Creative Strategy

And just where did we get the 3-Steps? We found them in a book:

Creative Strategy, A Guide for Innovation, by William Duggan, 2012.

The author briefly covers a scale of activities for making decisions:

gut instinct
intuition
expert intuition
strategic intuition
creative strategy

In a bit more detail:

gut instinct - survival instinct you were born with
intuition - based on your life experience stored in 'mysterious memory' - you might not know what you base your decision on
expert intuition - like an experienced firefighter or emergency medical technician, quick decision making based on experience
strategic intuition - from 'slower' memory, textbook and school learning, you may think about it for hours or days before getting an 'Aha' insight. See also Duggan's 2007 book Strategic Intuition which gives examples of Napolean, Edison, Ford, and Gates.
creative strategy - a written equivalent of strategic intuition, a bit more methodical for your own problem solving and much better when sharing an innovation process in a group

Introducing 'Creative Strategy'

Most likely you get the idea of 'creative'. But the word 'Strategy' can be used for different things. So first we'll explain what we mean here by the word strategy:

Strategy = goal + method to achieve goal

What we mean is that you set the goal and method together. That means you don't have a solution to your problem unless you have both a goal and way to achieve the goal, in other words, a strategy. It's a good thing to be seeking a strategy. It means the goal and method work together.

When we say 'Creative Strategy' here we have 2 meanings:

a) creative strategy: the output of your efforts - a goal + method

b) Creative Strategy: 3 steps to find a creative strategy

Creative Strategy, its 3 steps, and the Insight Matrix

From the book Creative Strategy, A Guide for Innovation, by William Duggan, 2012

Duggan explains a 3 step process for innovating:

Rapid Appraisal - identify and articulate the problem or opportunity, and break it down into elements
What-Works Scan - identify some possible sources of solutions to individual elements, and research how the source solved the element -called a precedent
Creative Combination - creatively select and recombine some of the precedents into an innovative solution

After that you should feel 'resolve' - meaning you believe it can be implemented in large part because you have evidence of the precedents working elsewhere.

You can organize your 3 steps in a matrix form called an Insight Matrix:

Insight Matrix

Problem:

Elements

Sources

Example Creative Combo: 1B + 2C + 3D + 4A

Duggan recommends spreading your effort on steps 1-3 in a ratio of 1:8:1 - his way of saying don't spend all your time in analysis (step 1), or in creativity (step 3), rather searching for working precedents/solutions for elements of your problem/opportunity in other fields/industries (step 2) should be your main effort. And he bases that on examples from history - what great innovators do.

Benefits of Using the 3-Step Creative Strategy Approach:

Better Innovative Solutions:

Better use of human and tangible resources to solve complex issues -both problems and opportunity searches- needing innovation. Resulting in higher productivity. Higher earnings. Higher GDP/capita.

Difference of Creative Strategy:

versus Brainstorming:

Brainstorming only uses what people already know or can imagine. Creative Strategy's 2nd step -what works scan- looks at what is already working elsewhere in other fields, including solutions you may not know about. So you'll be selecting from a broader range of ideas, and those ideas will already be proven elsewhere, giving you better innovations and higher odds of successfully implementing them. Duggan suggests using 'Reverse Brainstorming': from the output of your brainstorming extract/articulate what problems it;s trying to solve. Then input these problems to a CreativeStrategy 3 step process.

versus Expert Intuition:

Expert intuition is limited to experiences the expert has already had. Difficult problems/opportunities needing innovation may be unfamiliar to the expert, and no solution or a poor solution may result. And there's little opportunity for others to participate: the expert comes up with a solution and there's little opportunity for teamwork. Creative Strategy's step 2 what-works-scan looks beyond the direct experience of experts and looks in other fields for solutions. And by making the process explicit and written, it gives teams an opportunity to divvy up work and get more effort and minds involved.

versus R&D:

Research and Development is often more about analysis of the problem. Creative Strategy handles analysis quickly in Step 1 Rapid Appraisal., then you spend most of your time in Step 2 what-works-scan looking for solutions. One source can be your own R&D. But you shouldn't limit your search to your own R&D. R&D is often focused on a technical issue, or optimized around income tax rules - a more limited scope.

versus manufacturing productivity workshops:

Not everyone manufactures, and those that do have probably already adopted programs like quality control and assurance, so the further gains are narrow in scope, limited to specialists in manufacturing. And only certain paradigms / methods / practices are taught. Creative Strategy and its very general and simple 3 step method can be adopted by anyone in any field, and not just business - it can also be used personally, in the not-for-profit sector, by social groups, governments, students - its much more general, and rather than promoting any specific pre-existing solution, it helps you find an innovative solution that perhaps no one else has done, and tailored to your special specific situation.

Reasons to Believe Creative Strategy will deliver benefits:

the author of Creative Strategy -William Duggan- is a university researcher and lecturer at Columbia University, and he's been researching the topic for a decade, teaching it, and getting feedback from students
the author borrowed from others: Duggan researched the writings of others on famous innovators, like Napolean, Edison, Henry Ford, and found a common thread of how the innovative ideas came forth, and they follow a similar pattern he calls Strategic Intuition, which he wrote about in a prior published book of that name
Duggan didn't invent the Insight Matrix - he found a version of the insight matrix from General Electric's management training program in the 1990s
try it yourself: next time you have an Aha! moment of insight, reverse engineer how you came up with it, and see if you did something like the 3 step process. If so this is the Strategic Intuition process Duggan wrote about, an internal equivalent to the more explicit Creative Strategy
testimony: we read a stack of a few dozen books on innovation, and when we stumbled on this book it fiilled a gap, and seemed simple and general enough for everyone. And this process matches our personal experience in our own careers of product research and development
common sense: if you're researching how others have successfully solve similar element problems, and their results are proven, then borrowing bits and pieces of their proven solutions for your own combined solution, then it seems more likely to work than if you you try and invent something totally new out of the blue with no research

But:

it can't solve all problems - some are unsolvable or you just won't find a solution in your search
no one has attempted to explain it to a whole city before. That's our innovation: keep it simple, explain it to everyone in Airdrie, then measure before and after to see if it makes a difference to productivity, as measured by GDP/capita.

Airdrie Innovation Institute 2013

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190204154013.htm

- innovation > search for analogies / perfect analogy - may be similar to creative strategy

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