SCAMPER - a Powerful Innovation Method for Products or Services
Try This Brainstorm Method to Boost Ideas
- SUBSTITUTE - What elements of this product or service can we substitute?
- COMBINE - How can we combine this with other products or services?
- ADAPT - What idea from elsewhere can we alter or adapt?
- MAXIMISE OR MINIMISE - How can we greatly enlarge or greatly reduce any component?
- PUT TO OTHER USE - What completely different use can we have for our product?
- ELIMINATE - What elements of the product or service can be eliminated?
- REARRANGE OR REVERSE - How can we rearrange the product or reverse the process?
Here are some examples of how the SCAMPER verbs work for innovation. If you were making spectacles then you could substitute plastic lenses for glass (incremental innovation) or you could substitute contact lenses for spectacles (radical innovation). A mobile phone was combined with a camera and then an MP3 player. The roll-on deodorant was an idea adapted from the ballpoint pen. Restaurants that offer all you can eat have maximized their proposition. A low cost airline like Ryanair has minimized (or eliminated) many elements of service. De Beers put industrial diamonds to other use when they launched engagement rings. Dell Computers and Amazon eliminated the intermediary. MacDonalds rearranged the restaurant by getting customers to pay first and then eat.
Luciano Passuello has posted a blog on SCAMPER together with a SCAMPER random question generator and a SCAMPER mindmap. If you want to use this tool in your next brainstorm meeting then these resources are highly recommended.
Paul Sloane speaks and runs workshops on creativity and innovation. He is the author of How to be a Brilliant Thinker.
Published by Paul Sloane
I am a Speaker & Author of books on lateral thinking puzzles, leadership & innovation. I help organisations to improve creativity and innovation. I give keynote talks and I facilitate brainstorms and worksh... View profile
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