Creativity techniques: analytical tools, analogies and brainstorming

Creativity techniques help groups generate ideas and solve problems more effectively. They fall into two broad categories: systematic-analytical techniques, which use structured analysis to find opportunities and solutions, and associative and imaginative techniques, which rely on associations, analogies and imagination.

Systematic-analytical techniques

Tool	What it does	Used for
Design Thinking Canvas	Visual tool that structures problem-solving and organizes ideas	Supporting analysis and communication
Customer Journey Map	Maps the customer's experience across different stages	Finding problems and opportunities, understanding needs and emotions, generating improvement ideas
Empathy Map	Shows what users think, feel and need	Building a customer-centered perspective
Personas	Fictional representations of target users based on research	Understanding customer groups and designing around user needs
W-Cascade	Goal-setting and planning tool that breaks large goals into smaller objectives	Clarifying how goals can be achieved, improving communication and alignment

Note the difference between a customer journey map (the sequence of stages a customer goes through) and an empathy map (what a user thinks, feels and needs). Personas are fictional but must be based on research.

Analogical thinking

Analogical thinking means finding similarities between unrelated situations, concepts or objects. It creates new perspectives on problems, encourages unconventional solutions and helps transfer ideas from one context to another. Many innovations come from applying a solution from one field to a problem in another field.

The excursion method

The excursion method deliberately takes people away from the problem environment. Participants are exposed to unrelated situations or experiences and then use the resulting insights to generate ideas for the original problem. The main steps are:

Excursion: imagine or experience a completely unrelated setting.
Review: reflect on observations and experiences.
Create analogies: link insights from the excursion to the original problem.
Evaluation: discuss and combine ideas into potential solutions.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Encourages out-of-the-box thinking	Some participants may not take it seriously
Reduces mental blocks	Success depends heavily on imagination
Lowers stress and pressure	Insights may not transfer back to the original problem
Generates unusual and original ideas	Can become time-consuming without useful outcomes

Brainstorming

Brainstorming (Osborn, 1957) is a group creativity technique for generating a large number of ideas in a short time. It is most useful during problem definition, idea generation and early solution development, and less useful during implementation and evaluation.

A session moves through two stages:

Divergence: generate as many ideas as possible, focus on quantity rather than quality, encourage unconventional thinking.
Convergence: organize, evaluate and select the most promising ideas.

Four core rules of brainstorming

Withhold criticism: no judging during idea generation; this creates psychological safety.
Welcome wild ideas: unusual and radical ideas can lead to innovative solutions.
Go for quantity: more ideas increase the chance of finding a valuable one.
Combine and improve ideas: build on each other's suggestions.

Advantages	Limitations
Encourages creativity and free expression	Can produce many unrelated ideas
Stimulates collaboration and teamwork	Free-riding: some participants contribute less
Generates diverse ideas and perspectives	Production blocking: people forget ideas while waiting to speak
Improves problem-solving through collective thinking	Quality depends heavily on participants; discussions may drift off-topic; evaluation can be time-consuming; group conflicts may reduce effectiveness

Organizing a brainstorming session

Requirements: 8 to 15 participants (more with digital tools), a suitable meeting space, 1 to 3 hours and materials to record ideas. Preparation: clearly define the problem, share relevant information beforehand, prepare an agenda and assign roles.

Main steps: introduce the purpose and rules; define and discuss the problem; present the central question; do a warm-up exercise; generate and record ideas; ask for the "wildest ideas" when creativity slows down; evaluate and select ideas after the session.

Key success factors: a well-prepared problem statement, no criticism during ideation, visible recording of ideas, and postponing evaluation until idea generation is complete.

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