Ideation

What Is Ideation?

Ideation is the process of generating, developing, and communicating ideas—from initial concept through testing and implementation. Common in business and innovation contexts, ideation transforms insights, experiences, and influences into actionable solutions expressed visually, verbally, or in writing.

Key takeaways

• Ideation moves ideas from conception to real-world application.
• Ideas can come from anyone: executives, employees, customers, partners, or stakeholders.
• Common catalysts include brainstorming sessions, surveys, workshops, social media, and informal collaboration.
• Most ideation begins with a problem to solve and often works backward from that need.
• Typical ideation styles: problem-solution, derivative (improvements), and symbiotic (combining partial ideas).

How ideation works

Ideation is an intentional sequence of activities designed to produce workable ideas and solutions. Typical elements include:

• Identifying a clear problem or opportunity.
• Gathering context: market trends, customer needs, constraints, and root causes.
• Generating ideas through individual or group methods (brainstorming, workshops, online collaboration).
• Selecting, prototyping, testing, and refining the most promising ideas.
• Implementing the finalized solution and iterating based on feedback.

Organizations that allocate time and space for open exploration—historically, some companies encouraged employees to spend part of their time pursuing new ideas—tend to surface more innovative outcomes and maintain competitive advantage.

The ideation process — step by step

1. Define the problem
2. Clarify scope, goals, stakeholders, constraints, and success criteria.
3. Research and frame
4. Gather relevant data, user insights, and context to inform brainstorming.
5. Diverge: generate ideas
6. Use creative techniques (brainstorming, mind mapping, role play, SCAMPER) and encourage uninhibited contributions.
7. Converge: evaluate and select
8. Screen ideas against feasibility, impact, cost, and alignment with goals.
9. Prototype and test
10. Build quick, low-cost experiments to validate assumptions and gather feedback.
11. Iterate and implement
12. Refine the solution, scale the implementation, and monitor outcomes.

Common barriers

Barriers that undermine ideation include:

• Vague goals or unclear problems
• Hostile or judgmental culture
• Groupthink, dominance by a few voices, or people-pleasing
• Excessive risk aversion or pessimism
• Inexperienced teams or lack of diverse perspectives
• Rigid processes that discourage creative thinking

Mitigate these by fostering psychological safety, defining clear objectives, and mixing diverse skills and thinking styles.

Styles of ideation

• Problem-solution: Directly addressing a defined problem with a novel solution.
• Derivative ideas: Improving or adapting an existing product, service, or process.
• Symbiotic ideas: Combining elements from several partial concepts to form a cohesive solution.

Conclusion

Effective ideation is systematic yet adaptable: start with a well-defined problem, create a safe environment for diverse idea generation, test quickly, and iterate. When done well, ideation drives innovation, improves products and services, and helps organizations respond to changing needs.