Classic Brainstorming
Alex Osborn’s four rules: don’t judge, welcome wild ideas, go for quantity, and build on each other’s ideas. Run it in short, timed rounds with a facilitator, one function at a time.
Brainwriting 6-3-5
Six people each write three ideas in five minutes, then pass their sheet on and build on what they receive. That’s 108 ideas in 30 quiet minutes, and the quieter people get the same say as everyone else.
SCAMPER
A checklist you can apply to any part or process: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse.
TRIZ
Genrich Altshuller’s method for inventive problem solving. Describe the conflict, such as “stiffer but lighter”, then use the contradiction matrix and the 40 inventive principles to find a way round it.
FAST-Driven Ideation
Come up with ideas for the function, not the part. Asking “how else could we transmit torque?” stops the team fixating on the current design.
Morphological Analysis
Also called a Zwicky box. Break the product into sub-functions, list every way of doing each one, then combine the options to create thousands of possible concepts.
Synectics & Analogy
Look for places where the same problem has already been solved, in nature or in another industry, and ask how they deliver the same function.
Nominal Group Technique
Everyone writes ideas alone, then shares them one at a time around the room, discusses them, and votes anonymously. It stops the most senior or loudest person steering the result.
Delphi Method
Experts answer anonymously over several rounds, seeing a summary of the others’ answers each time, until they agree. Useful when experts are spread out or the cost questions are sensitive.
Miles’ Value Questions
The original value analysis checklist. Can it be removed? Simplified? Combined with something else? Standardised? Made another way, from another material, or by someone else for less?
Benchmark Transfer
Take ideas straight from teardowns: how competitors solve the problem, the best solutions from other industries, and expired patents you’re free to use.
AI-Assisted Ideation
Give an AI assistant your FAST diagram, parts list and constraints, and it can produce and group hundreds of ideas. People still decide which ones are any good.
Try it: Value Index simulator
Move the sliders to see the idea behind value engineering. More function or less cost means better value.
1.00Value Index
Balanced. Now try to raise the function or lower the cost.
Learn it properly
Module 5 · Creative TechniquesFree, narrated and interactive — with a Certificate of Completion.