10 Creative Thinking Techniques to Unlock Innovation in Your Business

Ever feel like your brainstorming sessions have become a collection of boring and predictable soap opera reruns?

Creativity isn’t just for artists or ad agencies – it’s the secret sauce that helps businesses solve problems, outthink competitors and create the next big thing.

If your team’s ideas are about as fresh as last week’s leftover pasta, it’s time to shake things up.

Innovation and creative thinking are intrinsically linked. If you want to propel your business forward, you can’t have one without the other.

If we look at a recent survey by Deloitte, we can see that brands that saw annual revenue growth of 10% or more are big on creating environments that support creative thinking, risk-taking and cross-functional collaboration.

The World Economic Forum’s interesting report on the future of jobs highlights the importance of having a creative and curious mindset.

The report identifies five key labor-market drivers that are transforming the global workforce: technological change, geoeconomic fragmentation, economic uncertainty, demographic shifts, and the green transition.

As these trends reshape industries and professions, the demand for skills such as analytical and creative thinking, curiosity as well as AI and big data is expected to grow significantly by 2027.

Not only does this report show us that industries are transforming, but it also emphasises that if you want to be a success, innovativeness and creativity are a must.

When you take the time to cultivate a culture that embraces imaginative solutions and diverse perspectives, you can build an organisation that is better able to navigate complex challenges and drive sustainable success.

In essence, integrating creative thinking into business strategies isn’t just beneficial; it’s a strategic imperative for companies that truly want to thrive.

If this is the year you want to get serious about innovation, there are several creative thinking techniques you can experiment with.

Be mindful that some of these will work better than others because humans are interesting, unique and diverse creatures. What may be great in one situation may not work in another. And what hat might be great in the morning may not be so awesome at the end of the day. What lights some people up may be the opposite for others, and that’s normal and very OK.

It should also be said that many people do their best thinking when not with others. I.e. On a run, in the shower or driving (times of solitude). Be open to ideas and creative thinking coming in all shapes and sizes and at different times and places.

Think of these techniques as a bunch of different approaches you have in your tool kit that you can experiment with. Embrace the non-linear and organic aspects of creativity and creative thinking and be curious and open to what’s possible.

The SCAMPER technique may lead to a more structured brainstorming session, but the ideas will definitely be flowing.

The idea is to encourage your team to modify existing ideas, products or processes. Here’s a breakdown of the prompts you’ll use:

Substitute

Can you swap out materials, processes or components for something more efficient or innovative?

A simple example would be swapping out plastic straws for paper ones. Not personally a fan of this switch but it’s good for the environment.

Combine

Can you merge two ideas, products or functions to create a new outcome?

Think of a smartwatch that combines fitness tracking with mobile payments.

Adapt

What existing idea or solution can be adjusted for a new use?

Modify (or Magnify)

How can you enhance or exaggerate an element to improve it?

An example here would be increasing the size of smartphone screens to improve the user experience.

Put to Another Use

Can this product or idea serve a different purpose?

Eliminate

What can be removed or simplified to improve efficiency?

Consider how some airlines offer you a cheaper ticket price if you bring a carry-on instead of checking your bag.

Reverse (or Rearrange)

What happens if you flip, rotate or change the order of things?

Let’s use IKEA’s flat-pack furniture as an example here. Instead of manufacturers shipping items fully built, customers can take care of the assembly themselves.

Instead of asking “How can we solve this problem?” ask, “How can we create this problem?” Then reverse those answers.

I am sure you can remember when you had to be in front of your television at a specific time to catch your favourite show, right? Well, amongst other things, Netflix asked themselves what would be the result if people never had to leave their homes to watch the movies or shows they wanted to. Today, it’s a multi-billion dollar streaming service.

Here’s an exercise you can try. At the same time, get your team to list ways you can make one of your products worse and then flip them into opportunities.

