Use formal idea generation methods to develop possible Millennium Products for the next millennium, the year 3000. An innovative idea can come from a spark of inspiration or can be the result of a lengthy and focused development programme. A housewife and mother sought a solution to the problem of spills from traditionally designed toddlers' training cups and so developed a cup which contains a one-way valve that only allows liquid through when the child sucks the spout.
Many successful ideas come from knowing where to look, rather than waiting for inspiration.
At the time of this document going to press the statistics gathered from the survey of Millennium Product companies, shown below, suggest that the majority of ideas do come from a structured approach to idea generation. Many well developed idea-generation methods exist to force us to think more creatively. Users of this technique are asked to take a product and 'substitute, combine, adapt, magnify or reduce, put to other uses, eliminate or elaborate and rearrange or reverse' it. Clich s and proverbs' is a tool that forces pure lateral thinking. The principle is that most clich s and proverbs, e.g. 'practice makes perfect', 'better late than never', etc, are sufficiently general to be relevant to almost any situation and when applied to the problem may force the user to make associations that may not have otherwise occurred.