Who hasn't experienced it: You need a good idea quickly, but your head is like a blank canvas? It is precisely in these moments that it can be useful to use creativity techniques - methods that help to leave well-trodden mental paths and open up new perspectives. In teams there are often so-called unstructured problems: The actual state is known, as is the desired target state. However, the path from the current state to the target state is not always immediately obvious.
Creativity techniques are very well suited to uncovering hidden solutions. They are thinking aids that promote creativity and can thus help to develop clever ideas. It is not necessarily the quality of ideas that improves, only their quantity - but this increases the likelihood that a particularly good idea will be among them. The more often you use creative techniques, the better the results you achieve.
Incidentally, it is easier to block a team's budding creativity than to come up with a brilliant idea - e.g., through blanket criticism, reference to traditions, norms or risks. Therefore: Every idea and every idea is allowed and useful! Let your imagination run free. Judgments and comments are taboo during the brainstorming process. The more spontaneous the expression, the higher the success rate! Ideas are not sorted out until they are analyzed and evaluated.
Five creativity techniques that you and your team can use to boost your ingenuity:
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is the classic among creativity techniques - and it's also particularly practical, since all you need is paper and a pen. Within a set time (usually a few minutes), you and your team talk out everything that comes to mind about a keyword or overarching topic. Only after the time has elapsed do you organize the noted terms in terms of content or delete individual ideas that do not seem appropriate.
Brainwriting
Possible problem with brainstorming: Extroverted team members dominate the group and thus also the brainstorming. As a result, the approaches of the more shy participants are usually lost. In brainwriting These are then pinned to a common pinboard and the ideas are linked together. This way, no idea is lost and even the quieter participants can contribute.
The headstand method
The headstand method is about looking at a problem from the opposite direction: For example, instead of asking ourselves, "What do we need to do to increase sales?" the question is, "What would we need to do to decrease sales?" We often find it easier to find answers to opposite questions, which in turn can be used to generate ideas that solve the original problem.
The 6-3-5 method
Six participants are each given a sheet of paper on which they draw three columns and six rows. Then each writes three ideas in the first column. After five minutes, the sheet is passed on to the person sitting next to them, who writes another idea in the second column, and so on. In this way, a maximum of 108 ideas are generated within a very short time (6 participants x 3 ideas x 6 lines). This creativity technique can be used very well for idea generation based on concrete questions.
The Walt Disney Method
In the Walt Disney method, the team takes on the roles of dreamer, realist, and critic in turn to stimulate creative thinking. As dreamers, wild ideas may be spun, anything goes. As realists, the participants must then question the ideas generated. Are they even feasible? What would be necessary? As critics, the final task is to weigh up the opportunities and risks. This method is particularly suitable for larger, fundamental decisions.
