Doing more, faster, better with less is inescapable in modern commerce.  The demands just keep going up and the resources available always seem to be tightening.  We find ourselves in a vicious vice of contradictions without end.  And then we have this global pandemic, to just make it all that much more character building.  Have I depressed you enough?  How do we get out of this mess?  What can we do to improve on the situation?    Getting innovative ideas is critical for our businesses to survive, but how do we generate creative ideas?  No matter how genius the boss, there are limits to how many worthwhile ideas can be generated by one individual.  Also, the further you climb up the greasy pole within organisations, the further you get away from the coal face of what is really going on.  The most recent, most junior hire may have the best ideas. The organisation’s employee generation which best reflects the profile of the buyer or the buyer’s customers, may have the best insights.  The problem is we rarely ask either group.   My various bosses holding the whiteboard markers and standing there demanding ideas which were filleted upon arrival, is still burnt into my mind as the worst way to generate creative ideas.  There are better ways to get ideas and we have a Nine Step Innovation Process tool to do just that.   Step One: Visualisation What is our goal or objective? What does success look like?  What is our “Should Be” case?  We have to be clear what we are striving to achieve, because if that target isn’t clear, we have little chance of achieving it.   Step Two: Fact Finding We need to get the facts.  We look at the “who”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why” and “how” of situations.  We defer judgement about facts and concentrate on collecting them. Sometimes we realise we have faulty or poor data collection systems or worse we discover errors.  We need to work hard to establish the measurement systems needed to generate valuable data and to start looking for creative solutions to problems.   Step Three: Problem Or Opportunity Finding The way we state a problem influences whether we get useful or creative input.  Our objective is to defer judgment and become crystal clear about what the real problem is. This sounds easy, but ask five people what is the main problem and you may get eight opinions.  We need to do some preliminary investigation to understand what is holding us back or where we are wasting valuable resources.  Sprinting hard and fast in the wrong direction is not helpful.   Step Four: Idea Finding No judgmental thinking is permitted at this stage.  We are trying to collect as many ideas as possible and are after volume of ideas not quality of ideas at this point.  This is not how things are normally done, so we need to police this stage very carefully.  Often participants in the idea generation process will want to start evaluating ideas as they arrive.  We have to set some very clear rules.  One which is extremely important is to insist all the idea generation is done in silence.  This sounds easy, but I have always been surprised how fast the quick thinkers get bored with the process and want to talk with their colleagues.  We need to shut them down and let the deeper thinkers do their thing.   Step Five: Solution Finding This is where we use judicial thinking.  We are trying to identify the best ideas.  Up until this point, we may have been able to restrain the bolshie, super confident, assertive few, but now they can easily come into their own and dominate which ideas are taken up.  This can also be tricky, as juniors will defer to seniors and everyone will defer to rank.  We need to make sure that we have a system to choose the best ideas.  In Japan, this process usually means arriving at a consensus.  We have to make sure that isn’t just a easy consensus to reflect seniority and superior status.   Step Six: Acceptance Finding We will need to convince decision-makers for support for the ideas and that will mea