selects promising ones, explores them further, and finally chooses a solution for prototyping or implementation. Using only convergence may result in predictable solutions, while using only divergence may create many ideas without practical results.

Brainstorming is a structured method for generating a large number of ideas in a short period.

Main principles:

• Defer judgment during idea generation.
• Encourage unusual and ambitious ideas.
• Focus on quantity before quality.
• Build on and combine the ideas of others.
• Ensure that every participant has an opportunity to contribute.

Procedure:

1. Clearly define the problem or opportunity.
2. Establish time limits and participation rules.
3. Ask participants to generate ideas individually or in a group.
4. Record every idea visibly without criticism.
5. Combine related ideas and clarify their meaning.
6. Evaluate the ideas only after the brainstorming session ends.

A skilled facilitator maintains focus, prevents domination by a few participants, and creates a psychologically safe environment.

SCAMPER is a creative thinking technique that improves an existing product, service, or process by asking seven structured questions.

• Substitute: What material, person, process, or feature can be replaced? For example, replacing plastic packaging with recycled paper.
• Combine: What elements can be joined? For example, combining a notebook with a digital note-taking application.
• Adapt: What existing idea can be adjusted for a new purpose? For example, adapting a bicycle-sharing system for electric scooters.
• Modify: What can be enlarged, reduced, changed, or emphasized? For example, modifying a mobile application interface to use larger controls.
• Put to another use: Can the product or resource be used differently? For example, using shipping containers as temporary classrooms.
• Eliminate: What unnecessary feature or step can be removed? For example, eliminating paper receipts through digital billing.
• Reverse or rearrange: What can be reordered or reversed? For example, allowing customers to customize a product before placing an order.

SCAMPER stimulates focused ideation instead of relying only on spontaneous creativity.

A mind map is a visual representation of ideas arranged around a central topic.

Method:

1. Write the main problem or theme at the centre.
2. Add major branches representing related dimensions or categories.
3. Extend each branch with sub-ideas, examples, causes, users, and opportunities.
4. Use keywords, colours, symbols, and connections to reveal relationships.
5. Review the map to identify patterns, gaps, and promising directions.

Mind mapping supports creative problem solving because it:

• Organises complex information visually.
• Encourages free association and lateral connections.
• Makes relationships between ideas easier to see.
• Helps teams expand a narrow problem into several opportunity areas.
• Provides a foundation for clustering and prioritising ideas.

It can be created individually or collaboratively using paper, whiteboards, or digital tools.

Reverse thinking is a technique in which a problem is approached from the opposite direction of the normal assumption.

For example, instead of asking, How can we improve customer satisfaction?, a team may ask, How could we make customers completely dissatisfied? The resulting answers might include long waiting times, confusing instructions, or poor communication. These negative ideas can then be reversed into opportunities for improvement.

The technique can be applied by:

• Reversing the goal of the problem.
• Challenging common assumptions.
• Imagining how to create the worst possible outcome.
• Converting negative observations into positive design requirements.

Reverse thinking is useful because it exposes hidden assumptions and produces ideas that conventional questioning may overlook.

The three techniques differ in their structure and primary purpose.

Brainstorming is especially effective for broad group ideation. Mind mapping is useful when a problem has many connected dimensions. SCAMPER is more focused and works well when an existing product, service, or process is available for improvement. These methods can also be combined in a single design project.

Postponing judgment means that ideas are not criticised, rejected, or evaluated while they are still being generated.

This is important because:

• Early criticism can reduce participation and confidence.
• Participants may avoid unconventional ideas if they fear negative reactions.
• An apparently impractical idea may lead to a useful modification.
• Combining several weak ideas can produce a strong solution.
• The team remains focused on exploration rather than defence of individual opinions.

Judgment should be postponed only during the divergent phase. In the later convergent phase, ideas must be assessed critically using agreed criteria such as user value, feasibility, cost, risk, and alignment with project goals.

