The Creative Process
In this article I introduce a general 10-step creative process that can be used by organizations, teams and as an individual to support value creation through ideas.
Creativity is more than a process. In the last article I made the case for looking at creativity as a capability that has nine component parts (of which processes is one).
Nevertheless, when it comes to actually getting your arms around creativity, demystifying it and learning it, a picture is worth a thousand words, and a process many more than that.
The creative process and creative capability are interdependent (see diagram below). An overall creative capability provides the context and resources that enable the process to run and, importantly, helps put the ideas coming out of the creative process(es) into practice.
Using a creative process will inevitably help surface new insights, new/synthesized knowledge, and will develop the skills, habits and confidence of those involved in the process, for example, building the overall creative capability for next time.
The Creative Process
In the broadest sense, a creative process is about generating, or at least recognizing, valuable ideas.
As I said last time, don’t get hung up on the word “idea”, since I’m talking here about: products, services, songs, changes, movements, cures, disruptive innovations, businesses, revolutions and so on. Small ideas snowball (are developed) into larger ones.
An idea can be a seed or a constellation (of smaller ideas). The concept for a movie is an idea. The finished movie on screen is also an idea (a creative artifact…art), but one that wraps up so many other creative processes, people, and outputs.
Here is a larger version of the creative process diagram:
A process is something that takes inputs (orange) and converts them to outputs (green) within a particular context.
Some of those outputs are fed back into the process as inputs (i.e. there is a feedback loop). The creative process is iterative and what I call selective, you might skip steps in an iteration, or double down on other steps.
The process steps (in blue), which are themselves processes, might all be done by one person in a contiguous (single) block of time, or done by many people, spread over days, weeks, months…
The person, team or organization might have an ongoing perspective or point of view that continues between projects and iterations of the creative process (lens, in the diagram), and they may also have a distinctive signature fingerprint (style) across everything that they create.
If you dip into the literature and research on creativity (and there is a lot), you’ll find that there are countless perspectives and esoteric analyses on the topic of creativity (and innovation), so much so that it can be really confusing.
It is still often confusing and fragmented to me and I’ve studied, practiced and taught the subject for years! Intellectually I get the ideas, but they don’t resonate with my body, I feel like I’m grasping at confetti. Colorful, but what do you do with it!? And it blows away with the first gust of wind!
This is why I’ve developed both the creative capability framework (last article), and the general 10 step creative process you’re about to see. These aim to be useful in and of themselves, but also to provide an organizational system and anchor for you (and I) to assimilate future creativity research .
There are some notable attempts at outlining a process for creativity e.g. Wallas (1926) and Osborn (1953), which tap into even earlier thinking around the scientific/creative process (such as Poincaré). After those works there seems to be quite a gap until we get to more recent disciplines such as Design Thinking. I haven’t read all the research in existence, but my sense of this “gap” is actually that creativity research has exploded in volume, but narrowed in scope. As a practitioner and teacher and, frankly, an entrepreneur I’m not necessarily interested in or do I have time to stay across all of this. I’m happy to apply the 80/20 rule and find tools that I can use, rather than try to explain the whole universe. I save that for weekends.
Overall, the resources I mentioned didn’t really tell the whole story around creativity as I saw and felt it, but are interesting and useful in their own right, so I’ve included them in the references at the bottom. Check them out!
I’ve decided to focus on three specific “use cases” or disciplines when developing the creative model that we’re about to dig into. These are:
1. Problem Solving
2. Creative Expression/Artistry
3. Generating valuable business ideas
Why these three? These are the functional building blocks for ultimately getting at broader desirable outcomes for the organization (e.g. revenue growth, resilience, engagement), team (e.g. productivity, performance, flexibility) and individual (e.g. career progression and change). Each one of those broad outcomes I just mentioned requires multiple incremental ideas to be generated and executed successfully, just as a movie on the big screen, for example, is the result of a multitude of creative outputs.
As another example if you want to change careers (or even move up in an existing one) I’d argue that what you’re doing is actually a case of multiple rounds of problem solving.
It is problem solving, since there is not a neatly defined process for changing careers (and moving up can involve navigating obstacles). You are not just blindly executing or even just putting in sweat equity, you’re working in different ways.
