7 rollercoaster loops to get ideas flow in an empty head

How to come up with ideas using an imaginary amusement park rollercoaster guide for your brain even when your head is blank?

Situation:

How many times did you or your team members have blank heads when asked to come up with ideas? You wanted some framework, some structured thinking approach and there was nothing?

SCAMPER is a method useful in these cases and not only. It is a lateral thinking method invented by Alex Osborn and Bob Eberle.

Let’s suppose we are coming up with a lot of ideas to innovate on an existing product, service, or situation by looking through different perspectives.

Why does it work so well?

There are 7 perspectives you can look at using this method.

It is a creative method to think outside the box and look at the topic from radically new angles. It is an amusement park rollercoaster guiding your brain to discover different perspectives in a structured approach.

Which are the 6 simple steps to bring structure to thinking while ideating with SCAMPER technique?

🎲 Decide upon an existing product or service that you want to improve or which could be a great starting point for future development.

🎲 Start by drawing SCAMPER along the whiteboard (or virtual whiteboard) in separate columns. Leaving enough space for two columns of sticky notes.

🎲 Give everyone plenty of sticky notes and sharpies (or use a virtual whiteboard).

🎲 For each letter, everyone has to think of and write down as many ideas as they can for 5 minutes:

• Substitute: what parts of your product would you substitute for something else?

• Combine: how can I combine two or more parts of my product, problem, or process to achieve a different product, problem, or process to enhance synergy?

• Adapt: what can I adapt to my product, problem, or process? 

• Modify: what can I modify or put more or less emphasis on in my product, problem, or process?

• Put to another use: what are new ways to use the product or service? What else can it be used for?

• Eliminate: what can I eliminate or simplify in my product, design, or service? What can I remove without altering its function?

• Reverse: what would I do if I had to do this process in reverse? What can I rearrange in some way – can I interchange components, the pattern, or the layout?

🎲 After the time is up put your answers up under the letter - silently!
Keep going for each letter until they are all complete! (5 minutes each) 

🎲 Once you’re finished use Dot Voting to prioritize the useful ideas!

Facilitator hints:

• You can also apply it by giving them more from the start more time and asking them to write in any order of the perspectives their ideas as sometimes it can happen that the participants are feeling too much pressure from thinking only from one perspective - it depends like usual on your audience and type of personalities. Here you can find out more about this.

• Use a time timer to time-box the steps, more time will not necessarily bring more value.

• You can adapt it by using additional questions to each perspective or even changing the acronym with other perspectives that make sense to your use case and to your team.

One-phrase summary:

When you need to bring structure to ideation for your team and help them look from radically new angles use the SCAMPER technique. It is a simple 6 steps lateral thinking way of coming up with ideas.

If you want to know how to prioritize the ideas once you have them, stay tuned for the next post!