The document discusses various techniques for stimulating creativity, including observation, the Six Thinking Hats method, TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), and critical thinking activities. It provides details on each technique, such as the six different thinking modes represented by the hats and some of the TRIZ tools like the Ideal Final Result. The document also emphasizes that creativity and innovation are different, with innovation being the successful implementation of new ideas.

1. Creativity
“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires
passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and
points to new life.
Some people seem to learn a language effortlessly, others seem to be highly talented
when it comes to sport. It's also possible for people to succeed at something, even if
they're not especially gifted in that field. Sometimes it's simply a question of putting
more effort in. The same goes for creativity.
Creativity is difficult for a lot of people to quantify; it's a broad term, but an important
skill. Creativity is what drives us as designers. Creativity and expertise is what makes
the difference between an amateur and a professional. Creativity is usually a personal
talent. And the good news is: anyone can learn to be more creative in their work and
life.
How is it possible to stimulate your creative mind? Well, there are different
techniques, but arguably the most important aspect is observation.
Creative people see the world differently than others; they are efficient observers.

2. . Levels of creativity
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts – Marcus Aurelius
There are five distinctive levels of personal creativity – How
creative are you and others?
Although definitions of creativity seem to differ greatly, most of us recognize higher levels of
creativity when we see or hear it. These encounters often cause us to stop in our tracks as many
forms of creativity can be arresting, unusual, breathtaking, disturbing, delectable, highly
amusing, or just very, very different. And while creativity is a human gift, alas we are not all at
the same level of creativity. Like many other things in nature, creative individuals differ by
varying degrees.
Below are categorical divisions of varying degrees of creativity. As you read these definitions
see if you can think of people who fall into each category. The first three levels can be attained
by anyone through natural gifts and with motivation and persistence. The last two levels are
those folks with exceptional gifts — and this type of creative being is born, not bred. Here I use
the word “artist” as a generic noun and meaning persons having any type of creativity as levels
of creativity encompass many forms of artistic expression and invention.
1. Expressive creativity, as in the spontaneous drawings of children.
The first level incorporates the primitive and intuitive expression often found in children and
in adults who have not been trained in the arts. There is an innocent quality to primitive art, but
also directness and sensitivity. The naive artist creates for the joy of it. The paintings of
Grandma Moses would be a prime example of this category or many examples of folk art.
2. Productive creativity, as in artistic or scientific products where
there are restrictions and controlled free play.
The second level of creativity is the academic and technical level. At this level the artist
learns skills and techniques, developing a proficiency that allows creative expression in a myriad
of ways. The academic artist adds power to expression through the mastery of craft.

3. 3. Inventive creativity, where ingenuity is displayed with materials,
methods, and techniques.
Many artists experiment with their craft, exploring different ways of using familiar tools and
mediums. This heralds the third level of creativity, invention. Breaking rules is the order of
the day, challenging the boundaries of discipline or academic tradition, and becoming
increasingly adventurous and experimental. Inventive creators use academic tradition and skills
as a stepping-stone into new frontiers.
4. Innovative creativity, where there is improvement through
modification involving conceptualizing skills.
At the level of innovation the artist becomes more original. Materials and methods that are
out of the ordinary are introduced. Now the artist breaks the boundaries. The academic
foundation remains as a substructure of unconscious thought guiding these creative efforts.
5. Imaginative creativity, where there is an entirely new principle or
assumption around which new schools, movements, and the like can
flourish.
The fifth level of creativity is characterized as genius. There are individuals whose ideas and
accomplishments in art and science defy explanation. Genius is arguably the one level that is
unexplained and perhaps unattainable through persistence or applied work ethic. Rather it is
something that an individual is born with. That said it can certainly be nurtured and supported, or
suppressed by external control.
It's important to understand that creativity is a time-bound process and that you won't always
achieve efficient results. Two lessons can be drawn for the time being: Everyone is creative
every day in their life and everyone can improve their creativity so that it's commercially
interesting. That will be the purpose of the upcoming articles.
During the next few articles, your input is important. What content would you like to see? What
appeals to you specifically where creativity is concerned? Your suggestions will be taken in
account while the session progresses. Feel free to write down any questions or suggestions in the
comments and I'll gladly take a look at them.