I’ve said many times that creativity is also a very “meta” skill and that “the journey is the destination”. In this career example, you not only use creativity to come up with an inventive plan and execute it towards a goal (“reaching the top of the mountain”), but you might well get the job over others because you’ve proved you can solve problems (“you’ve demonstrated that you can probably climb other, different, mountains in future”). Problem solving is both a desirable skill, and a desirable trait/habit, if that makes sense. It is valuable to organizations if you can see and bring fresh thinking to solve their problems i.e. “come with solutions not problems”, and be proactive.
Secondly, I’d also argue that the even the second discipline, personal creative expression, is also key to the career change or advancement example as well since it (and much of personal and professional development) is about things like tapping into your unique value, building empathy, leadership, vulnerability and a host of other traits and habits, which naturally come as part of expressive/artistic practice. I’m jumping ahead a little here.
Lastly, and it goes without saying, being able to generate (and work with/lead a team to generate) valuable ideas for business helps your career prospects inside or outside the organization.
Get “good” at each of these three disciplines (which are all creativity) and you’ll not only be able to tackle a pressing problem today, but to use creativity to create valuable outcomes on an ongoing basis, changing the trajectory of your work and life. And the same applies to organizations too, the organization becomes better prepared and capable to not only solve today’s problems, but to tackle those in future that are not even on the radar right now.
Each of the three disciplines already has many books written about it alone, so I won’t try to give you a “PhD” in problem solving, for example, right now. Instead I’ll try to give you the sense of how problem solving, expression and business value all fit into the general 10-step creative process, and creative capability overall.
Lastly I want to say that there are also indirect positive side effects of creativity too.
Adobe found that those seeing themselves as creative also said that they were better leaders…and happier. I support these findings, and hope that while you might “visit” creativity for the business benefits, I hope that you “stick around” for the professional and personal growth opportunities.
From an organizational perspective you might want to invest in creativity to support sustainable growth and profit (e.g. through direct means such as innovation), but find that employee engagement and retention goes up, which is positive by itself, but that also (indirectly) leads to growth, resilience and other benefits. I’ll leave it at that for now, but we’ll return to the research based business case for creativity in a future article (I’ve seen many examples out there if you’re impatient and want to do a web search).
The 10-step process
Here is a diagram of just the blue boxes (sub competencies/processes) from the creative process arranged in a rough sequence:
In quick overview, the ten creative sub-processes are:
- Framing — understanding and reframing the problem/goal to be solved, challenging assumptions and constraints, getting clear on parameters (what, when, why), determining the additional (informational) inputs required
- Ingestion — taking in various inputs: sensory, memory, documents, content, interviews, field work and so on
- Synthesis — analysis (e.g. categorization, prioritization) and linking of inputs from the ingestion stage and overall
- Incubation — subconscious and/or indirect processing of the problem, the inputs/synthesis, and the solution
- Ideation — conscious generation of ideas in structured and unstructured ways (e.g. unconstrained exploration and play)
- Structuring — documenting, organizing, prioritizing and starting to build the “story” around the outputs of ideation
- Verification — testing ideas against the problem/goal and assessing value
- Refinement — incorporation of feedback and new or incremental ideas, editing, strengthening the idea
- Prototyping — testing (using mock ups) potential solutions with stakeholders
- Production — bringing the idea to reality, or at least to the next concrete step
People often associate the creative process only with Ideation (Stage 5), but as you can see above a lot happens before and after that stage.
Like I said before, you won’t necessarily do every stage every time, or do each to the same level of detail. The process is not meant to be a “cookie cutter” approach to creativity either, but rather to tailored to your particular requirements and individual characteristics.
Part of what this process (and the capability framework) is for, is to try to reframe creativity itself from being only a mystical thing that comes and goes with the breeze, to something that can be structured, improvable and dependable, helping you get better outcomes at work and in life.
Also remember that this creative process falls under only one “dot” of the nine in the creative capability framework that kind of sits as an umbrella above it.
This means that the “quality” of the other eight dots aside from processes (e.g. individual and organization knowledge, culture) plays a material role in determining the quality of outputs from the creative process. I’ll return to this is in future articles.
For now let’s look at each of the 10 steps in more detail.
1. Framing
Framing has a specific meaning in the first of our use-cases, problem solving. Framing means the perspective or lens that you use to look at the problem, and how you define the problem. “A problem well stated, is a problem half-solved” as the saying goes.
Part of stating the problem well comes from getting beyond the obvious “symptoms” to find underlying “root causes” of the problem, i.e. finding the “real” problem. If I reflect on my management consulting career, a critical “get right” in being able to do the project and eventually accumulate the big ticket benefits from transformation programs was actually way back at the start of the project.
