Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller.

The five stages above are separate and distinct, yet there is sometimes a feeling that there is more of an overlap than in fact there is:

Sometimes ignoring everybody works. But this is rare. And only wise if you can afford the loss.

Your opinion doesn’t matter. The end user’s does

But what do we do with all these ideas?

One of the most useful - used by television executives when they’re thinking of developing programming - is to break up the human life span into fifty or a hundred key moments. They then elicit five o...

Inspiration or insight is that moment when solutions to problems become apparent – they reach the conscious mind from the subconscious. The mind has been tackling problems that have previously been id...

The Economist (2003b) states that 3000 bright ideas are needed for 100 worthwhile projects, which in turn will be winnowed down to four development programmes for new products. And four such developme...

Developing ideas within a framework is one of the most effective methods of speeding up creative output.

All too often idea generation is a conscious process. Leaders will herd people into a room with a flip chart, conduct a “brainstorming” session and state a problem (without deeper analysis) and ask fo...

One of the most interesting aspects of creativity and innovation is the general perception of obviousness.

One of the most valuable tools for maximising idea generation is the use of frameworks. Frameworks break a large task into smaller more manageable pieces but also include the sum of knowledge of previ...

Structure is one of the most valuable tools for enhancing creativity. There are essentially two types of structure: Frameworks and Work Processes.

One of the most valuable tools for maximising idea generation is the use of work processes. Work processes align activity with the goal and produce far more output than randomness or simply “do your b...

Most firms attempt to add value to their products or services in order to increase sales and prestige. However, few appreciate the difference between value and quality. But by doing so, they can more ...

As idea generation is a cognitive activity, it follows that certain environments will inhibit that activity (and expression of) whilst others will foster it.