Innovation requires a delicate balance between discipline and creative thought. Many people believe that creativity is an innate talent - you are born with it or you are not - but the reality is that anyone can learn and practice being creative. One of the best ways to tap into the novel ideas inside of you is to get in the habit of looking for problems to solve. Our approach to creative problem solving emphasizes the importance of building passion and knowledge before starting the idea generation process. We work hard to make the CEL classroom an ideal environment for the play, curiosity, and exploration that inspires creativity and innovation.

The fastest way to become an opportunity seeker is to get in the habit of noticing things in your world that are frustrating or inspirational. Jot down ideas and questions as they occur, returning to those notes later to add additional details or drawings. While there are many great digital note-taking resources, we provide our students with physical notebooks to allow for creative expression and ease of access. No matter where you take notes, make sure to offload ideas frequently so you can be open to finding even more opportunities.

Vuja de is a term originally coined by comedian George Carlin, but often referenced by creativity and innovation experts like Adam Grant and Robert Sutton. It is the process of looking at something that you've seen many times before with fresh eyes. To practice, pick an everyday object - like an umbrella - and imagine you are seeing it for the first time. Ask yourself what you would question and change about the design. You can also try this exercise with a routine, for example getting ready in the morning or waiting in line at a store. List all of the steps in the process and question if there would be a way to simplify or improve the experience.

To thrive in a world of constant change, the most successful entrepreneurs never stop learning. Find podcasts, blogs, and other sources that you are excited to check regularly. Our student offices are stocked with books written by entrepreneurs, creators, and industry experts and the walls are decorated with stories of businesses started by young entrepreneurs. Surround yourself with other problem solvers - ask good questions, listen carefully and lead with your imagination. Learning new skills can also open your mind to interesting problems. We recommend starting with websites like Skillshare, Instructables or Lynda.

The most rewarding project ideas are those that solve interesting and widely-experienced problems. To move toward these types of ideas, you can make use of the Project Pyramid. At the most basic level, you should pursue projects in which you have a fundamental interest, but ideally, you should work on something that has applications beyond your own self-interest. Building for others requires research, observation, and a willingness to receive, and respond to, feedback. This process of iteration builds the resiliency that is so vital to the entrepreneurial mindset. As a starting point, the UN Sustainable Development Goals can help you narrow down specific problem areas in our world that tug on your heartstrings.

Pursuing big challenges requires intrinsic motivation and consistent energy, so it is important to care deeply about the problems you choose to solve. Let yourself daydream for a few minutes about how you would spend your time if you had no responsibilities. Align these interests with your skills and the needs of the world to find your "purpose" at the intersection of these three areas. Introspection can be challenging work, so it is important to allow for quiet reflection and opportunities to revise, treating each sphere as a fluid space that changes as often as you do. We like to use this Purpose Venn with Capstone students, starting by thinking about each circle separately and later combining to find the natural intersection points.

Before you begin thinking through how you are going to solve a problem, it is essential to understand the reasons why the problem exists and who it affects. The first step is to familiarize yourself with the issue in a way that will prepare you to have meaningful conversations about the topic during expert and user interviews. Seek knowledge from books and online resources, being sure to note questions as you learn. Then identify industry professionals that are able to answer those questions, as well as provide new insights. Following those conversations, you are ready to start talking to users about how they experience the problem and how they would like it to be solved. Asking good questions and listening is key!

Now that you have some background on the issue, the last step before solution generation is to search for the underlying causes of the problem. Oftentimes we are tempted to develop solutions that only mask or temporarily solve the problem. You can avoid this by asking "Why?" at least five times to get to the root causes of the issue. Based on the 5 Whys Method used at Toyota, our Problem Tree encourages a deep problem analysis that leads to lasting and impactful solutions. The trunk represents the big challenge, the leaves are the resulting effects, and the roots are the causes of that problem. By pushing yourself to ask why the problem exists, and continuing to do, you will find the origin of the root system and define your challenge in a way that makes brainstorming effortless and naturally innovative.

After you have a strong understanding of the specific problem you are trying to solve, we recommend using the How Might We (HMW) method to help guide your solution brainstorming. Stanford's dSchool is one of the pioneers behind this method. The best HMW questions are often specific, occasionally ridiculous, but always focused on how to improve a user experience based on observations and insights - not assumptions. Here are some examples for an ice cream business, as well as guidelines for writing your own questions. When we create HMW statements for Capstone , we pair each question with a statistic to contextualize the size and scope of the issue. It would also be effective to include quotes from users.

According to Adam Grant, "The best way to be original is to generate a ton of variety. And the only way you can guarantee variety is by coming up with a sheer volume of ideas." It is unlikely you have had a truly original thought until your 200th idea and our brainstorming prompts below can help you get there. After your team has generated some really interesting ideas, you can begin grouping them by theme and identifying patterns. To choose a solution, let your team vote by putting stickers on the ideas that they think would be most likely to solve the problem you are addressing. We love using Post-it® notes for brainstorming because they encourage concise descriptions, lots of ideas, and they are easy to rearrange when sorting.