It was about gathering data and doing analysis to identify and “prove” what the problem was, then a process of alignment, getting people (leaders, staff) on board that this was in fact the problem, and it was worth solving, and that doing nothing wasn’t an option!
Changing how you see a problem often involves the formal and informal process of identifying and challenging assumptions and constraints around the problem and possible solutions. Sometimes these assumptions are just historical ways of doing things and inertia, or perhaps even something done for a reason that doesn’t exist any more, or that the situation has moved on.
A typical example in business is the assumption that more customers = better. Except that we know that much revenue and particularly profit often comes from a handful of customers (e.g. 5–20%), and products for that matter. Most businesses carry customers that actually lose them money, and take a disproportionate amount of time, stress and executive attention to serve. Instead of trying to “boil the ocean” for more customers, perhaps the answer is to fire some of your customers, and invest in segmentation/customer profitability etc etc.
The classic example of reframing (called the elevator problem), and the reason that we have mirrors in elevator lobbies, is that people get frustrated waiting for an elevator not because of the absolute wait time (as you might assume) but because they are bored (this was before smartphones). Mirrors (which divert attention and relieve boredom) are a much cheaper solution to the “real” problem than installing jet-propelled elevators.
Framing is also about getting clear on the parameters of the objectives and outputs you seek from the creative process i.e. what, when, where, for whom and so on. A well known framing tool for business communication is the AIM model (Audience, Intent, Message e.g. Schramm. Also Russell and Munter), and Barbara Minto’s “SCQR” in The Pyramid Principle is another. Too often we get in a creative block because we are thinking about ourselves, instead of our customers/users/employees and what is valuable to them.
I’m currently helping some first time authors to write a business book, and we spent quite a bit of time upfront trying to identify their unique point of view, the central idea of the book. Once that point of view was determined it gave the rest of the book an overarching frame and a focus (their point of view is that marketing shouldn’t be a back office function in B2B firms, but a strategic partner that helps move firms towards revenue generation/growth centricity…and then they go on to describe how to do that).
We’ll return to this, but throughout the creative process you’ll be trying to not only come up with an idea but increase the impact of your idea. The quality of an idea is not only how good it is relative to a bad idea, but how good it can become relative to where it started. And that comes down to things like focus and uniqueness, editing and refining, as well as tuning and optimizing the value in the eyes of the receiver of the idea.
Getting clear on what you’re trying to do (why, and for whom) e.g. by using the tools mentioned above is a great way to start to unlock your, your teams and the organizations creative flow.
From an artistic perspective an example of Framing is your individual point of view (lens) and this often is related to your taste, persona and style.
The reframing element of Impressionistic painting, for example, was to paint what you feel not just what you see. This single change in frame influenced hundreds of artists and thousands (if not more) creative pieces. So framing (your/your organization’s point of view and perspective) can create a rich “lane” of creativity that you can follow for years or decades (think Apple = Simple).
I make music under various names/groups/aliases and each has a different persona and point of view. When I get and idea (or a remix) it is interesting to try to frame and look at the idea from the perspective of these different personas and see which path might produce the most surprising and impactful result. Once I’ve chosen the frame, this kind of implies and brings along with it a bunch of default creative decisions about how to approach the song/project and how it will probably sound at the end.
2. Ingestion
Getting clearer on the problem/parameters will naturally give you a clearer idea of what inputs you might need to do your work in the creative process e.g. knowledge, research, interviews, chatting to others about the problem and so on. Ingestion is the stage where you take in the majority of those inputs upfront.
If your aim is to generate ideas for business, then you might conduct a trend analysis as part of ingestion (e.g. PESTEL — Political, Economic, Social, Environmental and Legal), and also get micro feedback, do interviews, and/or perform observation of individual customers, users, employees and so on. While you should always be open to the unexpected, you’ll typically be looking for insights into the wants/needs/problems/frustrations/dreams of those groups of individuals. As a general point, you get more creative by getting out of your office and interacting with others.
Really the ingestion process is happening “silently” all the time working on all of the sensory, informational and emotional input that comes our way on a daily basis. So the ingestion process might involve tapping into your own (or your team’s) bank of memories and experiences. Ingestion as a process is related to the experiences and knowledge component in the creative capability framework, so it’s not just getting new knowledge, but also accessing the broader knowledge “stores”. The better mix of diverse and deep knowledge that you and your team have in those stores and in yourselves, all other things being equal, the better fuel you have for creative insights and breakthroughs.
