1.1 - Humans are Creative, We Can All Have Good Ideas - The History of Creativity

How we evolved to be creative and what the ancient world can teach us about technology development today.

1.2 - Everyday Creative Thinking - How Ideas Happen

Steven Johnson’s 7 traits of good ideas and why creativity ultimately is all about finding ways of untapping your unconscious mind.

1.3 - Tools & Methods for Generating Ideas on Demand - Brainstorming & Others

Tips, tricks and methods for having ideas when you need them.

1.4 - Tools & Methods for Exploring Problems - The Russian Method of TRIZ

The Russian theory of inventive problem solving. How to use a structured approach to find the real problem worth solving and narrow down the range of possible answers to only the ones likely to succeed.

1.5 - Good Ideas Need Diversity of Thought & Avoiding ‘Idea Fixation’

A common problem for creative problems is becoming fixated on a single idea or approach. This is unhealthy for the project and there are ways to stop it happening.

Creativity in Action:

Watching others be creative gives you ideas about how to do it yourself. So here are some creative practitioners and teachers doing the same challenges we set our students:

Idea Generating Example - Improving and growing a local coffee shop and café

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2.1 - Choosing Which Ideas to Develop

All idea selection methods are basically an equation between value and effort but make reversible decisions very quickly, make irreversible decisions very slowly.

2.2 - Prototyping - How good ideas are not “Intelligently Designed” but Evolve from trial and error

Often thought of as model making, or producing a finished article for display purposes. Prototyping is one of the most important aspects of creative discovery and good idea generation. Prototype everything, often and as quickly as possible.

2.3 - Design & Opportunity Specifications

Technical documents that can be critical if you want to get other people’s help on your ideas.

2.4 - Product, Price, Promotion & Place - The 4 P’s of making an idea a success

Often talked about as “the marketing mix” all four are important if the product is going to be a success.

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3.1 - Reverse Engineering and how it’s your Secret Weapon

Your shortcut up the idea development curve to teach you what the experts already know. Any engineer (and business innovator) should embrace reverse engineering in all its forms (it’s not stealing, it’s learning). An essential development skill.

3.2 - The Teardown Process - Getting to grips with how to take products apart

The forensic disassembly of something for the purposes of learning how it does what it does and why.

Reverse Engineering in Action:

Student Examples - Class of 2019 - Floor Care

Student Examples - Class of 2020 - Kitchen Gadgets

Student Examples - Class of 2021 - Power Tools

Student Examples - Class of 2022 - Toys

Student Examples - Class of 2023 - Garden Tools

4.1 - Marketing & Market Research

Market research is about finding the lock that opens the best chest, then making a key to fit. Not the other way around. Study your market so you know what they want and need.

4.2 - Voice of the Customer - The Traditional Way of Understanding Customers

The usual method any organisation or inventor uses to work out what they should do is to ask their customers or target users. The problem is… people don’t know what they want!

4.3 - User Observations and Testing - A more expert driven rather than data driven method

For any new project to succeed you need to understand the customer’s needs, intentions and actions, even if they don’t fully understand them themselves. A good way to do that is not to ask them, but to observe them and work out what they really want and need.

4.4 - Jobs to be Done - Outcome Driven rather than Solution Driven

An alternative view on working out what people really want is to approach the problem in terms of Jobs, what job is the user trying to achieve. Awkwardly there are two methods with the same name, both approach it slightly differently and both are good at different things.

4.5 - No One is Average (and other surprising human factors that I’ll keep adding to when I find them)

The world of average is all pervasive, but despite being a useful mathematical tool it’s a horrible method for understanding or designing for people.

4.6 - Minimum Viable Products - Testing the Most Important Element

The best way to test a market is through a series of quick experiments. MVPs are those experiments to test your assumptions and find product market fit, it is not about launching a bugger product quickly.

5.1 - The Idea / Creative Lifecycle

The transformation of an idea from an incubating thought through to reality tends to follow the same pattern. Understanding this pattern is helpful in doing it faster.

5.2 - Creative Process Models - Maps of what to do next

Creativity is a very hard thing to predict and structure but lots of people have tried and some methods such as stage gates and design thinking are now common place corporate terms. I like to think of the prescriptive versions of these models as being like maps. Something to follow to help you get from A to B.

My Own Research:

5.3 - The 2 Reasons Why Projects Fail and What That Means for Yours

There are countless ways to fail, but they can all be grouped together into two categories, HOW to do something problems or WHY you’re doing it problems.

Extra Resource - Step by Step guide to Novel vs Routine Project Management

5.4 - A Process Map for any Project - The ‘Fuzzy to Finished’ Development Model

Established design processes usually always start with a “define the problem” step and then a series of “solve the problem” steps. For Novel WHY problems this isn’t helpful. Both the defining and the solving need to be done in parallel.

