Business Ideation- Aspects & Techniques
Ideation without execution is delusion
The Process of Ideation:
Business Ideation — a term that formulates the base of any business. It is the most basic step which involves the complete process of emerging and divulging arbitrary ideas in business. It involves several steps from idea generation to the implementation of those ideas, which helps one’s business reach a stature. The ideation process is one of the most important components for any business to thrive and focusing on the ideation process allows a business to be innovational as well as competitive.
Aspects of Business Ideation:
There are five main aspects of business ideation- empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. They are explained as follows:
- Empathize: To develop advantageous items and services, one needs to recognize to whom their items and services are going to reach and what their requirements are. Questions need to be raised within to see the outcome of their product. Who is going to use it? What are the expectations of the users? What are the challenges the business is going to face? What is its long term effect on the company? To answer these raised questions, one can engage with real-time users and know what their viewpoints are.
- Define: All the information generated and gathered in the first step is put together, and all the observations are analyzed. Analyzing all these generated outcomes, helps you identify and define all the problems. This stage helps to modify the generated ideas, rethink, and develop much better ideas to have a better connection with the users.
- Ideate: After understanding what the requirements of the targeted audience are, it is now time for the company to think ‘out of the box’ to enkindle their item or service. This step is a judgment-free one, where the company gets together to think about what can be done to make their product or service to a particular stature. There are several techniques to do so, which will further be discussed.
- Prototype: The main focus of this step is to develop the ideas to something concrete that can be tried and tested on the targeted audience and helps the company to develop the final product from the generated feedback.
- Test: This is the last and final step of this process. The results generated in this step helps to understand the further requirements of the users and helps redefine the generated prototype. This step highlights the faults in the prototype and helps redesign the product or service according to the needs of the user.
Business Ideation Techniques
There are several business ideation techniques that help the team to think out of the box to help their product or service reach zenith. Below mentioned are a few techniques that can help to do so.
- Mind Mapping: Mind maps are visual diagrams that help represent ideas. Mind mapping is a technique that helps you to connect from one idea to another. One word or idea helps you lead from one idea to another. It also helps in getting a proper rhythm and gets your creative juices flowing. They help to resolve complex problems simply.
2. Storyboarding: This business ideation technique is a non-linear brainstorming technique. This technique necessitates the development of a visual story to find a possible solution to the problems generated while prototyping. It helps in sequencing the formulated ideas and helps to categorize.
3. Brainwriting: It is a simple ideation technique that helps understand how different people address different issues. It includes one person writing down their solution, followed by other people adding on their ideas. In this method, the differences emerge more powerfully than in just a group discussion.
4. Five why analysis: This is a very famous technique popularized by Toyota. In this technique, the team is compelled to ask the question ‘Why?’ five times. This technique aims to attain the root cause of any problem. One can start by stating the problem, and ask the question ‘Why?’ until you don’t reach the root cause of the particular problem.
5. SCAMPER: The SCAMPER technique refers to Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse.
Substitute- This method focuses on those ideas which can be replaced with the other. Questions are asked as a part of this discussion to replace one idea with a better one.
Combine- This technique enables us to analyze certain possibilities of merging two or more ideas to make the outcome more productive and efficient.
Adapt- This technique helps to improve the item or service for a finer output. Adaption is an efficient technique that helps to solve by enhancing the current methodology followed in the company.
Modify- This technique refers to changing the entire process in such a manner that opens several innovative ideas and can also solve the arisen problems. It can also help in changing the perspective of viewing the problem.
Put to another use- This technique helps to put the current process into another purposeful goal. This helps resolve the existing problems.
Eliminate- This technique focuses on the parts of the entire process to remove the unnecessary steps in that process. It helps simplify the entire methodology and helps achieve innovation.
Reverse- This technique focuses to explore the entire process and rearrange the steps to make the product achieve its stature. It can also help solve the existing problems and bring out an innovative output for the same.
Trying and implementing these business ideation techniques in the company, one can efficiently handle any challenge that comes up in the business. For any business to reach its zenith, it needs to identify its problem at the correct time and find the necessary solutions with the help of effective methods.
“What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.” — Simon Sinek