There is a phenomenon where if, for example, you’re researching a car or just bought one and you begin to see that car everywhere. Or you hear an unusual word then hear it several times shortly afterwards. This is the process of sensitization, and by working effectively on the problem and objectives in the Framing stage, we set ourselves up for success in beginning to see relevant information, and potentially solutions, as we go through our day to day lives and work.
Artists in particular are aware of the fact that ideas can come from anywhere at any time, and train themselves to both recognize the idea (i.e. sensitize themselves), and to record it (e.g. in a notebook or on a phone). This awareness and sensitization to the external environment and our internal feelings is the basis of “creating something from nothing” or the alchemy of creativity. By working on creativity it is not only that we learn to do and think differently, but also that we learn to see.
I’ve actually run an activity called “Walk and See” a number of times as a group or part of a seminar which is an experiential way of illustrating this point. We give participants some basic instruction on how to take better smartphone pictures, and a theme, then let them loose to take photos. Really it’s not about the photos per se, it is about building creative confidence and having participants get used to looking at things with fresh eyes, experiencing that ideas are everywhere.
I mention this here to highlight again that a key to being more creative is not necessarily by reading a bunch of books (or long LinkedIn articles, though some context and pictures are useful) but the key is doing and having experiences (a useful type of ingestion) that let you learn and feel and internalize the principles and practices of creativity.
So improving creativity is about having the right program of activities, experiences and content that immerses you. Read more about it after you’ve experienced it.
3. Synthesis
Synthesis is analyzing the ideas coming out of the Ingestion stage e.g. through categorization and prioritization, identifying the most valuable ones, forming connections between ideas, and combining ideas to form new ones. During Synthesis you might well end up reframing the problem (going back to Framing), or needing more inputs (Ingestion).
In the case of problem solving, synthesis should give you a clearer fix on the problem and some information to back that up, along with a better evaluation of the degree of impact of both the problem and potentials solutions.
The Synthesis stage not only provides an opportunity to discover interesting stuff but also to ask “so what?” to what you are seeing and hearing. Sometimes a topic will pop up a lot (in interviews, for example), but that doesn’t necessarily mean there is a lot of value to the customer/user/employee for solving that problem, or value for you to cost effectively address that point.
Likewise, in the case of creating valuable business ideas, you’ll be looking back at all the information (e.g. interviews, observation) to see where the biggest problems and opportunities lie. Synthesis can be exciting (I promise) particularly when you get fresh insights from customers/users/employees/etc. that are surprising and change up (reframing) the way you see what you’re trying to achieve, and opening up new possibilities.
From an artist’s point of view synthesis, like ingestion, is also happening all the time, as well as deliberately and deeper in certain stages of the creative process.
For example, writers tend to be avid readers. Musicians have an established taste in music. They not only ingest content, but also are adept at “tasting” and synthesizing that content. This involves looking at the whole idea and breaking down the component parts, identifying distinctions (what is good/bad in an objective sense, like/dislike), understanding what makes the idea “work”, having ideas on how to fix what doesn’t work, and being able to articulate all of the above. Synthesis in this sense is connected to the Experiences + Knowledge and (domain and creative Skills dots in the creative capability model.
Not only in artistry, but science and entrepreneurship to name two other examples, creativity comes not only from generating unique ideas out of thin air, but by combining and juxtaposing existing ideas in a novel way. New inputs might be combined together in the Synthesis stage, but also a new input will gel with an existing idea from your/your team’s story or knowledge, memories and experiences, and result in a new and useful idea.
This idea of combining and juxtaposing can also be done in a deliberate way, smashing two (or more) seemingly disparate ideas together to form a new one. Ironically using a technique that constrains the creative process (as will other types of constraints) can actually unblock creativity and increase the degree of creativeness in the resultant ideas since it provides a focus point and clear problem, that probably has few obvious (low creativity) ideas suggested by it.
This type of synthesis and constraint is the basis of the “Three Circles” personal and professional development tool I’ve written about in my book and on LinkedIn (will post a link below). Instead of trying to broadly pursue one thing that you’re passionate about at work and in life, overlap three things that you’re passionate about and find a new thing at the intersection of all three. To do that you have to get specific, and get into problem solving mode.