Let’s say you arrive in London for the first time and need to use the Tube to get around. Would it be as easy to know which train to take without the London Tube map?

What about an architect who has just designed a home? They have a much easier time showing their client a visual layout of their home versus verbally explaining it to them.

The idea with visual mapping is to create those unexpected connections. There’s something about seeing a picture or journey in front of you that engages the brain in a different way than boring bullet points or mind maps.

For this technique, you can always go old-school and work straight on a whiteboard or you can use a digital tool like Miro or XMind. Start with a problem or concept and let your thoughts go wild. I would recommend combining this technique with one or two of the others on this list too.

Imagine you’re in a meeting trying to solve a tricky business problem. Everyone has an opinion, but it feels like a chaotic free-for-all—one person is overly optimistic, another only sees risks, someone is stuck in the details and someone else keeps throwing in wild, unrealistic ideas. Sound familiar?

That’s where Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats technique comes in. It’s a structured way to approach decision-making and innovation, making sure you see a problem from every angle before jumping to conclusions.

The Six Thinking Hats technique eliminates unproductive debates and gets teams thinking collaboratively. Before you begin, assign everyone a different hat – here’s what they mean:

• White Hat. Focuses on data, facts and figures.
• Red Hat. Emphasises gut feelings and emotions.
• Black Hat. Identifies risks, challenges and downsides.
• Yellow Hat. Explores benefits, potential and opportunities.
• Green Hat. Encourages out-of-the-box ideas and solutions.
• Blue Hat. Controls the process and ensures structured thinking.

This approach in many ways, reignited the interest/debate around creative thinking. It’s an oldy but for many teams, also a goody.

Ever sat staring at a problem, waiting for inspiration to strike, but instead, your brain feels like it’s buffering? Random word association can help you break out of this funk.

Instead of trying to force ideas, start with a random word. Any word will do, however, if you’re still feeling stuck, pick something you can see in the room or outside, or turn to your dictionary.

For this example, let’s say you picked the word ‘ocean’. Next, list words you would associate with the ocean before making the connection to the business problem you’re trying to solve.

Let’s say you want to lower those customer complaint rates. How are the ocean-associated words you came up with related to customer service? Let me share some examples:

• Waves—are we creating effortless, smooth interactions?
• Treasure—what hidden value can we offer customers?
• Adventure—can we make the experience more exciting?

Some of the greatest innovations in history were born out of constraints. So, think about how the Apollo 13 engineers created a carbon dioxide filter in a hurry using whatever they had onboard. Pretty impressive stuff.

Originally Twitter was only 140 characters long. That constraint forced people to be succinct.

When you have less time, fewer resources or a strict set of rules, your brain is forced to think more creatively and find solutions you wouldn’t have considered in a “perfect” scenario.

For this technique, you want to ask yourself (and your team) the following questions:

1. What are my biggest constraints? (Budget, time, materials, technology, etc.)
2. Use these constraints to shift your thinking:
   • What if we had absolutely no budget to solve this? What could we do?
   • If we had to solve this in two days (time), what would that look like?
3. If we had to solve this without technology, how would we go about it?
4. Can the constraints actually inspire a better, smarter or more unique solution?

My Design Thinking workshops are one of my most popular offerings and for good reason – this creative problem-solving goes hard at making things happen! Be warned, it’s not a quick approach like most other things in this list.

Ever bought a product and thought, “Who designed this? Did they even test it with real people?” “Why is this so difficult to use” That’s exactly the kind of bad design that Design Thinking aims to prevent!

Instead of making assumptions, it focuses on real user needs, rapid prototyping and continuous improvement to create solutions that ACTUALLY work in the real world.

