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Executive Summary of Disciplined Dreaming
Chapter 1: The Case for Creativity
stand out and be truly remarkable. That requires an ability to tap into creativity,
break the mold, and introduce disruptive change.
Autonomy. Team members are in control of their own performance, experience, and
results.
Passion. “Players are driven by something bigger than just the task at hand.
Risk. The working environment celebrates risk and failure.
Innovation. New ideas are rewarded.
Listening. The culture emphasizes raising awareness and connecting to the
environment.
Chapter 2: Disciplined Dreaming: Your System for Creativity
The five steps of the Disciplined Dreaming process are Ask, Prepare, Discover, Ignite,
and Launch. Avoid costly mistakes of flawed ideas and measurement
 Increase your ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty
 Learn how to adapt more quickly and proactively to changes in the marketplace
 Apply focused creativity to specific business problems of all shapes and sizes
one of three categories: Breakthrough Innovation, High-Value Change, and Everyday
Creativity. Step One
ASK
Chapter 3: Defining the Creativity Challenge
. Common elements of the Creative Brief include the following:
 Overview: a description of the project and what problem the client is trying to
solve.
 History: What has led up to this point? What has been tried before, and what
were the results? What impact will this background have on the project?

2.  Objective: What specific outcome is the client trying to accomplish? How will
success be measured?
 Deliverables: What is the physical output that is due at the end of the project?
 Target Audience: Whom will this message reach? What do we know about this
audience, and how can we tailor the messages appropriately?
 Timeline: specific due dates for milestones throughout the project as well as a
final completion date.
 Client: Who are the key decision makers, and specifically which people must
provide approval at each stage of the project?
 Budget: What financial constraints must be adhered to?
The structure of this system is there to support, not limit, your creativity. The
important thing is to lay the ground work with as much vision and clarity as you can
then begin the creative journey.
Chapter 4: Driving Curiosity and Awareness
There are three simple questions to drive curiosity and awareness:
1. Why?
2. What if?
3. Why not?
The researchers concluded that these five skills separate the most accomplished
innovators from the rest:
1. Associating. This skill involves creating links between clearly unrelated items.
2. Questioning. As the name of the first phase of Disciplined Dreaming suggests, Ask.
3. Observing. This skill involves raising your level of awareness.
4. Experimenting. The most effective creative minds experiment until they stumble
on the
best solutions.
5. Networking. This is about finding diverse people whose ideas challenge your own
thinking.
The goal is to push yourself and your team outside normal boundaries and let your
imaginations run wild.
Step Two
PREPARE

3. Chapter 5: Gaining the Keys to a Creative Mind and Culture
Creativity demands preparation. Step 2 of the Disciplined Dreaming process is all
about preparation.
Identify the core values that make you and your organization a ground for creativity
and then express those values in everything you do.
When it comes to innovation, organizations can become disabled by experience and
specialization. Young companies are more likely to invent the future. They have more
passion and urgency, little respect for tradition, and are not restrained by history,
preconceptions, or previous failures. By encouraging responsible risk-taking, you
create a culture that gives team members the freedom to unlock their creativity
without the fear of failure.
Chapter 6: Preparing Your Environment to Promote Creative Passion
Tools should be used to make sure that you’re infusing your work environment with
opportunities for stimulating experience to prepare your team, in both body and
mind. Organizations have used such tools as scheduling activities, encouraging
laughter, providing fresh, light snacks, and calling for periodic five-minute breaks.
When preparing yourself for your own journey into creativity, remember that a
creative physical environment is where that exploration begins.
Step Three
DISCOVER
Chapter 7: Discovering the Ways of Creativity
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then
when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable—Christopher Reeve
This approach is called “a Different Lens,” and it involves looking with fresh eyes at a
problem you’re thinking about. As Wayne Dyer says, “If you change the way you look
at things, the things you look at change.”
Spectacular business opportunities can be discovered by examining inflection
points. The trick is to spot the point of change. Inflection points can lead to a twist on
an old idea, not just a new invention. By training yourself to watch for important new
trends, you can find ways to capitalize on these inflection points.
A great way to discover new potential is in borrowed ideas. The concept of the
Borrowed Idea is to find something that is working in one area of life and apply the
same principle to the problem at hand. Opportunities to borrow ideas
Step Four
IGNITE
Chapter 8: Generating Creative Sparks
Ideas are like rabbit. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon
you have a dozen.—John Steinbeck
This chapter shares some proven techniques that can make your ideas come to life.