My three circles by the way are creativity, leadership and lifestyle. Although you’ll find me bouncing between the three, I rarely go outside of those three, and am constantly challenging myself to work at the intersection of all three. This article in fact is at the intersection, since how I’m framing creativity is as a tool for work and life and you, my friends, are the leaders who’ll get and share the benefits of all of this I hope!
4. Incubation
Incubation is the period of time where we keep the idea “warm” but are not directly working on it. Although we’re not directly working on the problem, our subconscious keeping doing the work of synthesis, making new connections, ingesting and framing and ideally we get might even get a “flash” of insight into the problem or solution (both are useful).
I often visualize direct “classic” Ideation (the next stage) as being like a battering ram attacking the front door of a fortified castle in the old days. In contrast, Incubation (and indirect ideation techniques like jamming and play) are more like walking around the side of the castle to see that someone has left a door open!
Many of you will be familiar with the experience of incubation, and of illumination coming at unexpected times, and in unexpected places. Certain activities such as sleeping (Edison), bathing (Archimedes) and walking (just about every artist and scientist) seem to promote incubation. I’ll share a link below to another article on LinkedIn on the topic of incubation if you’re interested, and you can also read up in the references I mention below.
From a professional perspective, I’ve been aware for a while of the need to provide breaks and to change “modes” when designing (offsite) workshops for example.
We’ll aim to find a natural and logical break for coffee, dinner or a creative activity between discussing the problem, and working on solutions. Other techniques are using a pre-read describing the problem and asking to bring thoughts to the session, or sharing information in one location, then moving to a different area to work on solutions.
Improving your own creative practice comes down to self-awareness, for example in realizing that you’re stuck or in a state of diminishing returns then taking a break.
Actually that break can actually be doing a different type of work. Sometimes I’ll take a break from writing, for example, and work on a musical idea. Several artists I know build in time to a project to allow for incubation but, importantly, they always have a stab at the problem first and often find the opportunity to discuss the project with others and get thoughts and feedback (overlapping and iterating Ingestion, Synthesis and Incubation).
A practical reason to have several projects on the go (ref: Belsky) is to be able to put down a project that is blocked, and always be able to pick up another, thus getting through more projects.
5. Ideation
The ideation stage is about deliberate attempts at idea generation. People often equate the whole of the creative process with the ideation step, but as you’ve seen ideas can arrive at any stage of the process and a lot of work goes on in the other prior stages to set ideation up for success.
This is a critical point because, for example, could you imagine flying in a team from around all over to ideate on the wrong problem, or with no supporting information? That is not only unlikely to be successful to say the least, but it risks not only wasting time but also damaging trust in process and people, perhaps permanently.
The bigger point here is that while writing a poem, and creating a new corporate division (that the organization’s future rests on) are both creative processes, the expectations, detail, stakes, context and attitudes are different, and the configuration of the capability required to support these is different!
In fact, even in the context of developing and launching a single product, for example, attitudes, skillsets and success factors and people will differ across the different stages of that process. Much of the end-to-end process of bringing an idea into the world is far away from the “shooting from the hip” or “firecracker” image of creative brainstorming (and many would argue that those images of creativity are not only unrepresentative, but also counterproductive). Often ideation looks quite different from “brainstorming in a conference room”.
The quality of ideas generated in Ideation is also highly influenced by the overall level of creative capability (e.g. knowledge, skills, habits and so on), so while it’s is easy to get hung up on ideation techniques, working across the nine dots of the creative capability framework will deliver more consistent results.
You might have started the creative process already with a specific idea, so Ideation becomes about fleshing out that idea and exploring different possibilities from there. For example, the idea for a line or melody for a song might come into my mind, and ideation from there might first involve looking for an overall theme for the song, the genre, then fleshing out the idea into a finished song/track.
Other more open-ended ideation techniques involve “riffing” with others, and play, which work not only in artistic circles and the traditional creative industries, but across many different sectors, so long as the right context and environment are in place to set those techniques and sessions up for success.
Finding the right ideation tool and process for the situation is an art and science of its own and there has already been much written on the topic for you to explore. What questions do you have? Would you like an article on ideation e.g. for the three disciplines in future?
6. Structuring
The structuring process is about taking the raw parts of an idea and fleshing them out, finding gaps, prioritizing, and rearranging the parts of the idea into a cohesive whole.
