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DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS helps you structure your decision making by exploring the costs and
benefits, the advantages and disadvantages, of different proposed
actions.128 Costs and benefits can be explored not only from your
perspective but also from the perspective of others who are significant
to you – family, current employers, friends and mentors, perhaps.

Suppose that you want to assess the advantages and disadvantages of
setting up on your own. You could construct the table shown in Table 5.2.

Table 5.2 Decision balance sheet for starting your own venture

Reasons to start your own venture Reasons not to start your own venture

Negative elements about current Positive elements about current
employment status: employment status:

Benefits of starting your own venture: Disadvantages of starting your own
venture:

You should brainstorm ideas for each of the four boxes, taking into
account your perspective and that of others significant to you. You
should be well aware of the rules of divergent thinking by now and
should apply them to this exercise. You can use any or all of the
divergent techniques illustrated in previous chapters to generate and
explore the ideas – challenge assumptions, seek analogies or use wild
ideas to provoke unconventional insights.

When you have had your first attempt at the list, review each cell in the
table in the light of your subsequent thinking, ask yourself ‘what else?’,
and then cluster the related ‘hits’ into ‘hotspots’. The finished article
might look something like Table 5.3.