Methods through which ideas can be generated:
- Environment Scanning: One of the important techniques that can be used to generate ideas is environment scanning, i.e. the screening of large amount of information to detect emerging trends.
A large amount of information is available from:
- Popular newspapers and magazines.
- Reviews.
- Government and consumer publications.
- Trade publications.
- Commercials, etc.
An entrepreneur should scan this information to generate ideas. It requires a lot of effort, but the results are generally rewarding. The challenge in this method, however, is not having too little information to scan, it is having too much.
- Creativity and Creative Problem Solving: Creativity is the ability to combine ideas in a unique way or to make unusual associations between the ideas.
It means cross thinking by seeing new angles, connections and approaches.
For generating idea through this technique, a number of specific approaches can be used, which are as follows:
- Attribute listing It is an approach, in which an entrepreneur develops a new idea by looking into positive and negative attributes of a product or service.
- Free association It is an approach in which an entrepreneur develops a new idea through a chain of du word associations, etc.
- Brainstorming: A group of persons sit together and generate a number of business ideas by innovating alternative ways of meeting the needs and solving problems. It is usually an unstructured discussion in which one idea leads to another. This is a very productive method for generating as many ideas as possible.
- Focus Groups: These groups of people provide information about projected products or services in a structured setting. In a focus group, a moderator focuses the group discussion on a number of issues. e.g. a focus group might look at a proposed product or service and answer specific questions asked by the moderator.