How do you come up with your best ideas?

The World Creativity and Innovation Week started yesterday. It will run from April 15 – 21. With that said, I thought it would be cool to do a series of posts answering some common questions about creativity and innovation.

I will start by answering them myself and will appreciate it if you add your own thoughts with a comment.

First up, how do you come up with your best ideas?

Notice I added the word “best” to the question. This is completely different from just coming up with ideas. Ideas can pop up anywhere, like while showering, taking a walk or even just having a conversation with someone.

But your best ideas come afterwards. I have come up with a systematic and pragmatic way to stimulate my creative juices to refine my initial thoughts. It’s called the “What Works Matrix“. It’s based on combining elements or attributes of ideas that worked elsewhere, and then adapting them to my problem.

What makes this process really effective is that it is very practical. Anybody can take it and do it. There are friends, clients and fellow entrepreneurs who have adopted the What Works Matrix with excellent results.

I encourage you to give it a try.

That’s me, now it’s your turn. How do you come up with your best ideas?

Enhanced by Zemanta