Here is a high-level idea of the steps you would follow in a design-thinking brainstorming session:

1. Empathise. You want to start by putting on your customer’s loafers or high heels. What makes your customers tick? Don’t make assumptions either. Rather use interviews, observations and real user research.
2. Define. Next, you want to nail down the problem you’re facing in your business. For example, instead of a hospital thinking it needs to process patients more quickly, the real issue could be that patients feel anxious because they don’t know how long they’ll wait.
3. Ideate. You can now start brainstorming some ideas using some of the other techniques on this list. No judgment, no limits, just ideas.
4. Prototype. Instead of spending months planning, create a basic, testable version of your idea. This could be drawings, mock-ups or even interactive digital models.
5. Test. The final step is to get actual people to use your prototype to get real feedback. This is imperative to find out whether the juice is worth the squeeze.

If you would like me to help guide you and your team through a design-thinking workshop to turbo charge the innovation process, get in touch here.

“Go big or go home” is the essence of the 10x Rule.

Rather than asking, “How can we improve this by 10%?”, the 10x Rule pushes you to ask, “How can we make this 10 times better?” This kind of thinking breaks conventional limits and forces you to find bold, innovative solutions instead of just optimising the status quo.

Instead of tweaking things little by little, you identify your project or challenge and multiply your goal by 10. It’s making it a Moonshot goal.

I know, this may feel like an overly bold approach, (we only work on incremental improvements Simon!) but it forces you to completely reframe your thinking. It’s sometimes not enough to simply work harder, you need to think completely differently.

For example, instead of feeding more money into the Google ad machine, you might need to completely change your marketing strategy, product pricing or distribution model.

Once you have your end goal in sight, you can start working backwards and plan how you’re going to achieve it.

Sometimes the problem isn’t the idea, it’s your perspective.

Role-storming (also known by many other names), encourages you to step into someone else’s shoes to generate fresh, unconventional ideas. Instead of brainstorming from your usual mindset, you adopt a different persona.

You’ll be surprised by how quickly you can unlock new ideas when you change WHO you are when you’re thinking.

Don’t hold back when developing your new persona either. Don’t just say you’re a Boomer living in Brisbane. Give yourself a new name, explain what you like to do and eat, down to the minutest details.

Dont just stop at a Boomer. What would a ten-year-old kid say? How might an F1 Driver approach this? What would a football coach think?

As you and your team assume new mindsets and personas, jot down the ideas that come to mind so that you can refine them later.

What do a waffle and a sneaker have in common? Nothing—until Nike mashed them up and created the first waffle-pattern running shoe, inspired by a waffle iron.

The Mash-Up method is one of the most fun and unexpected ways to spark creativity.

Here’s how it works:

1. Pick two random things (industries, objects, concepts, or even businesses).
2. Smash them together.
3. Brainstorm how they could work as one innovative idea.

Many of the brands you know and love used this exact method:

A gym + social networking = Peloton

Taxi service + home cooking = Ubereats

Music + AI = Spotify’s personalised playlists

This may seem like a lot of tools and techniques, but the beauty is that you get to pick, choose and experiment with the creative thinking methods that work for you.

You don’t need to use all of them – if you find that one method works better for your team, work with that. However, I would highly recommend giving a few different techniques a try and see where it takes you, especially if you are feeling a little stuck.

And just remember, the ‘technique’ is not the answer. Anyone can pick up a tool and not use it in the right way. If you dont create a safe, fun environment for new ideas to flourish, they won’t. If you get stuck in shutdown mode and not be open to what’s possible, you will end up with nothing. Remember, we all have creative intelligence in abundance, most people are just scared to use it.

And now for the most important bit of advice: Don’t let your good ideas go to waste!

Most people have attended a creative thinking session, created a whole bunch of energy and ideas then….nothing. Have a plan of action, put a basic timeline in place, keep up the communication about where your project is at post session and make sure you’re making things happen.

Remember, no idea is born perfect. They will always need refining so that means that initially, not every idea will be that Unicorn you are looking for. That’s ok. Either way, you will be building your creative muscle, and you’re certainly going to be thinking a lot differently and getting some fresh perspectives on your challenges

Happy creative problem-solving!