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CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
Lesson 2
• Define creativity
• Contrast the two types of creativity
• Explain the importance of creativity
• Develop a creative frame of mind
• Apply some creative techniques in solving
problems and exploiting opportunities
WHAT IS CREATIVITY
What is
Creativity
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What is Creativity
Artistic Creativity
• Creativity is the use of the imagination or
original ideas, especially in the production of
artistic or technical work
• Creativity is imagination, inventiveness,
resourcefulness and vision to create
something of value.
• There are two types of creativity
– Artistic creativity
– Technical creativity
Artistic Creativity
Artistic Creativity
• More in born of skill, technique and self
expression
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Technical Creativity
Technical Creativity
• Where people create new theories,
technologies or ideas for business or social
benefit
• This is displayed in different aspects of business and
different industries
Technical Creativity
Programmed Thinking
– Architecture
– Technology
– Mobile
– Computing
– Medical
– Space
– Products
– Distribution
– Promotion
– Strategy
• Programmed Thinking
• Lateral Thinking
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Programmed Thinking
Lateral Thinking
• Our brains are pattern recognition systems.
• We can instantly recognize patterns such as faces,
language, and handwriting
• Unfortunately, we get stuck in our patterns.
• We tend to think within them
• Solutions we develop are based on previous
solutions to similar problems
• Effective in making products and services
improvements
Think Outside the Box
Think Outside the Box
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Think Outside the Box
Lateral Thinking
Creative Pause
• Breaks out of patterned way of thinking
• Generates completely new concepts and
ideas, and brilliant improvements to existing
systems
• It can be unnecessarily disruptive
• The time needed to take a step back and allow
yourself to ask yourself if there is a better way
of doing something
Edward de Bono
• View challenges as opportunities for
improvement
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Creative frame of mind
• The difference between creative and
uncreative people is self-perception
• Creative people see themselves as creative
and give themselves the freedom to create
• Uncreative people do not think about
creativity and do not give themselves the
opportunity to create anything new
INNOVATION
Creative frame of mind
• Knowledge gathering
– background research on the problems or issues.
• Incubation process
– let the subconscious mull over the problem.
(Sleep on it).
• Define the concepts of innovation
• Categorize the forms of innovation
• Explain reasons for innovating
• Describe the sources of innovation
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What is Innovation
What is Innovation
• Innovation is production or adoption,
assimilation, and exploitation of a valueadded novelty in economic and social spheres
• Results in
• Innovation is implementation of a creative
idea or opportunity leading to profitable and
effective outcomes
• Innovation is an adoption of change which is
new to an organization and relevant
environment.
– renewal and enlargement of products, services,
and markets;
– development of new methods of production;
– establishment of new management systems”
Crossan and Apaydin, 2010
Mapping definitions of Innovations
Knight ,1967
Forms of Innovations
1. Radical (Revolutionary) Innovations
• Discontinuous, revolutionary, original, basic or
pioneering innovations.
Gilbert, 1994 and Kamm, 1996
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Forms of Innovations
Forms of Innovations
2. Incremental (Evolutionary) Innovations
• Small improvements made to enhance and
extend the establishment, processes, products
and services.
Gilbert, 1994 and Kamm, 1996
Forms of innovation
Reasons for Innovations in Business
• Survival of business
• Growth of business
• Creating competitive advantage
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Sources of Innovation
1.
The Unexpected
– Look out for things you never expected to happen
2.
Incongruities
– Thinking differently from competitors and society
3.
Process need.
–
4.
–
5.
Think differently and how the processes can be changed
Changes in Industry and Market Structures.
Look out for changes happening in the market and industry or how
you can influence that change
Demographics
Approaches to Acquiring Innovations
• Buying innovation in the market
• Investing in innovators
• Co sourcing innovation
• Resourcing from highly skilled people
• Internal innovation taskforce
– Changes in population
6.
Changes in Perception
–
7.
Perceptions change over time so look out for them
New knowledge
Barriers to Innovation
• Turfism’ –sticking to old thinking patterns
• Punishment for failure
• Rigid rules
• Lack of funds
• Lack of knowledge
• Lack of time given to innovation
• Lack of top management support
Ahmed,1998
Factors Affecting Innovativeness
1. Individual Factors
• Expertise
• Creative thinking skills
• Task motivation
• Self confidence
• Curiosity
• Persistence
Amabile,1983
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Factors Affecting Innovativeness
2. Organisational Factors
Factors Affecting Innovativeness
3. Environmental Factors
– Organisational culture
– Degree of specialisation
– Management support
– Tolerance of failure
– Time availability
– Market uncertainties & market changes
– Supply uncertainties
– Perception changes
– Demographic changes
Hornsby et al, 2002
Manifestations of Creative Change
Mc Ginnis & Ackelberg, 1983
Manifestations
• New products and services,
• New methods of production,
• New markets,
• New sources of supply
• New ways of organizing
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Group discussion
Creative Techniques
• Pick one organisation you know well and
consider to be innovative. Discuss the factors
that make this organisation innovative.