It is also about properly such basics as capturing and documenting the outputs of the ideation process so that they are not lost, which might extend to video and/or audio recording in the previous stage! This can include capturing the questions and actions coming out of the ideation process, and as appropriate getting these followed up before the idea is taken to the next stage, or communicated to a wider audience.
As mundane as this all might sound, not following up properly after Ideation sessions can kill any momentum that might have grown around the ideas in the session. Without follow up, people forget and move on, and good ideas stagnate and die.
Structuring might take the form of applying an overarching metaphor or theme to an idea, or to pull a group of small ideas into a larger one. A good metaphor (or story) can really make or break the idea it supports. In fact, storytelling (e.g. origin story, vision of a product or service) is a whole discipline in itself, both in the corporate domain and, obviously, creative writing. But it is a discipline that you can quickly begin to learn and apply.
We’re starting to get into the territory here of how to package up, communicate and sell the idea, and all of these factors are key in getting the idea out into the world. So, what we are doing in this stage of the process, way before we even get around to implementing the idea, plays a huge role in the ultimate success of the idea.
7. Verification
As the name suggests, verification is about proving out, substantiating and testing your idea.
Verification can take many forms: from scientific investigation, to expert feedback, to a self check. Verification can lead into prototyping (to be discussed shortly), but I most often like to think of it as a quick check to ask “am I on the right track”.
You might want to test the feasibility or palatability or appeal of an idea before proceeding further. You might want to see if the benefits of the idea warrant further effort, and that those are clear and your idea story resonates with the ultimate recipients of the idea. You might want to ask yourself whether you want to take the idea forward.
Structuring and Validation can be an antidote to getting stuck at the idea/ideation stage of the creative process, because taking the idea to others in a sense makes that idea real.
Many of you reading this will be sitting on ideas, some of which might be great ideas. But you’ll never know because you haven’t told anyone your idea.
There is pain in sharing that idea. You might find out it is bad, and that is sad.
At least in the short term anyway. I hope you recognize that creativity is not just about having one good idea once. It is about a capability to generate, recognized, refine, strengthen (and even reject or have rejected) many ideas many times. It’s better to find out an idea is bad, or (likely) that there are things you need to do to fix it, and then pull yourself together to actually do the work, rather than live in an idea bubble that is not reality.
There endeth the sermon on personal creativity, tune in next week for why you should get more sleep and exercise.
The standup comedians pitch session that I attended and talked about in the last article combines Ideation, Verification and Refinement (the next step) in a neat package, and illustrates the above point. Having the initial idea is only “table stakes”, and you only really know you have an idea when it has an impact in the real world. In this case, when it makes other comedians laugh.
Another example of a verification/validation pitch I’ve seen are the 1 Million Cups entrepreneurial pitch sessions that happen in cities around the world. The ones I attended in Dallas showed again and again that an idea that sounds great on paper often crumbles under basic questioning in front of an audience (and get a completely different reaction than pitching to one person at a time).
Pitching, for example, is common in the creative industries (and startups) but I feel is not only less so the further you go away from those industries, but also there are not insignificant (trust) barriers to even making pitching a possibility. Again this is a topic picked up in creative capability — how to create the right environment and culture to enable increased creativity.
In an organizational setting the Verification stage might be associated with a formal stage gate and go/no go decision.
8. Refinement
Refinement includes the formal and informal process of soliciting and receiving and triaging feedback, and of strengthening your idea.
Refinement typically involves fleshing out the idea further, and bringing in other people and perspectives to look at the idea from both a holistic, and from a detailed perspective. Refinement might involve fleshing out the financial costs and benefits of an idea, or the feasibility of implementation (e.g. from a manufacturing point of view), if that hasn’t been looked at already.
An important part of refinement is not necessarily working out whether the idea is “good” or “bad”, since you already did some of that in the verification stage.
Rather you’re trying to strengthen or increase the impact of the idea.
Assuming that you’ve gotten some positive feedback on the idea, how to you change your idea up so that it “blows people’s socks off”? It can be hard to solicit and receive feedback but that is a critical skill/habit in learning to be more creative.
Storyboarding, used interactively, can be a quick way to gather and look at improvement suggestions if the technique fits what you’re trying to do. It allows you to chunk up the idea, and to see which bits are working and which need more work or fine tuning.
Often “less is more”, and refining an idea means editing down or narrowing the scope of what you’re doing (and for whom you’re doing it).
