Concept
It is a method to develop ideas using divergent and convergence thinking. Divergent reveals someone’s thinking to explore multi ideas or thoughts about solving an issue, whilst convergent thinking focuses on a single way of thinking to make ideas. For example, participants will think divergent if they explore several ways to solve a problem and think convergent if they focus on choosing one idea to pursue solving an issue. Divergent thinking is critical to innovation because it enables producing multi ideas by applying different approaches to solve problems and entail elaboration. Convergent thinking is also necessary to design thinking as it encourages replicating applications, focusing, speeding, and logic to create a solution to a particular problem.
Background
The psychologist J. P. Guilford introduced the concept of ‘divergent’ and ‘convergent’ thinking in 1956 while developing his ideas on intelligence and creativity. Guilford distinguished between divergent (multi-ideas) and convergent (central-idea) thinking on how we approach solving problems.
How does it work?
Divergent thinking allows open thinking to elaborate on various details on a particular issue; however, convergent thinking uses a standard way of thinking to produce a single outcome on studying issues. Creativity and innovation relate more to divergent thinking, allowing elaboration and collaboration efforts to produce multi results tackling a particular subject. In a business context, people with divergent thinking often feel uncomfortable dealing with convergent-thinking individuals. Thus, assessing your business capabilities for divergent thinking and taking steps to improve these abilities is critical to improving the organisation’s capacity to innovate. Techniques to stimulate divergent thinking include:
- Brainstorming: this is a technique of generating a variety of ideas in a short period using a creative and unstructured manner. The key tool in brainstorming is using someone’s idea to stimulate other ideas. During the brainstorming process, ideas are recorded, and no idea is disregarded or criticised. After a long list of ideas is generated, participants can go back and review their ideas.
- Forming teams: with different/or similar mandates will encourage them to come up with a list of ideas for a particular subject.
- Open innovation: is one of the modern techniques to encourage sourcing ideas from inside and outside the organisation for the use of the organisation or market needs. Affirm that applying open innovation will collect various lists of ideas about improving or creating a new product or service.
- Corporate culture: is often implied and comprises values, norms, practices, standards, and habits that govern staff’s behaviours and decision-making. Business owners often influence their business cultures which can stimulate or dissimulate teams to collaborate and contribute to problem-solving.
- Diversified team: when recruiting staff from different professional backgrounds. These diversified staff can think differently and enable divergent thinking in an organisation.
- Motivation: can play a significant role in encouraging people to think divergently by using motivation techniques like financial (e.g., bonus or promotion) and nonfinancial (e.g., assigning additional duties to a staff).
- Keeping a journal: Journals are an effective way to record ideas or thoughts that one thinks during life. By carrying a journal, one can create a collection of thoughts on various subjects that later become a sourcebook of ideas. People often have insights at unusual times and places. Keeping a journal can allow someone to record and use ideas in later stages.
- Freewriting: enables someone to write on a selection list of topics and conclude different views and thoughts about them.
- Mind mapping: is visual thinking, which involves putting brainstormed ideas on a visual map or picture that shows the relationships among these ideas. One starts with a central idea or topic and then draws branches off the main topic representing different parts of the discussed topic.
- This post is sourced from my new book- Your Guide To Reach Innovation.
- For more information about the book: https://growenterprise.co.uk/your-guide-to-reach-innovation/
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Final note: the book- Your Guide To Reach Innovation, is an actionable guide to innovation from beginning to end. Enjoy reading the book, and I look forward to your reviews.
Author: Munther Al Dawood
Grow Enterprise 