Innovation is critical in today's complex and ambiguous world which demands us to build competencies of creating, communicating and evaluating innovative ideas. Ideation techniques can be helpful pedagogic tools to advance the innovation competencies.
Ideation techniques are creative problem-solving methods which are often used to generate a wide variety of ideas for a particular problem. The primary goal of ideation is to generate as many ideas as possible, then later evaluate and modify the ideas, in order to be able to pick the most interesting ones for further development.
Depending on the problem being addressed and the specific context for problem-solving, there are various ideation techniques which can be used, such as mind mapping, brainstorming or many others.
Mind mapping is a well-known tool that can be used in organizing and connecting ideas in a non-linear manner. Often, you start with a central idea, which you connect with other ideas or subdivide to sub-ideas. This tool helps you to visualize the different components or concepts related to the original idea.
Brainstorming is a group technique, where as many ideas as possible are generated and presented in a spontaneous way. It is important to encourage all participants to present all types of ideas, even crazy ones, without criticism. Brainstorming can be used for various purposes, often in the very early stage of innovating.
In addition, there are several other ideation techniques, such as Six Thinking Hats, SCAMPER and Method 6-3-5 that provide other ways to be creative and innovate together by looking at the problem from divergent perspectives.
If you are interested in learning through ideation techniques, you can, for instance, start by looking for books and online resources, which provide practical exercises for ideation. Also, there are various online tools, which can be used to support ideation, such as Jamboard, Miro and Mural. Try such tools to see what works best for your purposes.
It is good to remember that often ideation with others is the most effective way to learn ideation: build or join an idea team and work with your colleagues. For example, you can try to find new ways to solve problems or come up with ideas for new projects. You can also try different ideas and assess which one works best in a given situation. The most important thing is to start and practice regularly, as learning ideation simply requires practical training and creative experimentation.