Entrepreneurship & Small Business

Defining and validating your business's products and services is an important part of business planning and a continuous activity as your business grows. There are many ways to approach creative thinking and brainstorming along the way. The resources in this section are a sampling of commonly used ideation and brainstorming tools for entrepreneurs.

SCAMPER Method

The SCAMPER method is an brainstorming technique for generating ideas for new products and services, or innovating existing ones. It provides guiding questions in seven "provocation lenses":  Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking is an iterative process for understanding the problems customers face and creating products and services that solve them. There are many approaches and exercises that use the Design Thinking process, ranging from quick brainstorming and ideation sessions to large scale business practices. Many of the tools available are appropriate for early ideation and small teams.

The Idea Generator

"The Idea Generator is an innovative approach to thinking about important issues. It consists of three specific toolsets for different types of issues and each toolset incorporates five novel thinking tools." (Thomason, 2016). This ideation method combines creative thinking tools for generating ideas and solutions in teams. 

Idea validation is important for proper business planning and securing funding. It includes Industry and Market research and, in some cases, product testing. The resources in this section are tools that can help frame your strategy and thinking about idea validation.