Divergence is a concept that implies that something is
different or develops in a different direction.
Divergent thinking takes this concept and applies it to help you gain new
insights and solutions. This concept can
be extremely important in achieving an innovation mindset. This can benefit your focus on innovation and agility leading to better business results.
For a company, divergent thinking can be used as a technique
that provides an opportunity to create an internal market place of ideas. These ideas can then be discussed, refined,
and evolved into multiple solution options.
Divergent thinking provides individuals, teams, and
companies with the ability to consider lots of possible ways to satisfy a business
need. Once divergent thinking occurs, there is a need to pair this with convergent
thinking so that one solution is decided upon and experimented with.
Unfortunately Divergent thinking isn’t encouraged in many of work cultures. While most companies
will say they want new and innovative ideas, there is an angst to move quickly to an answer which typically negates the possibility of sufficient divergent
thinking. Converging too soon reduces options and opportunity.
If you are looking to infuse a mindset where innovation can
thrive, then explicitly introduce divergent thinking into your organization. Innovation is often introduced in the form of
hack days. This is periodic and event
driven. A more effective approach may be
to apply continuous divergent thinking throughout many of the steps of your
idea to delivery (aka, end-to-end) process.
Some may ask, “What is to keep divergent thinking from
distracting or slowing down our work?”
The simple answer is to apply a time-box technique for divergent
thinking. A brief example is if you have
a business opportunity (aka, idea), allow for a period of time to silently
identify all possible solutions. Place
the ideas onto large post-ids and post them up.
The key is to conduct the divergent thinking silently since this
ensures no negative or anchored prejudice interferes. Divergent thinking works best when ideas can
flow freely without opposing opinions.
Once the time-boxed divergent period is concluded and all of the ideas are
collected, then convergence may commence.
Divergent thinking is a great way to gain new insights and
ideas for solutions to business problems and products. If you are looking for ways to infuse
innovative thinking into your organization, consider applying divergent
thinking. Divergent thinking may allow you to come up with the next generation idea or the 10x gain which can lead to better business results.