It is hard to imagine that this article could be ten times longer. But if it was it would have to deliver dramatically more value to justify that. If this article was ten times shorter and could deliver the same value that would be amazing!
Sorry.
9. Prototyping
In some cases, such as product and service design, you might insist on building a prototype or MVP (minimum viable product) for your idea, so that you can get direct feedback from potential customers and users (and investors and so on).
Pilots are a kind of prototyping that I use a lot. Often I’ll test a new video concept, for example, by making a single episode (or three) and then looking at the response it gets. How to get feedback from online audiences, and more generally which bits of feedback to take and which bits to change does involve a bit of trial and error and a learning curve all of its own, parallel to working on the content itself.
I wont go too much more into detail on prototyping except to say that sometimes we spend so much time discussing and fretting over an idea and what it might or might not be like, we could just have just built it (and sometimes it is better to preempt that and just build it and bring that to the discussion). We could discuss a tweak to the logistics process, for example, or we could just satisfy ourselves enough that we can just try out the tweak at a quiet time, with relatively low risk.
Sometimes we don’t know what someone wants, and they also don’t know what they want unless they see it. They might see it and love it, or become sure at that point that whatever it is, is NOT what they want. Like my kids, I say do you want X for dinner and they say “sure” and then I make X, and they look and see X is green or brown, and therefore they don’t want it. A whimsical example, or is it. Sometimes you assume the criteria someone else is going to use to assess something is X, but it turns out to be Z, Q and R. And whether it is shiny.
10. Production
Production is finalizing the idea and putting it out into the world (or at least working out where it needs to go next, and working on getting it to the next step) and, for the sake of this discussion, that includes marketing the idea in one form or another.
The approach of including marketing of an idea in the creative process for that idea might be controversial or confusing to some of you, but whether you’re a musician or a scientist it is inevitable today that you’ll have to sell the idea and sell yourself (e.g. to get resources, support, funding) if you ever want the idea to get out into the world.
Even with a well-developed organizational creative capability, it is likely that the fleshed out idea will go through further rounds of review and approval (proposing, pitching etc).
Knowing that you’ll have to eventually market the idea affects how you think about earlier stages of the creative process e.g. structuring. And potential marketability (including production complexity and cost) might well affect how you assess the quality and strength of ideas and which ideas to pursue, and might even go all the way back to framing in terms of which ideas you try to come up with in the first place.
Thus this final stage of this creative process becomes a catchall, in a sense, for all the work that must be done to work out where/who the idea needs to go to and the work to get the idea to that next step/person.
Given this, the amount of work in this stage can vary dramatically depending on how much distance there is between where the idea is now and the final product.
If your creative task was to write an article for LinkedIn, for example, and you already have a drafted article, then the production step might involve finalizing and proofreading the article, and posting it on to the platform (and promoting it to your network).
If you want to make a movie, and you’re at the stage of having an idea for a movie that has been iterated and you’ve had feedback on, then you’re a long way from getting the movie on a screen.
In fact in movie parlance you’re not even at production stage, rather in “development”. You might need to write a treatment or a pitch or even a spec script.
So while we’ve looked at a general creative process that helps with problem solving, expression and creating business ideas, you’ll also need to become familiar with the specific process relating to what you’re trying to do!
That is not to say that you can’t “get creative” with that process once you know it.
Also, as I mentioned in Framing there may be specific formats or other parameters your idea must comply to. Better to find those out at the start, and start with the end in mind.
Conclusion
In this article I’ve introduced a picture and definition of a general 10-step creative process.
You’ve seen that creativity is more than Ideation. The steps before Ideation set that process up for success, and the steps following help ensure the idea is refined and strengthened (and in fact is a good idea), before getting the idea on to the next stage of its process to getting to the outside world in final form.
Creativity as a process is just one of the nine dots of the overarching creative capability model.
Going forward, I will be using the process model you’ve just seen as a way to share information on how to improve your creativity as an organization, team or individual.
I think that now having the capability framework and process model in your pocket is already a good start on that journey, so thanks for reading this far.
References:
1. The Art of Thought (1926) — Graham Wallas
2. Applied Imagination (1953) — Alex Osborn (a.k.a. “the father of brainstorming)
3. Creative Confidence (2013) — Tom and David Kelley
If you’re interested in some other ideas for creative books to read I’ll repost the link to my list below.
Until next time.
