Can innovation be a simple mathematical formula?

“Creativity based Innovation” pushes and stimulates our mathematical brain.

All along the innovation process, we need to work ideas as numbers by adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing them into stages of divergence, convergence, selection and filtering, clustering and final decision making.
As in “Maths”, sometimes two opposite ideas - when added together - become a disruptive concept. Our creative “brain” is prepared and able to find simple solutions to difficult “equations”. This is the reason why also in our day-to-day lives “mathematics” can help us to “simplify complexity”.
“Creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s also the things we choose to leave out.” (Austin Kleon, 2012)
This simple statement can be interpreted as follows: Putting something in = adding; leaving something out =subtracting. You can build innovation starting from scratch by putting in (adding) ideas, contents, and potential solutions to the initial challenge. The opposite of adding is obviously subtracting (i.e. leaving things out).
Being creative by subtracting implies initially starting off with loads of stuff, to subsequently commence chipping away, removing things little by little until the final work is revealed underneath, thus clearing all redundancies, and selecting and synergizing the best ideas.
We could furthermore opt for a combined creative technique, which can be used to facilitate the development of better and deeper ideas:
  • The Addition technique: This is the most natural technique, since we are all born creators, implying that all of us love to give ideas and build solutions;
  • The Subtraction technique: This technique challenges people’s assumptions on creativity and it exposes their fixedness. Subtraction is very useful when your starting point is well understood or the product or service is well established;
  • The Multiplication technique: This technique is useful when you are innovating a work process. It is an excellent tool to help you see redundancies or opportunities to improve a process;
  • The Division technique: Is the technique of choice when dealing with a process or service. It's a great technique for innovating a manufacturing process, for example.
This mathematical combination of creative techniques is a powerful way to simplify the process of diverge and converge and to guarantee that you really sieve the soil to uncover your golden ideas to success.
As with most of the creative techniques that are used in group dynamics, it is of utmost importance that egos can be put aside, thus fully using these techniques in combination with an altruistic state of mind. De Bono created the six hats method to deal with ego clashes in the initial stages of ideation within the innovation process, e.g. “the Black hat”, means that nobody in the group can initially say “it’s impossible”, or “it’s a stupid idea” – all ideas matter because they can be a great stimulus to the out of the context idea enabling the “other” to add, subtract, multiply or divide.
We, at INNOKINETICS, like to focus our efforts on helping all organizations to follow the “simplify complexity” path.
Our tools and innovation systems are applicable during all stages and our canvasses are designed according to the simple “Maths” principles. Very often, innovation is more about subtracting than about adding.
Adding ideas, e.g. during basic brainstorming techniques, which are often used by consultants, is easy but sometimes “fake or jumping prematurely to conclusions”. Although you might have the initial feeling of being creative during a basic brainstorming session, this type of exercise on its own hardly leads to concrete innovative results. Our experiences and expertise taught us that, more effective and more complex creativity techniques and sessions are of utmost importance in order to guarantee their usefulness and effectiveness within a genuine innovation process.  Therefore, several adding and subtracting levels during the execution stages are required and of primordial importance to ensure the creation and development of effective and usable innovative concepts.
This post was originally published on our company website under http://innokinetics.com/can-innovation-be-a-simple-mathematical-formula/

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