Develop Your Creativity

By applying logic, you’ve seen how the process eliminates some of your initial big funnel ideas.

Now you need to evaluate the remaining ideas. It will help you discover whether they’ll work and have the desired outcome.

Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

An effective way to do this is through SWOT analysis. Created at Harvard Business School, this evaluation tool examines ideas by assessing their strengths and weaknesses and analyzing any opportunities or threats an idea may bring up. 

Strengths

Decide what’s good about the idea. How is it unique and different from other similar ones? Maybe it’s proposing a new, more streamlined UX design or an app that solves an existing but unsolved problem.

Weaknesses

Where might the idea fall apart? It could be physical, such as insufficient human resources, inadequate technical infrastructure, or funding. Would the idea be time-consuming? Look at the weaknesses from as many different angles as possible.

Opportunities

These are external to the company. Are there any opportunities that would benefit from this idea? Have you noticed any trends or opportunities for growth? Are there opportunities for collaborations or partnerships?

Threats

What external problems might you face? What competition is out there or similar products/ideas? Are there any trends that can negatively affect its development?

As an example, let’s focus again on the 2020 pandemic. A medium-sized training company wanted to evaluate Zoom, the video conferencing software, as a creative solution for delivering its training courses online instead of in-person

The analysis shows many strengths, but if security and internet stability is an important issue for this firm, Zoom may still not be the right option. SWOT analyses are all about weighing the pros and cons to decide which idea will work best.

Take Action

Choose an idea you’d like to evaluate. Download this SWOT analysis template, and fill in each section. Remember strengths and weaknesses are internal. Opportunities and threats are external. 

“Middle managers should brainstorm before evaluating other workers’ ideas. It puts them through the same creative mindset, and so they’re less likely to dismiss good ideas. Middle managers are the worst when it comes to choosing good ideas.” - Professor Adam Grant, University of Pennsylvania 

Decide How Well the Idea Fits Your Criteria

Another way to evaluate your creative ideas is to work with a simple evaluation matrix. It’s especially useful to measure the practicalities of several ideas against a set of established criteria.

Before you start your evaluation, decide on two sets of criteria:

• Mandatory - criteria that absolutely must be satisfied for your idea to be considered a feasible option.

• Desirable - criteria that add extra value if all mandatory criteria are met.

Decide on your scoring range, let’s say 0-5 (i.e., 0=criteria not met and 5=criteria met). Score each idea against the same set of criteria and see which one scores the highest.

Let’s revisit the Zoom example by transforming this into an evaluation matrix. As you can see, the other options are Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, and WebEx.

Evaluation matrices are useful because you can see, at a glance, how well each of your ideas perform, not just against the criteria, but also each other.

Evaluate Risk

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook

Creative people understand that risk often comes hand-in-hand with creativity, which leads to innovative new ideas. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t evaluate the potential risks of your ideas.

What you need is a dose of creative bravery. Interestingly, in research carried out by creative agency Unity, only 1 in 5 respondents said they were creatively brave all the time. What stopped people generally was fear:

• Fear of failure (44%).

• Fear of looking foolish (33%).

• Fear of being judged (30%).

You, however, already know why failure is a good thing.  😉

Face Your Fear

The above statistics prove that most people admit to letting their fears stop them from being creatively brave. So instead of stifling your fears, acknowledge them and push through. Identify as many of the ways your idea can fail as you can.

Ben Hong explains how he overcame his fear of public speaking:

Can You Tell Us About Overcoming a Fear of Something Related to Your Professional Life?

Take Action

Think of a time when fear prevented you from doing something (i.e., presenting your idea to a group of colleagues or sharing your ideas in a brainstorming meeting). What did you fear, and why? The physical act of putting pen to paper makes them real. It also helps you both acknowledge their presence and begin the process of releasing them.

Question Yourself

A failed idea can affect your credibility or market position. You could also face a technological or competitive risk. Face your fears by acknowledging the risks. Ask yourself these questions:

• What’s the riskiest thing I could do? 

• Why is it risky?

• How could I mitigate the risks?

• What would happen to my idea if I made it less risky?

• What would happen if I made it more risky?

• Is it riskier to do nothing than something? 

Believe in Your Ideas

Trust yourself and your idea. If it fails, what can you improve the next time around?

But equally, if you need a complete rethink, dare to start again. Don’t let the fact that this idea didn’t make it prevent you from developing something even better.

Complete Your Creativity Journal

Do: Think of an example of where you’ve taken a risk – either personally or professionally – that has resulted in a positive impact?

Reflect: How did it feel? What did you learn? What did you learn about risk and how to manage it?

Let’s Recap!

• Evaluate your ideas to see if they’ll have the desired outcome.

• An evaluation matrix helps you assess a number of ideas at once.

• Creative people understand that creativity + risk = innovation.

Now that you can evaluate your creative ideas, you’re ready to reflect and reexamine them to ensure they’re the best solutions.