Cross-Pollination
Deliberately seek inspiration from unrelated industries and domains.
Explanation
Cross-pollination involves looking to completely different industries, domains, or contexts for inspiration. Many breakthrough innovations come from applying solutions from one field to problems in another. By systematically exploring how other industries handle similar challenges, teams can discover approaches they would never have considered within their own domain.
Real-World Example
Online education inspired by gaming: Progress bars from RPGs, badges from scouts, leaderboards from sports, social features from social media, micro-transactions from mobile games. Restaurant reservation systems applied to healthcare: OpenTable model → doctor appointment scheduling with real-time availability, reviews, and automatic reminders.
How to Apply
Identify core challenge (not domain-specific solution). List 5-10 unrelated industries. For each industry, ask: 'How do they handle similar challenges?' 'What would their solution look like in our context?' Look for patterns across industries. Often the best insights come from the most distant domains—manufacturing principles applied to software, hospitality applied to healthcare.