12 Popular and Effective Creative Thinking Tools

Creativity is the ability to generate new and unique ideas, and is often seen as a key factor in problem-solving, decision-making, and innovation. There are many different tools and techniques that can be used to enhance creativity and promote creative thinking. Some examples include:

1. Brainstorming: a group activity where participants generate ideas without evaluating or criticizing them, in order to come up with as many ideas as possible.
2. Lateral thinking: a problem-solving technique that involves looking at a problem from different perspectives and coming up with creative solutions.
3. Mind mapping: a visual representation of ideas and their relationships, used to generate and organize thoughts.
4. Biomimetics, also known as biomimicry or bionics, is the study of nature and its designs, processes, and strategies, with the goal of applying this knowledge to the design and development of new technologies and systems. 
5. Six thinking hats: a technique that involves considering a problem from different points of view, represented by six metaphorical hats: white (facts), red (emotions), black (caution), yellow (benefits), green (creativity), and blue (overview).
6. SCAMPER: a mnemonic used to help generate ideas by asking specific questions about a product or situation, such as "substitute," "combine," "adapt," "modify," "put to another use," "eliminate," and "reverse."
7. The five whys: a simple technique that involves asking "why" five times in a row to dig deeper into the root causes of a problem and come up with creative solutions.
8. Morphological analysis is a creativity and problem-solving tool that was developed by the German scientist Fritz Zwicky. It is a systematic approach that uses a matrix or grid to help identify and analyze the possible combinations of a set of variables or factors.
9. Functional Innovation is a systematic idea-generation that involves the use of 11 heuristics to identify ideas for products, processes and business models. This method was popularized by Innomantra Consulting and has been used by several leading business corporations.
10. The process begins by identifying the factors that are relevant to the problem at hand and listing them along the rows and columns of the matrix. For example, if the problem is designing a new product, the factors might include features, materials, colors, and sizes. Each cell in the matrix represents a unique combination of factors, and the goal is to fill in the cells with ideas or solutions.
11. TRIZ: A problem-solving methodology developed in Russia by the engineer and inventor Genrich Altshuller. The acronym TRIZ stands for "theory of inventive problem solving" or "teoriya resheniya izobreatatelskikh zadatch" in Russian. TRIZ is based on the observation that most technical problems have been solved in the past, and that the solutions to these problems can be identified and applied to new situations. 
12. Brainwriting: It involves a group of people writing down their ideas on a piece of paper, and then passing their papers to the person next to them. This continues until everyone in the group has seen and added to all of the ideas. The goal of brainwriting is to come up with as many ideas as possible, and to avoid the biases and limitations that can come from group discussions. It can be an effective way to generate a large number of diverse ideas in a short amount of time.
13. Lotus Blossum Technique: It is a creativity and problem-solving tool that was developed by the engineer and management consultant William Isbell. It is a structured approach that uses a series of questions to help generate ideas and solutions to problems. The technique is based on the idea that a problem can be represented as a "core" issue surrounded by a series of related sub-issues or "petals." The process begins by identifying the core issue and then asking a series of questions to expand on it and explore the surrounding petals. 
14. Concept mapping is a technique used in the creative process to organize and connect ideas. It involves creating a visual diagram that shows the relationships between different concepts or ideas. The diagram typically consists of nodes, which represent the concepts, and lines or arrows, which show the relationships between the concepts.
15. Mind mapping: It is a technique used in the creative process to organize and connect ideas. It involves creating a visual diagram that shows the relationships between different concepts or ideas. In contrast to concept mapping, mind maps have a tree structure consisting of a central idea or concept, with branches radiating out from it to represent related ideas or concepts. 
16. Storyboarding: It is a technique used in the creative process to visually organize and plan out ideas or stories. It involves creating a series of sketches or images that represent the different scenes or events in a story, arranged in a specific order. The sketches can be accompanied by notes or captions to provide additional information. The storyboard can then be used as a roadmap for creating a more detailed plan or for executing the idea.
17. Role-playing: It is a technique used in the creative process to explore different perspectives and ideas. It involves taking on the role of a specific character or point of view, and acting out or imagining scenarios from that perspective. This can help to generate new ideas, understand different perspectives, and think outside of one's own experiences and biases. Role-playing can be used in a variety of settings, including education, therapy, and business, to encourage creativity and problem-solving.

To learn how leading Fortune Global 500 companies such as ABB, Bosch, Google, Samsung, and NetApp have used Innomantra's Functional Innovation Methodology to turbocharge their idea management process, schedule a meeting today at calendly.com/innomantra.