4. Innovation
“Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas.”
The concept of innovation is quite diverse, depending mainly on its application. Briefly,
Inventta believes that innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. And companies’
success, for example, means increased revenues, access to new markets, increased profit
margins, among other benefits.
Among the different possibilities to innovate, those related to product or process innovations
are known as technological innovations. Other types of innovations can relate to new markets,
new business models, new processes and organizational methods. Or even new sources of
supply.
People often confuse innovation and innovation processes with continuous improvement and
processes related to this topic. For an innovation to be characterized as such, it must cause a
significant impact on the pricing structure, in the market share, in the company’s revenue, etc.
Continuous improvements are not usually able to create competitive advantages of medium to
long term, but they are able to maintain the competitiveness of the products in terms of cost.

5. Types of Innovation
The different forms of innovation can be classified in several ways.
Here we highlight two of these visions, as the innovation focal object and its impact.
FocalObjectives of Innovation
Product innovation:
 It consists of changes in product attributes with a change in how the product is noticed by
consumers.
 Example: car with automatic transmission compared to “conventional“one.
Process innovation:
 It consists of changes regarding the product or the service production process. It does not
necessarily have an impact on the final product but produces benefits in the production
process, generally increasing the productivity and reducing costs.
 Example: automobile produced by robots compared to that produced by human workers.
Innovation ofbusiness model:
 It consists of changes in the business model which means the way the product or the service is offered
to the market. It does not necessarily imply changes in the product or even in the production process
but in the way as it is brought to the market.
 Example: the consumer rents a car paying a monthly fee to use the vehicle, including insurance,
maintenance and replacement by newer model every year, compared to the traditional business model
where the vehicle is sold.
Innovation Impact
Incremental Innovation:
 It reflects small continuous improvements in products or product lines. It generally represents small
improvements in benefits noticed by the consumer and it does not change significantly the business
model or the way the product is consumed.
 Example: the evolution of common CD to double CD, capable of storing twice as many tracks.
Radical Innovation:
 It represents a drastic change in the way that the product or the service is consumed. It generally,
brings a new paradigm to the market segment that modifies the existing business model,
 Example: the evolution of the music CD to digital files in MP3 extension.

6. The importance to innovate
Whereas innovations are able to generate competitive advantages in the medium
and long term, innovate is essential for the sustainability of the companies and
the countries in the future.
“Those who innovate are at an advantage over the
others.”
Innovation has the ability to add value to company’s products, differentiating it, even
momentarily, in the competitive environment. Innovation is even more important in markets
with plenty of commodities, such as the ones presenting a high level of competition and
whose products are roughly equivalent between competitors. Those who innovate in this
context, either doing incremental or radical, product, process or business model innovations,
are at an advantage over the others.
Innovations are important because they allow companies to access new markets, increase
revenues, perform new partnerships, learn new knowledge and increase the value of their
brands.
Obviously, the benefits of innovation are not limited to the companies. Innovations enable
countries and regions to increase the level of employment and income, as well as the access to
the globalized world. Innovations offer new products that now have more benefits of the
products offered.

7. The dynamics of innovation
In general, companies are at the center of innovation. It is through them that technologies,
inventions, products, finally, ideas come to the market. The vast majority of large companies
have entire areas dedicated to innovation, presenting research and development (R&D)
laboratories that have several researchers. Despite this central role played by the companies,
the interaction between partners is essential. Without it, the innovations are hampered.
“Companies are at the center of innovation.
It is through them that technologies,
inventions, products, finally, ideas come to
market.”
These partners have diverse functions, from conducting external research and development of
products and processes, to the implementation of investments or subsidies, going through
prototype development, market research and production scheduling.
Thus, a set of institutions form what are known as innovation system: universities, research
centers, fostering agencies, investors, government, companies’ customers, suppliers,
competitors or other partners.
A trend that is becoming stronger is the open innovation model (or open innovation), where
companies look outside of their R&D centers for ideas and projects that can help them add
competitive advantages.

