Learn how to implement creativity

Few weeks ago I shared my creative system. So you learn how to solve. create. innovate.

And I shared a chart about the in demand skills. Creativity and analytic are the top two.

But I didn’t share how to implement and integrate the different methods in order. Some may not know where or how to start.

New ideas always sound complex

It may sound complex for the first time but with visuals and explanation, it will sink in and becomes clear. As a reminder, people don’t look into beyond the surface. they tend to focus on the obvious pressing issues.

One way to go deeper is to view the company as big playing field. divided into specialized fields.

Fields represents what makes a company into a business. The main fields of any ompany:

Offer, customer relationship, customer segmentation, channels, business departments, external stakeholders, capabilities, cost and revenue.

Each field has few areas under it.

Let’s take the following examples:

Customer segment field. has different types of customers (if what you sell has many type of customers).

The offer field. Has a product, service and value proposition.

Marketing department business field. has different team with different skills.

When you look at it this way, it makes it easy to think in dimensions. You get a holistic view of your impacted fields and areas that need attention.

Because most issues expand to other areas when they happen. Like when your car broke a certain part, it impacts other connected areas.

The business is the same thing. There is a connection between fields. Based on the type of issue and its size. There is a high chance to impact first the areas within one field and/or expand to other field(s).

Finding roots causes. And to where they extend in particular fields and areas will help you reach clarity. Create opportunities that ease your pains. Meet your business goals. solve it once and for all. This way you optimize business faster and stay ahead with market trends.

How to implement creative system

When there is business challenge, problem or a goal. First thing is to ask where do this live in the business field?

It’s about identifying main field. For example; the issue live in what you offer.

There is a problem with your product. You start design thinking process.

You do your understanding as an exercise (read). You map the process using system thinking. then you discover that the problem extends to other fields in your business. Such as an underlying issues with your external partners, and capabilities.

In the impacted fields you will again: conduct design thinking and system thinking for each of those fields. You understand their pains, experience, struggle. And map tools, technology, processes, tasks and other support systems in each of those fields.

You analyze data you captured in each field, group common ones in categories. Make sense of it and uncover insights.

After you do this for each of the three fields; product, external partner, and capability. you reach a clarity level. you find opportunity that address the pressing issues in the three fields.

You design how this opportunity work. what functionalities it need, what barriers to avoid and what to prioritize. Validate it with impacted people, get feedback and iterate.

This is the business design part. you check the feasibility and viability of the solution.

Is it something possible to build or outsource as a solution. Is the solution will have positive economic impact? Increase experience, improve productivity, make things faster and improve revenue, bring more customers, etc.

The integration of the three methods. Will help you to innovate, build new ideas, new product, improve existing businesses or products. Build new business. This is the creativity skills the market will increase its demand for.

Recap

It’s about using design thinking to understand the issues you initially see on the surface. Then, map that surface environment with systems thinking, which may require going deeper.

If the scenarios demand it, the new discoveries you identify as related issues will require applying both design thinking and systems thinking to conduct the same exercise as you did on the surface.

By doing this, you break down the challenges into smaller parts and uncover blind spots and the true needs for each part. This is how you prioritize and decide which solution addresses the true need and what to consider.

Once you reach that point, you design the solution, and it’s a matter of validating it from the perspectives of desirability, economic viability, and feasibility.

Thank you for reading. We’ll talk in the next letter.

Ahmed

By the way, here is:

1. A fun way to connect with people that leads to opportunities Toilet Mind

2. A course of problem solving strategies in business Creative System Thinking

3. A new way to innovate and solve business challenges Neo Strateje