How to overcome creative challenges and explore breakthrough ideas
If you have come across a daunting challenge and feel stuck on how to go about it, fret not.
All you need is a couple of design thinking exercises to blast through those creative blocks and into the realm of creative confidence.
The below steps is what I use to come up with ideas whenever there’s a big challenge or if the concept is unclear.
You can do this exercise individually or with a team.
Step 1
Define the challenge/problem you’re trying to solve using a How Might We (HMW) note.
HMW notes is a design thinking tool that’s great for looking at problems through an opportunistic lens rather than a problematic one.
Example
At Very Bad Wizards, we often try to experiment and help businesses validate ideas before you do some severe execution. For example, my business partner’s roommate — Alec Herrera (@senior_smokie) — was trying to figure out if there was a market for healthy kombucha drinks in Sri Lanka.
We thought it was perfect for experimenting to figure this out.
Here are the two most important challenges we faced framed as “how might we” notes:
Step 2
Now that you’ve gotten your challenges down, it’s time to look for inspiration. It’s important to know that you don’t need to rely on creativity to develop a brilliant idea. All you’ve got to do is fill your mind with similar solutions to the problem you’re trying to solve.
Example
For our challenges, these are the example solutions that we found:
Overall concept
Poster designs
Step 3
Time to come up with your solution! This is where you remix and improve the ideas that you found in the previous step.
When you’re attempting this, it’s better to try it on paper before moving to a digital tool. This is because pen and paper encourage you to make mistakes and iterate quickly.
What you need in this step is enough detail that explains the idea clearly.
Example
Initial concepts
From paper sketches to high fidelity designs
Everything you need to know:
- Define your challenge or problem by writing it down as a “how might we” note.
- Look for inspiration. By looking at your HMW statement, collect ideas of how other people might have solved the problem.
- Remix and improve. With enough information on the problem and inspiration to solve it, your subconscious is primed to develop a killer idea. Sketch it out on paper first and then execute!
Oh, and If you’re wondering how our example went during execution… it was a success!
Seventy-three cups in total in the “YES” bin and 2 in the “No”. Some people even paid for a coffee-infused kombucha which is the ultimate form of validation.
I talk about creative ideas like this on my Twitter come say hi!
