Your first idea is rarely your best one. Professional designers generate dozens of ideas before choosing, because quantity leads to quality: the more ideas you have, the more likely one of them is excellent. But once you have a long list, you need a fair way to pick. This lesson gives you both halves of the job: tools to produce lots of ideas, and a decision-making model that chooses among them using evidence instead of gut feeling.
Creative-thinking strategies
Brainstorming is a group session where everyone suggests ideas quickly. It works only if the group follows its rules, because one critical comment can make people stop sharing.
- No criticism during the session. Judging comes later.
- Go for quantity. Aim for 20 or more ideas.
- Wild ideas are welcome. An impossible idea often leads to a practical one.
- Build on others' ideas. "Yes, and..." is better than "No, but...".
- Record every idea where everyone can see it.
Mind mapping starts with one word in the centre of a page, such as "lunch", and branches outward to related words ("slow line", "healthy", "cost"), then further branches ("pre-order", "smoothies", "meal deal"). It helps one person explore connections they would not see in a list. SCAMPER is a checklist for improving an existing product by asking seven questions. Observation means deliberately watching for problems in your school and community: long lines, broken things, complaints, and things people do the hard way.
| SCAMPER letter | Question | Example applied to a school water bottle |
|---|---|---|
| S: Substitute | What material or part could be swapped? | Use bamboo instead of plastic for the lid |
| C: Combine | What could it be joined with? | Combine it with a fruit infuser |
| A: Adapt | What else is like it that could be copied? | Adapt a thermos design to keep water cold all day |
| M: Modify | What could be made bigger, smaller or changed? | Add time markings that show how much to drink by noon |
| P: Put to another use | Who else could use it? | Sell it to sports teams as a team bottle |
| E: Eliminate | What could be removed? | Remove the straw, the part that breaks most |
| R: Reverse or rearrange | What if the order or position changed? | Put the opening on the bottom for easy cleaning |
A decision-making model
A decision-making model is a series of steps that makes a choice deliberate and explainable. You will use it to choose one idea for a school-based or student-run business.
- Define the decision: "Which business should our team run at school this semester?"
- List the alternatives: the best ideas from brainstorming and observation.
- Set the criteria and weight them: what matters, and how much? For example, start-up cost, expected demand, fit with skills, and time required.
- Evaluate each alternative against each criterion, usually with a rating from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent).
- Choose the alternative with the highest weighted score, then check that the choice makes sense.
- Act on the decision and review it later. If results are poor, return to the list.
The weighted decision matrix, step by step
A weighted decision matrix is a table that scores every alternative on every criterion. Each criterion gets a weight showing how important it is, and the weights add to 100%. Rate every criterion so that a higher number is always better. For start-up cost, that means a cheap idea gets a 5 and an expensive one gets a 1. Then multiply each rating by its weight and add across.
| Criterion (weight) | Smoothie stand | Tote bags | Tech Help Desk | Plant sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low start-up cost (30%) | 2 → 0.6 | 3 → 0.9 | 5 → 1.5 | 4 → 1.2 |
| Expected demand (30%) | 5 → 1.5 | 3 → 0.9 | 3 → 0.9 | 2 → 0.6 |
| Fit with our skills (20%) | 3 → 0.6 | 4 → 0.8 | 5 → 1.0 | 2 → 0.4 |
| Time fits our schedule (20%) | 2 → 0.4 | 3 → 0.6 | 4 → 0.8 | 3 → 0.6 |
| Weighted score (out of 5) | 3.1 | 3.2 | 4.2 | 2.8 |