Gamestorming
Do you have a technique in place for getting innovative ideas for creating new products to sell. The Heuristic Ideation Technique helps you with generating product ideas.
Gamestorming introduced me to the Heuristic Ideation Technique. Ideation, creativity, originality, and innovation are valuable skills the World Economic Forum says you need to thrive in the future.
Learn how you can use the Heuristic Ideation Technique to get new product ideas.
Introduction: Generating Product Ideas: Heuristic Ideation Technique
Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you were on to something big only to be disappointed? I was there a few years ago. I learned about generating product ideas using a model called the Heuristic Ideation Technique. The issue is that I wanted to use the technique in a way that was never intended. And I fell flat on my face. I felt as if I let myself down.
I spent weeks reading the paper in the Journal of Marketing, titled, HIT: Heuristic Ideation Technique: A Systematic Procedure for New Product Search by Edward M. Tauber. I read the paper repeatedly. However, I could not figure out how to use the technique in the way that I wanted to.
After sleeping on the blog post that I wrote, 5 Steps to Get the Most Out of Reading Books (infographic), that did not go where I needed it to, I came up with an example for myself. The example I came up with is to generate product ideas for book summaries. You can play with the ideation technique using your examples to generate your own product ideas.
Have you read?
5 Steps to Get the Most Out of Reading Books (infographic)
Research on the Different Types of Summaries
From conducting research on the internet, I discovered that there are three types of summaries: Main Point Summary, Key Point Summary, and Outline Summary. Those would go across the top of the matrix as options. The forms of a book summary include: Written, Video, and Audio. The forms are options going down the left-hand side of the matrix. You match each type with a form, crossing out product ideas that already exist.
Main Point Summary: This is like an article abstract. Included in this type of summary are the title of the book, the name of the author, and the main point in the book. You can use a quote, but it should support the main point. This type of summary is mainly used in academic papers.
Key Point Summary: This type of summary includes the features of the main point summary, in addition to the key points that support the main point. This summary is used to explain the book to the reader, agreeing or disagreeing with the author’s argument.
Outline Summary: This uses the structure of the book (Table of Contents) to summarize the text. The main point and the arguments are presented in the same sequence as they appear in the text.
When summarizing a book, I do not follow any of the three types of summaries. I do things my own way. I have a template that I created that I follow loosely. However, there are specific elements that I want with every book summary that I craft.
Generating Product Ideas Matrix
You would cross out the product ideas that already exist. So you would do that for all the written book summaries because they already exist. Audio summaries are also very common, and video summaries exists, although they are less common than the other two. Therefore, there are no new product ideas to generate.
But what if there were other possible forms of book summaries? What can you come up with? This exercise is supposed to be fun, so go crazy coming up with ideas. What if someone acted out a book summary? That means a form of book summaries could be a simulation. Now we are getting somewhere. Do you see how the Heuristic Ideation Technique works?
Generating Product Ideas Matrix 2
This new matrix with simulation as a form has potential for generating product ideas for book summaries because it is innovative. But I don't see myself acting out a summary. I will leave that to the professionals. You could also bring a summary to life by white boarding it. Once again, this is not something that I would do, even though it is innovative. It's necessary to come up with a product idea that I would get excited about.
I have been playing around with how to get ideas. And when I read a book, I try to pick out the big ideas. Now two years after I first wrote this article on generating product ideas using the Heuristic Ideation Technique, another thought came to me. Every day I have been using the prompts in two books to become more creative. Therefore, creatively, I am in a different head space. Everything is connected. So I ask myself two questions:
- What is a summary connected to?
- And what is a summary a subset of?
Everything is part of something that is bigger. Many books have summaries inside them to highlight the important points at the end of a chapter. In some books, the introduction is the summary and explanation of the book. So a summary could be a subset of a book. That is not innovative. However, we have shifted the conversation.
I used to write for Mandate magazine, one of the United Church of Canada's magazine. One of things I did for them was to create book study guides. They would ask me to read and summarize a book, then create a book study guide. The book study guide was supposed to help book clubs. Or even individuals. A book summary was a part of the book study guide.
Generating Product Ideas Matrix 3
Now that I am intentionally taking steps to become more creative, it occurred to me that you can innovate any of the forms to create something new. It is expanding on what already exists. That is a form of innovation. Book study guides exist, but not in the way I am creating them. Although book study guide exists, I could offer them in a new format. That is a new product idea.
Conclusion: Generating Product Ideas: Heuristic Ideation Technique
The World Economic Forum says ideation, creativity, originality, and innovation are valuable skills you need to thrive in the future. Creating products that customers want and need can catapult your business. Use the Heuristic Ideation Technique to generate product ideas for your business. Conduct research to identify types and forms of the product you want to get new ideas for.
Create a table similar to the one I used to find new ideas for book summaries. Enter the type and form of the product in the appropriate sections of the table. Start to combine the types and forms to see what new product ideas are waiting for you to discover them. You could even use the technique to generate innovative product ideas for your employer.
Unlock The Real Power Of Ideation
GamestormingIdea StormersBasics Advertising 03A Beautiful Constraint
If you click on one of the link below and buy any of the books, Amazon will pay me a small commission. First Published May 2018.