Idea evaluation is the systematic assessment of generated ideas to determine which ones deserve further development.

Process:

1. Clarify the project objectives and constraints.
2. Group similar ideas and remove exact duplicates.
3. Define evaluation criteria before judging ideas.
4. Assess each idea individually and, where appropriate, as part of a combination.
5. Record strengths, weaknesses, risks, and assumptions.
6. Select ideas for prototyping, testing, or additional research.

Common criteria include:

• User desirability: Does the idea solve a meaningful user problem?
• Feasibility: Can it be developed using available technology, skills, and resources?
• Viability: Can it operate within financial and organisational limits?
• Relevance: Does it support the purpose and context of the project?
• Scalability: Can it work for a larger number of users or situations?
• Risk: What legal, technical, ethical, or operational risks exist?

Idea organisation is the process of arranging generated ideas so that they can be understood and compared. Clustering involves grouping ideas that share a common theme, user need, feature, or underlying principle.

A team can organise ideas by:

• User type or stakeholder.
• Problem area or need.
• Product feature or service stage.
• Similarity of concept.
• Expected impact or implementation difficulty.

The process usually involves writing one idea per note, displaying all notes, moving related notes together, naming each group, and identifying connections between clusters.

Clustering helps reduce information overload, reveals recurring patterns, prevents duplicate evaluation, and exposes gaps in the solution space. It also makes it easier to select one concept or combine ideas from different clusters.

Feasibility analysis examines whether an idea can realistically be implemented. It considers technology, resources, skills, time, cost, infrastructure, legal requirements, and operational capability.

Relevance analysis examines whether an idea is appropriate and valuable for the intended users, problem, organisation, and context. It considers user needs, project objectives, social conditions, market demand, and strategic alignment.

The difference is:

• Feasibility asks, Can we implement this idea?
• Relevance asks, Should we implement this idea for this problem and audience?

An idea may be highly relevant but difficult to implement, or easy to implement but irrelevant to users. Strong concepts should achieve an acceptable balance between both dimensions.

An idea screening matrix is a table that compares concepts against predefined criteria. It supports transparent and consistent decision-making during the convergent phase.

Steps for using a screening matrix:

1. List the ideas in rows.
2. Place evaluation criteria in columns.
3. Assign a common rating scale, such as 1 to 5.
4. Give criteria appropriate weights if some are more important than others.
5. Rate each idea using evidence and agreed assumptions.
6. Calculate weighted or unweighted totals.
7. Discuss the results and select ideas for further investigation.

Typical criteria include user value, feasibility, cost, originality, relevance, risk, sustainability, and implementation time. The matrix supports decision-making but does not replace professional judgment, user research, or prototyping.

A weighted screening matrix gives greater importance to criteria that strongly influence the project decision.

Construction:

• Select criteria such as user value, feasibility, cost, and strategic fit.
• Assign a weight to each criterion so that the total weight is or .
• Rate every idea on a consistent scale, such as to .
• Calculate the weighted score using:

For example, if user value has a weight of and an idea receives a rating of , its contribution is .

The idea with the highest total score is not automatically the final choice. The team should examine unusually low scores, assumptions, uncertainty, ethical concerns, and whether several ideas can be combined.

Idea selection is the decision to choose one or more concepts for further development. It usually follows a detailed evaluation of alternatives.

Idea prioritisation is the process of ranking selected or shortlisted ideas according to their relative importance, urgency, impact, or ease of implementation.

Selection is often a filtering decision, while prioritisation is a ranking and resource-allocation decision.

The impact-effort method places ideas on a two-dimensional grid. One axis represents the expected impact or value of an idea, and the other represents the effort or resources required to implement it.

The grid generally creates four groups:

• High impact, low effort: Quick wins that should receive immediate attention.
• High impact, high effort: Strategic opportunities requiring planning and investment.
• Low impact, low effort: Possible improvements to consider when resources are available.
• Low impact, high effort: Ideas that are usually delayed, redesigned, or rejected.

