In the book Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skills That Empower Innovation, Jeff and Staney DeGraff outline six steps for developing a Creative Mindset.

"The ability to investigate, identify, and articulate a problem is the paramount creativity skill. We can't problem-solve if we don't know what the problem is."

- Jeff and Staney DeGraff

1. Clarify: Spotting a situation worth your time and effort.*

Once you have identified a challenge worth solving, you must clearly understand the problem you are trying to solve; Jeff and Staney DeGraff refer to this as 'Getting the Challenge Right.' 

So you have clarity on the issue and the value of tackling it. What's next? The next step is to use the following wayfinding strategies to define the following action.

• Follow the River Upstream: Is there an example of a solution that might work for your current challenge? If so, can you research to see the source and the initial problem and how they approached finding the solution? What innovations were used? Can you leverage that approach?
• Talk to the Locals: Open up a dialogue with folks impacted by the challenge. Or folks who might be part of the solution to the challenge. Opening up your circle to collaboration may provide additional insights for innovation you may not have thought of.
• Forage and Fish: Collaborate and innovate with your new partners and test the waters with your solution. Gain feedback from stakeholders and consumers of your solution, whether it be a product or service.

2. Replicate: Reframing the problem from a different perspective*

In step 2, Jeff and Staney DeGraff discuss the creativity skill of replicating what we see and applying it to a different situation to solve our problem. 

They outline three methods to replicate:

• Going on field trips: Develop your creative mindset and increase your awareness by keeping your eyes and ears open at all times and constantly changing your surroundings. 
• Making new friends: Creative people look for disconfirming feedback and widen their frame of reference, point of view, and circle of friends.
• Copying nature (biomimicry): Observing something in the natural world and then modifying it into a human-made creation is called biomimicry. Think of it as an accelerated form of evolution—and the ultimate form of replication.

*DeGraff, S., & DeGraff, J. (2020). The Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skills that Empower Innovation. Berrett-Koehler.