Lateral thinking a way towards Collective Innovation

Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician and a writer. Lateral thinking is a deviation from vertical thinking; it is a way of innovative thinking. In lateral thinking, thinking pattern is not predictable, as in the case of vertical thinking. But at times the result of lateral thinking turns out to be an innovation.

There are numerous tools or methods that can bring about lateral thinking.

Random entry: Choose an object at random, or a noun from a dictionary, and associate that with the area you are thinking about.

Example: The world today is facing energy crisis, most of the developing countries have acute electricity shortage. Currently we depend on hydro electric projects, thermal projects, nuclear projects, wind projects etc for generating electricity. We never thought or explored some mechanism for generating electricity by human beings. Yes a bicycle like device with dynamo attached can be used to generate electricity in small quantity, but in a regular manner.

Provocation: Declare the usual perception out of bounds, or provide some provocative alternative to the usual situation under consideration. Prefix the provocation with the term 'Po" to signal that the provocation is not a valid idea put up for judgment but a stimulus for new perception.

Example: The usual way of software development start with requirement gathering, preparation of documents, sign off of documents etc. But this approach often land into failures, especially when the client is not aware of pros and cons of computerization. Few circumstances are even worse as the client may be good in business knowledge but can’t express it properly to software designers and leads to a project failure. Let us take a different approach here, to start with make an overall quick study and come up with a proto type with basic functionalities. Make user work on prototype and improve proto type with new requirements. This approach may help to reduce time and rework involved in the project development.

Challenge: Simply challenge the way things have always been done or seen, or the way they are. This is done not to show there is anything wrong with the existing situation but simply to direct your perceptions to exploring outside the current area. This approach some time leads to evolution of wonderful innovations that can give the vital competitive edge to business organizations.

Example: Military service around the world follows a uniform specific to their countries norms and a strict reporting time and a set of routine jobs. There is nothing wrong in doing that but we can think of a scenario where in military people are given with a set of tasks rather than orders and let them finish it at their own convenience.

Mostly people depend upon lateral thinking when they want to think out of the box. Thus always collective innovations will be possible when there is lateral thinking from all or a session of people in a group.

Lateral thinking Managers to Promote Collective Innovation among team members

Conventional approach to the problem solving was based on taking requirements from clients, design the requirement and develop the solution in a given technology. Solution then tested and implemented. This is a vertical approach to the problem solving, here it’s a routine job, and no innovation only technical expertise of the developer is involved.

Today’s managers think differently, they ask their work force to look for a different approach. Developers get an opportunity to think aggressively and come out with some solution, that solves the current issue and add some other value to the system and to the customer. This kind of collective innovation helps to improve the goodwill of the company and there by succeed in the competition.

An example for lateral thinking that lead to value addition to the organization


There are many organizations functioning in technology front, real estate, tourism, transportation and many governmental organizations, all with huge human resource and most of the people with full or part time access to computers. These organizations will have a well maintained intranet and some may have access to internet as well.

Employees of such establishments may be coming from different parts of the world and may not be familiar with people, culture etc. Most of the time employees find it very difficult to find out good hotels, cinema halls, place for worship, places of tourism interest, contacts of local people who can repair two wheeler, car or may be a small work like changing water tap etc.

This is where we can add value to the organization by providing an intranet portal, which can list each of this information, separately. For this purpose a database of all these people and institutions maintained with clear map and detailed information. So this innovation will become a big help for the employees. But there are more advantages like organization can charge these people to publish their details in the site, as this will become a good advertisement for them, they will be always happy to pay. This way a collective innovation can lead to a great help to the employees and a way to generate revenue as well.