Innovation Insight: How to Use Creative Techniques in Agile Design for Better Business Processes

At September’s Innovation Day, KnowledgeBrief clients were joined by Professor Neil Maiden, Cass Business School, to hear his latest research on agile processes and how to inject creativity techniques into them.

Creativity is by many associated with the world’s big thinkers that have changed history with their ‘new to person-kind’ ideas. Likewise, many organisations aim for creativity to bring clear-cut, eminent contributions, that will reform the industry they are operating in. What most companies don’t recognise is that it can have a huge impact to be creative in the little things and by applying small changes.

Nonetheless, integrating creative thinking more effectively into agile processes is a challenge. The ever increasing demands for quick and frequent ideas and short durations of sprints leave only little time for reflection. Prof Neil Maiden introduced at this month’s meeting his experiences with the extension of two real-world agile projects using creativity techniques and the evaluation of the results. Key insights from the meeting included:

• The 45-minute creativity workshop. Projects are increasingly agile, lean and flexible and companies simply don’t have the time for long creativity workshops. The research team from Cass has managed to reduce the traditional, exhaustive two-day creativity workshops to efficient workshops that, within 45 minutes, have successfully delivered extensive ideas that were both useful and novel, including “killer ideas”.
• Do not rush into decisions. The secret is to be found in allowing time for reflection. Evidence from real-world agile projects show that the ideas after a workshop change after a week of unstructured reflection. Leaving a one-week period of incubation before going into the evaluate-and-refine stage also seems to increase both the novelty as well as the usefulness of the ideas. To integrate creative thinking more effectively into agile processes, this phase is pivotal.
• Be open to various and playful techniques. For example, one of the tools the research group has used successfully is to approach the problem with another personality. What would X do to solve this problem? Very effectively, this facilitates the process of thinking of what you and your company don’t already know. Another big boost for new ideas is not ruling out potential constraints in the idea phase. Try to think of what you would do if the constraints did not exist.
• Encourage the right conditions for creativity. At a meta-level the same qualities are common to all creative ideas. The conditions such as climate and emotions are very important and trust is simply a prerequisite. To be successful, pay attention to the creativity triggers. Get people involved and actively engaged early and invest in group trust. Plan everything thoroughly and don’t leave anything to chance.
• Don’t consider it as a “workshop”. Think about how you “sell” the agile approach to the people you are involving. Make the creativity periods short, build common ground between different types of people and let the sessions be playful and engaging. How you sell it is important.

Next month, clients – including UK Power Networks, Bradford Districts CCG and Dimensions – will explore the power of being divisive and building a stronger corporate culture. For more information, please view the Innovation Day page.