8. How to innovate
To perform innovations it is necessary for the companies, in the first place, to be aware of the
importance of innovation in the existing competitive scenario. There is no way to become an
innovative company without giving proper attention to the subject.
“There is no way to become an innovative
company without giving proper attention to the
subject.”
Then, companies must understand what innovation is and what its dynamic. From there, they
can define a strategy aligned with the objectives of the organization and its vision. Thus, it is
possible to identify other essential concept for companies to become innovative: attention to
the future is a requirement for the company to innovate.
The next step is to develop and internalize management tools of the innovation process. These
solutions must be tailored to each situation. The size of the company, its sector of activity,
culture and organizational structure, the agent system in which it is inserted, its future vision
and ambitions should be taken into consideration.
To help companies develop models of Technological Innovation Management adequate to
their reality, Inventta has a number of services ranging from seminars to raise awareness
about the importance of the theme, to complex studies and analyzes that help organizations to
structure all its innovation actions.
The theme around innovation is complex. It also allows interpretations and adaptations.
Innovate involves a series of technological, market and management expertises.
Understand the concept of innovation and practice it takes time, dedication and investment.
However, what we can see is that companies that became truly innovative they have not
looked back since.

9. There's A Critical Difference Between Creativity And Innovation
There's a lot of confusion surrounding creativity and innovation. "Creative types,"
in particular, claim that creativity and innovation can't be measured. Performance,
however, demands measurement so you can identify what success looks like. In a
world that changes every two seconds, it's imperative that companies figure out the
difference between creativity and innovation.
Creativity vs. Innovation
The main difference between creativity and innovation is the focus. Creativity is
about unleashing the potential of the mind to conceive new ideas. Those concepts
could manifest themselves in any number of ways, but most often, they become
something we can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. However, creative ideas can also
be thought experiments within one person's mind.
Creativity is subjective, making it hard to measure, as our creative friends assert.
Innovation, on the other hand, is completely measurable. Innovation is about
introducing change into relatively stable systems. It's also concerned with the work
required to make an idea viable. By identifying an unrecognized and unmet need,
an organization can use innovation to apply its creative resources to design an
appropriate solution and reap a return on its investment.
Organizations often chase creativity, but what they really need to pursue is
innovation. Theodore Levitt puts it best: "What is often lacking is not creativity in
the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e. putting
ideas to work."

10. Six Thinking Hats
Early in the 1980s Dr. de Bono invented the Six Thinking Hats method. The method
is a framework for thinking and can incorporate lateral thinking. Valuable judgmental
thinking has its place in the system but is not allowed to dominate as in normal
thinking. Dr. de Bono organized a network of authorized trainers to introduce the Six
Thinking Hats. Advanced Practical Thinking (APTT), of Des Moines, Iowa USA,
licenses the training in all parts of the world except Canada (and now, Europe). APTT
organizes the trainers and supplies the only training materials written and authorized
by Dr. de Bono.
Organizations such as Prudential Insurance, IBM, Federal Express, British Airways,
Polaroid, Pepsico, DuPont, and Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, possibly the
world's largest company, use Six Thinking Hats.
The six hats represent six modes of thinking and are directions to think rather than
labels for thinking. That is, the hats are used proactively rather than reactively.
The method promotes fuller input from more people. In de Bono's words it "separates
ego from performance". Everyone is able to contribute to the exploration without
denting egos as they are just using the yellow hat or whatever hat. The six hats system
encourages performance rather than ego defense. People can contribute under any hat
even though they initially support the opposite view.

11. The key point is that a hat is a direction to think rather than a label for thinking. The
key theoretical reasons to use the Six Thinking Hats are to:
 encourage Parallel Thinking
 encourage full-spectrum thinking
 separate ego from performance
White Hat thinking
This covers facts, figures, information needs and gaps. "I think we need some white
hat thinking at this point..." means Let's drop the arguments and proposals, and look at
the data base."
Red Hat thinking
This covers intuition, feelings and emotions. The red hat allows the thinker to put
forward an intuition without any ned to justify it. "Putting on my red hat, I think this is
a terrible proposal." Ususally feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a
discussion if they are supported by logic. Usually the feeling is genuine but the logic
is spurious.The red hat gives full permission to a thinker to put forward his or her
feelings on the subject at the moment.
Black Hat thinking
This is the hat of judgment and caution. It is a most valuable hat. It is not in any sense
an inferior or negative hat. The rior or negative hat. The black hat is used to point out
why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience, the system in use, or
the policy that is being followed. The black hat must always be logical.

