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1514 : STEP TWO – GENERATING NEW IDEAS

IKEA reversed the assumption that pre-assembled furniture targeted at a
middle-aged market should be distributed from city-centre sites. First
Direct reversed the assumption that you have to meet your bank
manager face to face to create a trusting and effective relationship. It
recognised that perhaps the last thing on earth most people want to do
is to meet their bank manager.

Jill Barker challenged the assumption that all modern nappies had to be
disposable by launching her Green Baby shop in 1999 with a product
range focused on washable chemical-free nappies. She reinforced her
challenge to convention by painting her shop in north London bright
pink, so that it would be noticed.

the steps to reverse assumptions

1 List the generally held assumptions about the particular product,
service or marketplace, no matter how obvious or trivial they may
seem.

2 Reverse each assumption in any way possible – there is no ‘correct’
way to do this, you are just on the look-out for all and any
alternative options which may present themselves.

3 Use each assumption reversal as a stimulus for suggesting new
ideas.

moving to step three By working through this chapter, you

will have built up a wide range of ideas around your basic business
concept. Assuming that you have successfully deferred all critical
judgement, your next challenge will be to evaluate and select from the
range of ideas you have generated. In other words, you have used
predominantly divergent thinking to generate the ideas; you must now
employ predominantly convergent techniques for evaluation and
selection, a process which involves converting ideas into practical and
practicable solutions.

As we saw with the first step of seeking and shaping opportunities, it
pays to identify clusters or ‘hot-spots’ of similar ideas if you have
managed to generate a substantial number of them. Clustering does not
lose any ideas; rather, the ideas are incorporated as sub-sets of the
clusters and become more manageable.

it pays to identify clusters or ‘hot-spots’ of
similar ideas