This is a summary of the book “Think Bigger – How to Innovate” by Sheena Iyengar who is a professor of Business in the Management Division at Columbia Business School and teaches choice and decision-making.

This book builds on decades of research on creativity and human psychology and models the real-life creativity process in six specific and actionable steps. It provides a structure for a rigorous idea generation and vetting, from corporate teams to individual artists and entrepreneurs.

She argues that creativity is not a rare and innate gift. The popular distinction between left and right brained people is also incorrect. Creativity is also not a particular type of brain activity. When it is broken down, creativity appears familiar to everyone as building blocks. It is also a skill that we can learn and practice. The killer applications, groundbreaking artwork, disruptive business ideas are all the end results of the same process. Creators recycle existing parts to create something novel. “All thinking is an act of memory in some form.”

The Think Bigger process builds on Learning + Memory, the leading neuroscientific model of the brain. This theory places memory at the center of the human’s mental activity.  It argues that even solving a math problem is not purely logical but involves remembering and recombining those memories to find the answer. Going to the point of attributing the quality of an idea to be proportionate to the memories stored on the shelves of the brain, it describes innovation as cognitive tools that we already possess.

Prior research have emphasized the following areas: personal qualities such as curiosity and persistence, workspace where an optimal space, with no distractions, still fosters casual connections with others, structure when people face too many options,  and going solo when individuals produce more unique ideas alone than in a group. We can complete each step of Think Bigger on our own before discussing it with others.

Innovation starts by identifying a problem we are motivated to and can feasibly solve. Without a problem, there is a long list of creations that all failed. If we are struggling to define a problem, then taking daily notes may spark a sense of purpose. Phrasing a problem in terms of a question that begins with How is one of the classic ways of getting started with a problem.

With a problem, we can then break it down into parts that we can gather input from experts, potential users and non-experts. As these generate leads for thinking bigger, we move on to the next step when we have clarity over 80% of the problem space.

A good solution satisfies the requirements of the target audiences, the interest from the third-party stakeholders and the desires of the innovator. These three groups are essential for the solution and might warrant different ways of going about them. Articulating one’s own desires in writing while interviewing target audience and stakeholders, we build a list of three to five key wants for each group.

Next, we structure the solution by using a Choice Map and Big Picture score. “The best way to think outside the box is to literally go into other boxes.” We split the search for solutions to sub-problems in two areas: “in domain” and “out of domain”. When the choice map is filled out, we are ready to start combining tactics to find an overall solution.

Before committing to our idea, we must learn how others react to it. By explaining to others, we change, refine, or expand our idea. There are four feedback exercises.

The first is verbalization. Describing the idea to ourselves by reading and writing may be enough to change the way we see it. Describing it to others almost certainly will.

The second exercise gathers experts’ reactions. After describing the problem, the solution and its significance, we ask neutral questions like how we improve our idea.

The third exercise gauges whether others’ impressions of our idea align with our own. Asking non-experts to say it back to us but give it some time to check what they recollect.

The final exercise is to describe the solution again but giving our listeners free rein to reimagine our idea. Their answers will lead to further insights and possibilities.

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