4. It explores powerful tools from both the art and business world that you can use to
set off the sparks of creativity in you. Two points need to be remembered when trying
to spark your creative flame:
1. Start with a number of small sparks to begin the creative process.
2. Be very careful not to quickly extinguish those sparks.
Sparks need to be giving much care so that they can grow into more mature ideas.
Chapter 9: Igniting the Sparks of Creativity: The Eight Most Powerful Techniques
A few proven techniques are offered in this chapter for igniting those sparks. They
are ideas that will open up multiple paths to continue the journey of discovery. The
Eight Commandments of Ideation are listed to establish a supportive framework for
imagination and creativity:
1. Thou Shall Not Judge. No person should be allowed to offer any judgment on any
idea.
2. Thou Shall Not Comment. Any negative comment or criticism will change the mood
in the room.
3. Thou Shall Not Edit. Let the ideas come out sloppy. There will be plenty of time to
edit later.
4. Thou Shall Not Execute. Executing creative ideas will crush them.
5. Thou Shall Not Worry. Release fear to unshackle your true creative potential.
6. Thou Shall Not Look Backwards. It can restrain our ability reinvent the future.
7. Thou Shall Not Lose Focus. This keeps the group focused on the task at hand.
8. Thou Shall Not Sap Energy. Sappers drain your energy with negativity.
first is EdgeStorming which is a concept that takes your brainstormed ideas to the
absolute extremes. Ideas must be outrageously big or small, loud or soft, expensive or
cheap. The second technique is The Long List. Forcing yourself to generate a long list
pushes your thinking and helps you discover your best work. The third
is RoleStorming in which you assign a specific persona and then have the team
brainstorm ideas on behalf of that individual. The next technique is called SCAMPER
which is an acronym that stands for
Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Magnify or minimize
Put to other use
Eliminate
Rearrange or reverse
Next, we have the fifth technique, The Opposite. The seventh technique is The
Blindfold. It involves keeping the people who participate in the creative process a
little in the dark. The Blindfold helps break patterns, quick judgments, and biases to

5. allow you and your team to reproduce entirely new ground. Brain Writing is the final
and eighth effective exercise that helps avoid dominant personalities and fancy titles.
In this exercise, each person writes an idea on a slip of paper and then places the
idea in the center of the table. It helps people avoid being overpowered by stronger,
louder group members. These specific techniques will inspire your creativity and help
you get started with your creative breakthrough.
Step Five
Launch
Chapter 10: Bringing Your Ideas to Life
pursuing a flawed idea by testing your ideas before fully implementing them. Instead
of guessing which idea will work best, you are actually seeing which ones your
audience will embrace.
Once you’ve narrowed the field to one or two of your best ideas to pursue, it is
time to measure them. It is important to quantify all measures so that you and your
team can understand and improve results. These are the important measurement
takeaways:
 Clearly define a small number of key metrics
 Quantify and standardize your metrics so that they are consistent
 Align your team and other stakeholders around the same key metrics
 Create a scoreboard so that you and your team can constantly monitor results
 Use the insight gained from closely monitoring your key metrics to adjust and
adapt your idea in order to maximize results
It is critical that you build a detailed execution plan to ensure that your great idea
doesn’t explode on takeoff. The basics should be covered, including
 Budget, forecast, and anticipated return-on-investment model
 Roles and responsibilities of team members during the execution phase
 Detailed timeline with clear milestones and checkpoints
 List of the top risks, and contingency plans if they occur
 Resources needed (money, people, time, equipment, and so on)
 Communication and rollout plan
All that is left is to take care of business!

6. allow you and your team to reproduce entirely new ground. Brain Writing is the final
and eighth effective exercise that helps avoid dominant personalities and fancy titles.
In this exercise, each person writes an idea on a slip of paper and then places the
idea in the center of the table. It helps people avoid being overpowered by stronger,
louder group members. These specific techniques will inspire your creativity and help
you get started with your creative breakthrough.
Step Five
Launch
Chapter 10: Bringing Your Ideas to Life
pursuing a flawed idea by testing your ideas before fully implementing them. Instead
of guessing which idea will work best, you are actually seeing which ones your
audience will embrace.
Once you’ve narrowed the field to one or two of your best ideas to pursue, it is
time to measure them. It is important to quantify all measures so that you and your
team can understand and improve results. These are the important measurement
takeaways:
 Clearly define a small number of key metrics
 Quantify and standardize your metrics so that they are consistent
 Align your team and other stakeholders around the same key metrics
 Create a scoreboard so that you and your team can constantly monitor results
 Use the insight gained from closely monitoring your key metrics to adjust and
adapt your idea in order to maximize results
It is critical that you build a detailed execution plan to ensure that your great idea
doesn’t explode on takeoff. The basics should be covered, including
 Budget, forecast, and anticipated return-on-investment model
 Roles and responsibilities of team members during the execution phase
 Detailed timeline with clear milestones and checkpoints
 List of the top risks, and contingency plans if they occur
 Resources needed (money, people, time, equipment, and so on)
 Communication and rollout plan
All that is left is to take care of business!