Ideaflow

In the age of hyper-competition, innovating is an absolute imperative. Whether the issue is imagining disruptive economic models, renewing the design of one’s flagship products or solving organizational problems, the need for invention is permanent. But how can we nourish a regular flow of original ideas, when the day-to-day inevitably steers us toward a certain routine? One of the keys, according to the authors of Ideaflow, lies in generating ideas in bulk. Contrary to a well-established cliché, they remind us that inventions almost never derive from a single stroke of genius: they result from a gradual process of experimentation and selection. Multiplying the ideas to be explored increases the odds of one of them developing into an innovation. The authors illustrate this phenomenon with multiple examples. They then provide advice to favorize this creative profusion. For example, preferring experimentation to theoretical evaluation: this usually yields useful learnings to, little by little, approach a finished solution. A convincing approach for an enlightening book.