1. CREATE METHODOLOGY

The create methodology was realized after a comparative analysis of over 200 techniques and 16 methodologies developed by the main authors about creativity (De Bono, Jaoui, Foster and Kaplan, …). The CREATE methodology is easy to apply inside the organizations and effective on many processes and it can be used in the following process:

• Strategic Planning
• New Product Development
• Customer Care

The proposed methodology allow to realize the creative process to generate a new idea. It consists of 5 phases and 6 techniques (see the figure).

Fig 1- Proposed metodology

We have clustered all the techniques in 5 main phases that characterise the creativeprocess. The identified phases are briefly described below:

1. Predisposition

Predisposition has a quite wide sphere of relevance; indeed, it concerns the creation of those essential circumstances in organization that are the preliminary step to the development of creativity: company atmosphere, leadership style, culture, organization structure and systems. Moreover it concerns the settlement of business objectives, resource allocation, the organization of seminars and training courses about creative techniques and the choice of tutors of innovation process. Finally it concerns to this phase also the choice of the most suitable personnel for work groups.

This phase aims:

• to create a work environment to allow the employees to free their creativity;
• to constitute the "creative" groups;
• to point out the people that will act in the group as creativity catalysers and facilitators

2. External Mapping

In the External mapping a series of activities are included, such as the search for entrepreneurial ideas linked to the environment outside a company, the identification of new and unexpressed needs, the utilization of talents, new opportunities, and abilities. In this phase it has been considered also the study of competitors’ strategies, both of those at the centre and at the margin of their belonging sector. Moreover it includes the evaluation of the economic implications of possible changes in competitive survey, as far as market shares, prices, profits, distribution of human capital, and value creation inside a reference sector. Not all the authors that have been analysed take into consideration all these elements; some of them, indeed, focus their attention only on a part of the elements and others do not consider even entire phases.

Internal mapping concerns the identification and evaluation of all the company resources, in order to promote the development of new business concepts by making the most of its potential; it includes also an internal study to identify malfunctions, processes and products that could be improved.

Idea generation concerns the production of ideas, that could occur both in individual and joint level, even if all the authors agree to state that the best solution comes from a combination of both contributes. In this phase each author presents his own creative techniques, that sometimes are different for denomination but not for content.

Evaluation consists in the selection of the best ideas according to company’s internal assessment criteria.