Since any outcome is dependent on the process creating it, a process and a product cannot be seen in isolation – the one does not exist without the other. Methodologies involving innovation often build on well-defined challenges that have already been through the process of applying analytical tools, removing the actors with problem knowledge with the actors and agents developing the defined problem into a solution. This is not the way we work in the real world. This is also why we must turn to the one industry that has the process models that can be applied to business and organisational challenges today – the design industry.
Process frameworks – by design
The design and product development industry is the one industry that already possesses the creative knowledge-driven frameworks for application to any innovation situation. As we know in design and product design, problems can only be understood in terms of the solutions ideated for solving them. Problem and solution have to be ideated concurrently – together, by the people developing the concepts for implementing in the value-supply chain.
Using the CO-IDeation process to open minds towards possibility and potential
Sharing and developing ideas (IDEATION).
The foundation of the process-framework approach is there is no one ‘right solution’ – just alternatives for negotiation and agreement within the team.
Innovation processes are not problem-solving processes where problems are defined for handing over for to others to continue to work on: It is about defining ‘a new way of thinking’ – creating and sharing ideas on the road to exploring possibility. By sharing that journey, problems and solutions are developed until equivalence is defined: Ideas, being inspired, capturing them, visualising them and sharing them with others with whom we have a close relation. Only by removing ourselves from our idea and placing it on the table for others to look at and comment on, develop and work with can we innovate. This is what we do to define more desired outcomes. That is why Collaborative Ideation as a process is so important.
The process foundation for CO-IDeation is the dynamic activity relationship between ideating – creating ideas – and collaboration – engaging the team in developing. That which binds them together is the overall process of interaction: between people, between ideas, between people and platform, people and the learning space they are a part of and how it is used. All three processes are embedded within the glue that binds it all together – us. How we think, what we do, how we learn, develop and our ability to see things through so they make a difference. This is the mindset, without which the process falls apart.