Learning Outcomes
1. Ansoff Matrix
• Develop creative ability
• See the world from a creative perspective
• Ability to apply lateral (divergent) and
programmed (logical) thinking patterns to
bring about new products, services or radical
solutions
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2. SCAMPER Technique
• SCAMPER is a checklist that helps you to think
of changes you can make to an existing
product to create a new one
• This is a list of changes that you could make to
existing products and services to open up new
opportunities
• You can use these changes either as direct
suggestions or as starting points for lateral
thinking
SCAMPER Technique
• Developed by Bob Eberle
• It is an acronym that stands for:
– Substitute
– Combine
– Adapt
– Modify
– Put to another use
– Eliminate
– Reverse
SCAMPER Technique
• Substitute
– Substitute components, materials, people
• Combine
– Mix, combine assemblies, integrate
• Adapt
– Alter, change function, use another part
• Modify
• Put to another use
– Find new uses
• Eliminate
– Remove elements, simplify, reduce to core
• Reverse
– Turn inside out or upside down
– Increase or reduce in scale, change shape, modify
attributes
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3. Attribute Listing, Matrix Analysis &
Morphological Analysis
• Good technique to generate new products
and services
• List the attributes of the product, service or
strategy you are examining
• Attributes are parts, properties, qualities or
design elements of the thing being looked at
Zwicky Box
B
C
D
• Draw up a table using these attributes as
column headings (Zwicky Box) Fritz Zwicky,
1960s
• Write down as many variations of the
attribute as possible within these columns.
• The table should now show all possible
variations of each attribute
Draw Possible Product Ideas
Product Name……………………………………….
A
Using the Technique
E
F
G
• Now select one entry from each column
• By mixing one item from each column, you
will create a new mixture of components
• Examine the ideas for practicality
• Then you can develop a new product, service
or strategy
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Technique Focus
Technique Focus
• Attribute Listing focuses on the attributes of
an object, seeing how each attribute could be
improved
• Matrix Analysis focuses on businesses. It is
used to generate new approaches, using
attributes such as market sectors, customer
needs, products, promotional methods, etc
4. Random Inputs
Please Note
• Is a lateral thinking tool
• It is very useful when you need fresh ideas or
new perspectives during problem solving
• Select a random noun from either a dictionary
or a pre-prepared wordlist
• Use this noun as the starting point for
brainstorming your problem
• Use concrete nouns from your field of
expertise
• Do not use nouns directly related to the
problem
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Random input example
5. Provocation
• It has been said that Campbell’s Chunky Soups originated with
random input.
• When Campbell’s Soup were brainstorming new ideas for soup
products
• They used the random word tool and started with the word
“apartment.”
• No logic, they just let the ideas flow – apartment lead to building,
build, tools, hammer, saw, drill, knife, which eventually lead to fork.
• Someone on team said, “You can’t eat soup with a fork. It would
have to be in chunks to do that.” So Chunky Soup was born.
• Is an important lateral thinking technique
• It works by moving your thinking out of the
established patterns that you use to solve
problems.
Clearly, some of your ideas may be wrong or impractical. But, some
of them might be original, and may be the basis of some useful
development.
Using the Technique
• Make a deliberately stupid comment relating
to the problem you are thinking about
• Then suspend judgment, and use the
statement as the starting point for generating
ideas
• Often this approach will help you to generate
completely new concepts, fresh and original
Provocation technique example
• Problem
– Cars run out of gas after only a few hundred miles
• Provocations
– Po, Invent a car that tows a gas station behind it
– Po, Invent a car that runs on air
– Po, Make everything that the car has to drive to
closer
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Invent a car that tows a gas station
Invent a car that runs on air
• Principle: Having a gas station towed behind the
car would allow a large amount of gas to always
be at the car’s disposal
• Solutions utilizing principle
• Principle: By having the car run on air you
would make the fuel the car runs on readily
available in its environment
• Solutions utilizing principle
– Tank size of cars could be increased
– Invent a car/gas station system where cars could be
refilled from mobile gas stations (car equivalent to inflight refueling)*
– Look to add solar panels to car for supplemental
power
– In hybrid cars look to supplement battery recharging
with wind resistance when slowing not just when
brakes.
Summary Of Techniques Learnt
Make everything that the car has to drive to closer
• Principle: If everything is closer to each other
than you just have to drive shorter distances, thus
your gas goes further time wise
• Possible solutions utilizing principle
• Techniques covered:
– SCAMPER
– Attribute listing/ morphological analysis
– Random input
– Provocation technique
– Plan out your routes for the week based on task
location
– Analyze what things you need at the store to combine
and reduce trips
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