5.5 - A Process Compass for any Project - A way of keeping track of the risks in your project

Always trust your compass, the map might be wrong or incomplete, but a good compass will always get you out of trouble. It’s the same with project management. Practise using a WHY / HOW compass to navigate any challenge.

Extra Resource - Compass Log Book - Log books and project diaries to keep everything in order.

5.6 - The Three Roles of the Development Journey - Explorers, Prospectors & Miners, which one are you?

5.7 - The Innovation Castle

The innovators quest for a winning solution lies at the centre of a great castle. That castle must be unlocked fully before an idea can become a winner. Leading with purpose and seeking evidence, the Innovation Castle is a helpful visual framework for things you have to consider if your innovation efforts are going to rely on more than just luck.

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6.1 - Established Company Innovation - How large companies try to maintain that creative spirit

How success can be a trap, intrapreneurs and the challenges of new ideas. How to stay creative and dynamically innovative even as your company grows and becomes more bureaucratic.

6.2 - Soldiers & Artists - Balance these two roles like a gardener rather than a prophet

The different people and mindsets needed for any business to succeed at scale. They are different but must work together in balance. Also my own idea of different operating modes that aligns with this, Preservation vs Discovery.

6.3 - Good / Fast / Cheap - The Holy Trinity of better development

Moving faster improves your chances, methods and approaches to saving time and doing things faster.

7.1 - Radical & Incremental Innovation

Radical innovation is when you don’t know who the customer is and what they want (typically a novel problem) whereas incremental is a more routine and lower risk activity, although that doesn’t mean it’s boring or unimportant. It’s critical.

7.2 - Pioneers & Conquerors

Should you always try and be the first to market? If you’re a large company researchers don’t think so. They believe you have a better chance of making a long term success by swooping in quickly to conqueror a new market once you can see which design will be dominant.

7.3 - Disruptive Innovation

Christensen’s identification of a dilemma between creating something new that none of your customers want or doing what you know will be more profitable? If you don’t do both you risk being disrupted by someone who will.

8.1 - History & Purpose of Business

The idea of businesses have been around since ancient times, they are an important part of society and not just a vehicle for making money.

8.2 - Business Organisation Basics - Explaining a few of the basic terms

Established businesses tend to be organised in similar ways, a quick tour of some business basics.

8.3 - Business Models

The key to any successful business is a successful business model. Without it you have hype and maybe even fraud. A successful model needs to be desirable, feasible, viable and adaptable.

8.4 - Competition

Businesses are not murdered, they commit suicide. Business fail not because of the competition but because of poor decision making and a lack of imagination. If you want to stay in business you need to climb the competitive mountain and escape the competition and learn from your worthy rivals.

8.5 - Business Model Innovation

There are ten ways to innovate, a new better product is just one of them.

8.6 - Starting a Business & the Business of Starting

Open and receptive of the facts in front of you, nimble and quick to change course, humble of the reality that luck is often the most critical element. But most of the time you can skew the game in your favour by keeping things as a side project until it can stand on it’s own.

Extra Resource - How to write business plans - the WHAT, WHY & HOW of business pitches

8.7 - Entrepreneurs vs Self-Employed

One is not better than the other, but don’t confuse the two. Entrepreneurs hope to build something bigger that ultimately makes them redundant. Most self-employed roles can’t scale beyond themselves.

8.8 - Growth and Investors

There are many ways to grow and many ways to get financial support. But different investors want different things. The key is building momentum so like a snowball rolling down a hill at some point people think you’re unstoppable.

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9.1 - Leadership vs Management

Managers are needed to keep routine projects efficient, but novel projects need leadership, and leadership should always put the wellbeing of its followers before its own.

9.2 - Strategy

A good strategy defines the problem, creates guiding policies and clear actions or instructions as to what to do.

9.3 - Dealing with Failure

We all fail, but failing (the verb) can be a positive force and is not the same as failure (the noun)

9.4 - Impact Players

We usually can’t start on day one as the leader, we have to climb to the top. But research shows some character traits in some performers greatly accelerate their rise to the top.

10.1 - Personal Finance, Compound Interest & Tax

You can reach financial freedom if your monthly income is greater than your monthly outgoings. Assets produce an income, liabilities an expense. Maximise your assets and use the income to get mor

10.2 - Financial Markets, Stock Exchanges & Traders

Investing is gambling. 92% of active stock pickers fail to beat the market. You’ll always hear the story of your mate who made money in the stock market because everyone keeps their failures quiet.

10.3 - Value - Calculating worth and why prices change

How do you define what something is worth and why does that value go up or down?