100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

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38 • 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS


In practice


IDEO, a prominent American design company, believes that there
are several stages in deep-dive prototyping (for further information
see The Art of Innovation: Lessons in creativity from IDEO, America’s
leading design fi rm by Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman).



  • Understand your market, customers, technology, and perceived
    constraints.

  • Observe people in real-life situations.

  • Synthesize and organize the key themes from the fi rst two
    phases.

  • Visualize: this often involves intensive brainstorming and
    discussion. Imagine new concepts and ideas around the main
    themes of the design.

  • Prototyping is next, and this involves building ideas and physical
    brainstorming.

  • Refi ne and streamline your ideas. Again, brainstorm ways to
    improve the prototype and overcome obstacles, and narrow and
    focus your concepts. Evaluate and prioritize your ideas, and
    decide how they will be implemented.


Other valuable aspects of creative problem solving that may be
applied when time is tight include:



  • Tr ying fi rst (and asking for forgiveness later).

  • Test marketing.

  • Ensuring that teams are as varied and diverse as possible.

  • Seeking external input.

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