Advantages:

• Easy to understand and communicate.
• Encourages practical prioritisation.
• Helps teams identify quick wins and major opportunities.

Limitations:

• Impact and effort estimates may be subjective.
• A simple grid may ignore risk, dependencies, ethics, and long-term benefits.
• Important but difficult ideas may be undervalued if short-term effort dominates the discussion.

Every idea is based on assumptions about users, behaviour, technology, cost, demand, or implementation. Evaluation should identify these assumptions and determine how much evidence supports them.

A reliable approach is to:

• List the critical assumptions behind each idea.
• Separate known facts from opinions and estimates.
• Identify which assumptions could cause the greatest failure if incorrect.
• Gather evidence through interviews, observation, market research, technical analysis, or experiments.
• Reduce confidence in ideas that depend on unsupported assumptions.
• Use prototypes to test the most uncertain and important aspects.

Evidence-based evaluation improves decision quality and prevents teams from selecting ideas only because they sound attractive or are preferred by influential participants.

Common barriers to idea generation include:

• Fear of criticism: Create rules that defer judgment and encourage psychological safety.
• Fixation on the first idea: Use multiple techniques and deliberately seek alternatives.
• Dominance by one participant: Use silent brainstorming, turn-taking, or anonymous submissions.
• Limited understanding of the problem: Conduct user research and define the opportunity clearly.
• Premature focus on feasibility: Separate creative generation from later evaluation.
• Groupthink: Include diverse participants and invite conflicting perspectives.
• Vague problem statements: Convert broad problems into focused opportunity questions.

Facilitation, time limits, visual recording, individual ideation before group discussion, and methods such as SCAMPER or reverse thinking can make idea generation more inclusive and productive.

The techniques can be combined as a sequence that moves from exploration to decision-making.

1. Use divergent thinking to create an open mindset and generate many possibilities.
2. Conduct brainstorming to collect a wide range of ideas from the team.
3. Create a mind map to expand the problem into users, needs, causes, and opportunities.
4. Apply SCAMPER to improve promising existing concepts.
5. Use reverse thinking to challenge assumptions and discover overlooked solutions.
6. Organise ideas into clusters based on themes or user needs.
7. Perform feasibility and relevance analysis on the main clusters.
8. Use a screening matrix to compare shortlisted ideas.
9. Apply prioritisation methods such as impact-effort analysis.
10. Select ideas for prototyping and user testing.

This combination maintains creativity while ensuring that final decisions are practical and valuable.

Before selecting an idea for prototyping, a team should consider:

• User desirability: The idea should address a genuine and important user need.
• Problem fit: It should respond directly to the defined problem.
• Feasibility: The team should have, or be able to obtain, the required technology and resources.
• Viability: The concept should have a reasonable operational and financial basis.
• Learning potential: The prototype should help test important assumptions.
• Distinctiveness: The idea should offer meaningful improvement or differentiation.
• Risk and ethics: Potential safety, privacy, legal, and social concerns should be understood.
• Time and resources: The prototype should be achievable within project constraints.

The best idea for prototyping is not necessarily the most complete or polished one. It is often the concept that can produce the most valuable learning about important uncertainties.

Screening and prioritisation should be treated as opportunities for refinement rather than merely accepting or rejecting ideas.

An idea can be improved by:

• Combining complementary elements from two or more shortlisted concepts.
• Removing features that increase effort without adding user value.
• Modifying the idea to address feasibility constraints.
• Clarifying the target user and specific use context.
• Adding safeguards for ethical, legal, or safety concerns.
• Testing the riskiest assumption with a low-cost prototype.
• Reassessing the concept after user feedback and new evidence.
• Restating the value proposition in terms of a specific user outcome.

This iterative process helps transform a broad or attractive idea into a focused concept that is more relevant, feasible, and testable.