Creative Confidence

Creative Confidence

By Tom Kelley & David Kelley, IDEO and D.School.

Innovation and creativity are now widely accepted as the driving forces behind business success, and are among the most highly prized qualities in today’s leaders. In Creative Confidence, the Kelley brothers remind us that we all have ideas and insights to offer. They demonstrate that creativity is a mindset, a way of thinking, and a proactive approach to finding new solutions. We many not all be artists, but we can be more creative lawyers, doctors, managers, or salespeople. In this book, Creativity and the ability to innovate, they explain, are like muscles- the more we use them, the stronger we get. It gives us the courage to make a difference in the world around us and inspires us to combine breakthrough ideas with action in a way that improves our companies, our careers, and our lives.

The Heart of Innovation

Creative confidence is about believing in your ability to create change in the world around you.
We think of creativity as using your imagination to create something new in the world.
Being creative, The closest translation is “natural.” In other words, if you want to be more creative, you just have to be more natural. We forget that back in kindergarten, we were all creative. We all played and experimented and tried out weird things without fear or shame.
Creative confidence is a way of experiencing the world that generates new approaches and solutions.

Flip: From Design Thinking to Creative Confidence

We aim to understand why people do what they currently do, with the goal of understanding what they might do in the future.
We believe successful innovations rely on some element of human-centered design research while balancing the two other elements .

Design-Driven Innovation

1.Inspiration
Go out in the world and proactively seek experiences that will spark creative thinking. Interact with experts, immerse yourself in unfamiliar environments, and role-play customer scenarios. Inspiration is fueled by a deliberate, planned course of action.
Observing people’s behavior in their natural context can help us better understand the factors at play and trigger new insights to fuel our innovation efforts.

2.Synthesis
Empath map
How might we…

3.Ideation/experimentation
The most promising ones are advanced in iterative rounds of rapid prototypes—early, rough representations of ideas that are concrete enough for people to react to. The key is to be quick and dirty— exploring a range of ideas without becoming too invested in only one.
Based on feedback from end users and other stakeholders

4.implementation

Dare: From Fear to Courage

In our experience, one of the scariest snakes in the room is the fear of failure, which manifests itself in such ways as fear of being judged, fear of getting started, fear of the unknown. And while much has been said about fear of the unknown. And while much has been said about fear o failure, it still is the single biggest obstacle people face to creative success.

If you want more success, you have to be prepared of shrug off more failure.

Overcoming fear of customer interviews

1. Be a “fly on the wall” in an online forum. Search online pain points and latent needs.
2. Try your own customer service, and mapping it.
3. Talk with unexpected experts, If you make a physical product, ask a repair person to tell you about what goes wrong with it .
4. Play detective in pursuit of insight
   Observe people’s behavior, and try to figure out what is going on. How are the interacting with your product or service? What can you glean from their body language that indicates their level of engagement or interest?
5. Interview some customers, ASK “WHY?”

Spark: From Blank Page to Insight

Cultivate a Creative Spark

1.Choose creativity: To be more creative, the first step is to decide you want to make it happen.
2.Think like a traveler: To try turning fresh eyes on your surroundings, no matter how mundane or familiar.
3.Engage relaxed attention: Flashes of insight often come when your mind is relaxed and not focused on completing a specific task.
4.Empathize with your end user
5.Do observations in the field
6.Ask questions, starting with”why"
Interview Techniques:Show me / Draw it / Five whys / Think loud

7.Reframe challenges: Starting from a different point of view can help you get to the essence of a problem.
One of the most powerful ways to reframe a problem is to humanize it.

8.Build a creative support network.

Reframing Techniques

1.Step back from obvious solutions.
2.Alter your focus or point view.
3.Uncover the real issue.
4.Look for ways to bypass resistance or mental blocks
5.Think about the opposite

Leap: From Planning to Action

1. The “do something” Mindset
   Keep a bug list and ask yourself, “how might I improve this situation?"
2. Stop Planning and Start Acting
   Knowing-doing gap: the space between what we know we should do and what we actually do.
   Action Catalysts: Get Help; Create peer pressure; Gather an Audience; Do a Bad Job; Lower the Stakes.
3. Use Constraint to Fuel Creative Action
   Constraints can spur creativity and incite action, as long as you have the confidence to embrace them.
   a.Tackle a “doable” piece of the problem
   b.Narrow the goal
   c.Create a milestone(and connect it to a social contract).
4. Experiment to learn
5. The one-hour prototype
6. Prototyping a shared experience
7. Geting on board with experimentation
8. Lunch to learn
9. Creating infectious action
10. Experimenting your way to success
11. Making news

Seek: From Duty to Passion

Learn new skills. Start writing the new story of your working life. Keep searching for and moving toward a role that will feel as good as it looks. When you reach it, you may realize that you have found your calling.

Team: Creatively Confident Groups

To build a creative organization, you need to build creative confidence among key players, one individual at a time.
1.Keep people together but not too close.
2.Consider sound
3.Add flexibility-In the right places
4.Tailor spaces to experiences
5.Create an atmosphere that gives people permission to experiment
6.Don’t be afraid to go big with your space prototypes
7.Use diplomacy

Todo list

1. To make a community chalkboard call Q0(Question Zero). P79
   Questions like"what fun things can we do this year?”
2. Using GTD to Make a bug list
3. Knowing-Doing gap. VS Designing-Doing gap
4. 30 circles drawing exercise