The Creative Process
The whole creative process can be divided in seven different steps, each playing a different role in giving birth to new ideas. 1. Orientation: pointing up the problem 2. Preparation: gathering pertinent data 3. Analysis: breaking down the relevant material 4. Ideation: piling up alternatives by way of ideas 5. Incubation: letting up, to invite illumination 6. Synthesis: putting the pieces together 7. Evaluation: judging the resulting ideas Let’s discuss the role and importance of each of these steps, as well as new ways and techniques to help you get best result for each of them. Orientation: This is the first step which will give direction to the whole process. In this step you are required to define, as precisely as possible, what the current problem is, as well as the desired outcome. Most people go through this step subconsciously and never really bother much about it, as most of the time, the answer seems evident. But in reality, it is not always the case, and by not having a clear idea of what exactly the problem or desired results are, you might end up with pages of ideas that won’t answer at least one, sometimes even both, of these focal points in the creative process. When defining the problem and writing down your definite goal, make sure you are specific, but do not get into details. The more general your frame of thinking will be, the less constraints you will have during the creative process. The answer to these two questions is supposed to be a starting point giving you direction, specific plan of action and ideas will come at a later stage. Preparation: During this step you will gather pertinent information. This is where you will conduct market research, as well as build an inventory of all the skills, resources, and contacts that you can use, starting from your initial problem, to reach your desired outcome. At this stage, do not leave anything out; build a list as exhaustive as possible. You do not want to let your critic mind keep you from moving forward either. Write everything down, even things for which you might not see any use at the moment. Chances are they will come handy somewhere during the process, and you will be pleasantly surprised by the results you can get from something you thought would be useless. Go ahead, write down a list of every tool you have access to, contacts, special skills and knowledge. See yourself as a business in itself, what assets do you have? In this step, if you plan on releasing a new product, you will also conduct what is often referred to as market research. What information can you gather about this specific market, what are the needs, who are the customers? Once again, do not leave anything out; you might be surprised by the results. If you’re working on designing a new car and realize your customers love chewing gum, even though it has nothing to do with cars, write it down. Analysis: In this step, you will sort the results and analyze them. Do you see any recurring trends, any recurring problems, or assets that could be easily combined together to create something more efficient? Even though you are not yet ready to start generating ideas, you will probably start having a feeling of what to do. Sort your assets into categories, build your customer model using the information you gathered, identify the market trends. Back to the car example above; your sources told you that your customers loved chewing gum. So you build a model to represent your perfect customer. Let’s say, man, in their 30’s, single, who loves chewing gum and the color blue. You have no idea what the final result will be, but chances are it will be blue and fitting for a 30 year old single. It might even include a gum dispenser somewhere, and grab an additional percentage of the market share in the long run because of this. Ideation: During this phase of the process, you will throw as many ideas as possible to the wall. Don’t stay around to see which ones will bounce, just keep throwing them. Write down everything you can think of, even those things that seem too crazy, too impossible, too easy, too anything. This step is the most well-known and often called Brainstorming, using different techniques to help generate a huge amount of ideas in a short time. See the next chapters for full Brainstorming techniques you can start using to improve and facilitate your creative process. Incubation: Now comes the easy part. Sit back, and relax. Go about your daily activities and try not to think much about it. Let all those wonderful ideas sit and blend together. As you move on to other things, you will start seeing references to a few ideas you’ve written down, things that will reinforce your feelings about them, others that will simply take them out of the game. There is really nothing you can do to help this process. For some it will take weeks, for others a matter of hours, depending on the complexity of the initial problem and desired outcome, as well as how trained your mind is to this kind of activity. The thing to keep in mind through this step is: Relax! Synthesis: You’re almost done! You’ve let your ideas blend into a tasty creative juice, now is the time to distill everything and keep only the best of the best. As they say, cream always rises to the top. I’ve found throughout the years that the best way to go about this step is not to simply throw away every idea that may not work, or be used. That would be a waste of valuable time and energy. Instead, store them somewhere in a binder, write them down on small recipe cards that you can store in a plastic box, anything that works for you. Write down the idea itself, as well as why it may not work, or the reason why the idea has been rejected for this project. The creative process is not over yet, and you may need to come back to these ideas later on as a plan B (in case the worst happens) or simply to build on your existing project (which we hope will happen). What’s more, as you keep them all filed somewhere you can access them easily, you will have no problem re-using some of these ideas during the preparation phase of future projects. Evaluation: The closing step of the creative process, evaluating your results is essential. You are now ready to take action and move forward with the application of your new ideas, but it is important to keep track of everything and come back as often as possible to your original ideas list to see how you can improve, or how you can correct a potential flaw. Also, once your project is 100% complete, make sure you go out and get as much feedback about it as possible from everyone involved. Get your partner’s opinion as well as your customers. Write every comment down, good or bad, and add them to your binder or idea box. Feedbacks are important as they will point out your strengths and weaknesses, and you will also be able to use them in future projects. |
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