12. Yellow Hat thinking
This is the logical positive. Why something will work and why it will offer benefits. It
can be used in looking forward to the results of some proposed action, but can also be
used to find something of value in what has already happened.
Green Hat thinking
This is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, what is interesting, provocations
and changes.
Blue Hat thinking
This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the subject itself but at the
'thinking' about the subject. "Putting on my blue hat, I feel we should do some more
green hat thinking at this point." In technical terms, the blue hat is concerned with
meta-cognition.

13. TRIZ
TRIZ" is the (Russian) acronym for the "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving." G.S.
Altshuller and his colleagues in the former USSR developed the method between
1946 and 1985. TRIZ is an international science of creativity that relies on the study
of the patterns of problems and solutions, not on the spontaneous and intuitive
creativity of individuals or groups. More than three million patents have been
analyzed to discover the patterns that predict breakthrough solutions to problems, and
these have been codified within TRIZ.
TRIZ is spreading into corporate use across several parallel paths – it is increasingly
common in Six Sigma processes, in project management and risk management
systems, and in organizational innovation initiatives.
.Some of the TRIZ Tools
The "General TRIZ Solutions" referred to in Figure 1 have been developed over the
course of the 65 years of TRIZ research, and have been organized in many different
ways. Some of these are analytic methods such as:
 The Ideal Final Result and Ideality.
 Functional Modeling, Analysis and Trimming.
 Locating the Zones of Conflict. (This is more familiar to Six Sigma problem
solvers as "Root Cause Analysis.")

14. .
Critical Thinking Activities
Attribute Linking—Building Community by Taking Perspectives
Students pair up according to similar physical attributes determined by the
facilitator. These include hair color, eye color, hand size, and height. Foreach
attribute, students discuss times when they were discriminated against because of
it. They then take on the roles as victim, perpetrator, or bystander and discuss.
Barometer—Taking a Stand on Controversial Issues
When posed with a thought-provoking prompt, students line themselves up along a
U-shaped continuum representing where they stand on that issue. The sides of the
U are opposite extremes, with the middle being neutral. The teacher starts a
discussionby giving equal opportunity for individuals in each area of the
continuum to speak about their stand. The students use “I” statements when stating
their opinion.
Big Paper—Building a Silent Conversation
Writing (or drawing) and silence are used as tools to slow down thinking and allow
for silent reflection, unfiltered. By using silence and writing, students can focus on
other viewpoints. This activity uses a driving question, markers, and Big Paper
(poster-sized is best). Students work in pairs or threes to have a conversation on the
Big Paper.
Students can write at will, but it must be done in silence after a reflection on the
driving question. This strategy is great for introverts, and provides a ready made
visual record of thought for later.

15. Body Sculpting—Using Theatre to Explore Important Ideas
Students are given time to consider their feelings on a thought-provoking abstract
or concrete image. Next, they come up with words that describe their reactions—
trapped, free, angry, joyful, etc. They are then paired up and one personis the
sculptor, while the other is the “clay.” The sculptorposes the clay into a form that
artfully displays the word they wish to portray. Here are some guidelines:
Café Conversations
Understanding different viewpoints is a great way to delve deeply into a topic. 5 to
10 students are given character sheets. These might include gender, age, family
status (married, single, how many children, etc.), occupation, education level and
significant life events. The group is also given a historical event or similar topic.
Students can create identity charts in collaboration with each other to determine
their character’s viewpoint. When they can adequately represent their character,
what follows is a “cafe conversation.” Don’t forget to go over guidelines on how to
respectfully disagree! Allow at least 20 minutes for a conversation.