Thursday, 31 October 2013

Rearrange to generate new ideas

Some restaurants are rearranged to get the customers to pay first and then have food. Editing in movies is done by rearranging shots and footages to make the movie more entertaining. “Rearrange” can be used as an innovation tool to identify possibilities of changing set patterns and realigning it to explore various solutions. Let us take the example of Olympic rings.

Olympic rings were designed by a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1912; he is also the founder of International Olympics committee. The five multicoloured rings stand for five continents, the interlocking signifies unity between the nations. The five colours and the white background of Olympic rings have at least one colour of every nation’s flag in them.

Now, without changing the meaning and spirit of the rings, think of various ring arrangements. Some questions which can help us to change the pattern are as follows:
Why two rings at the bottom? Why there are gaps between the top three rings? Some people could think of as many as 20 different ring arrangements.

Computer keyboard used by us is a good example of problem solving by rearrangement. In 1860s the typewriter keys were in alphabetical order but it had problems with fast typing. Letters used to get tangled and the typist had to manually untangle the type bars. To solve the problem keys were rearranged in QWERTY format (it is the sequence of the keys) to facilitate fast typing. QWERTY is designed for English language after a lot of research. Layout of computer keyboard is rearranged according to the country where it is used. QWERTY layout is the most commonly used. QWERTZ layout is widely used in Germany and much of Central Europe, AZERTY layout is used in France and Belgium.

Ask any hotelier and they will tell you the importance of rearranging buffet tables to suit the occasion. Cricket teams are rearranged according to the playing conditions. Shopping malls rearrange their layout to enhance customer convenience. Can you think of anything else which you can improve by rearranging?  

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