Work In Colour - Work. Think. Live. In Colour
Thursday 17th September 2009 | 4 comments
Have you ever run out of ideas? Or become caught up in your own assumptions (about materials, time, markets, budgets, or...?) Or felt like having a simple structure to work through your problem with - instead of all that chaos in your head?
Enter SCAMPER!
It's brilliant.
A guy called Bob Eberle developed the SCAMPER tool as a way of using improvements or adaptations of existing things to come up with new products and services.
It looks like this:
Components, materials, people
Mix, combine with other assemblies, products or services, integrate functions
Alter, change function, use part of another product, service or element
Increase or reduce in scale, change shape, modify attributes eg colour, materials
(To another use)
Remove elements, simplify, reduce to core functionality
Turn inside out or upside down
You just formulate a question or dilemma and run through each element of SCAMPER, noting all the ideas. Even mad or completely impractical ideas are just fine - you can always critique them later, but often in the maddest idea is the seed of the one thing that will spark a really innovative new product or service, one that will differentiate you from your competitors.
For example, you might wonder, using SCAMPER: 'How many changes could you make to a coffee cup?' Think of obvious things like extra handles, or unbreakable materials, of course, but what about a cup that cleans itself or walks itself to the dishwasher? (Now, that would get my vote!)
How could SCAMPER help you?
Tags: thinking, creativity, tips, scamper
I used to like brainstorming when I worked in Corporate Land. But people often got a bit freaked out at my crazy ideas. Yet, that's what Phase 1 of brainstorming is all about. And the crazy ideas often led to the best solutions. So SCAMPER sounds right up my alley. Many thanks, Joanne! P. :)
PS. How would you feel about including a box to leave one's URL when commenting? Or with the mounting spam problem, is it not worth the candle?
I agree - crazy ideas often do lead to great solutions, and what's more, solutions no-one else has thought of, or new product ideas that will differentiate you from the rest. Also good suggestion about URLs, my fabulous IT guy is going to be doing a series of upgrades for me soon and I will add this one to the list!
Thanks
Joanna
I first heard of SCAMPER a couple of years ago when exploring a mind-mapping website, and have had the pdf on my wall for inspiration ever since.
The URL for it is - http://litemind.com/wp-content/uploads/misc/litemind-scamper-reference.pdf
and another version can be found at - http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/assets/examples/MM---Scamper.gif
Regards
Jayne
Thank you Jayne! I have already printed out the Litemind scamper map - and read the accompanying blog post. Terrific stuff, much appreciated.