3.4 Experimenting and piloting

How do experimentation and piloting fuel radical creativity?

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Creativity sometimes requires making things that don’t turn out to be useful. What does that mean? The creative process involves experimentation, and sometimes the confidence to move forward only comes after exploring and rejecting alternatives. Finding new, usable outcomes often involves considering and discarding many options.

Experimenting can help identify the essential questions or critical issues in a project. Piloting is often when people have to start thinking in concrete and material terms, so it can reveal which aspects won’t really work and also suggest new directions.

Before we go deeper into experimentation, let’s recap  the Wallas model of the creative process, which we introduced in the Creative process sub-chapter. According to Wallas, the creative process consists of four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. Experimentation and piloting are linked with the incubation, illumination and verification stages.

In the incubation stage, the focus shifts away from actively thinking about the project and working on it. This is a ‘letting it go’ phase (see Scharmer, 2016) in which you relax while focusing on something else. Walking away from your idea or creative work might seem counterproductive, but it’s important to get a chance to see your work from another perspective or let the idea develop without conscious attention (Mäkikoskela, 2018). This should also be done after every analytically examined experiment.

After letting your idea or creative work incubate, it’s time to actively pursue creative solutions again. The illumination stage is about coming up with ideas or even the creative outcome. You might make new connections and find revelations in your ideas, and this can involve experimentation. The incubation and illumination stages can both be repeated several times during a creative process.

The last stage is verification, which involves experimentation as you prototype, test and refine the ideas generated during the illumination stage. You sharpen, evaluate and refine your idea, and then you actualize it and present the outcome.

Experimenting principles

Fail often and early

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In the field of design, Carlgren, Rauth & Elmquist (2016) define experimentation as a bias towards testing and trying things out in an iterative way and moving between divergent and convergent ways of thinking. The authors present a list of principles/mindsets and practices for experimentation.

Experimentation
Principles / mindsets	Practices
Curious and creative Playful and humoristic Optimistic and energetic Learning-oriented Eager to share	Work iteratively (divergent, convergent) Converge based on a diverse set of ideas Prototype quickly and often to learn Testing solutions quickly and often: share prototypes with users and colleagues Fail often and early

These principles for experimentation recur throughout this course because they also apply to radical creativity. Curiosity and creativity are catalysts for generating innovative ideas and questions that can lead to new projects. Playfulness and humor foster open-mindedness and encourage risk-taking and exploration. Optimism and energy sustain the persistence needed during experimentation, especially when things don’t work out immediately. The ‘fail often and early’ mindset is important when experimenting. A learning-oriented approach aligns with the iterative cycles of testing, gathering feedback, learning and refining, and a readiness to share makes group learning possible.

Tua Björklund, a professor at Aalto University’s Design Factory, says that the radicalness in radical creativity comes from openly discussing and questioning assumptions, bringing in and appreciating diverse experiences, and being willing to consider and test even wild ideas. This increases the odds of finding and being able to realise truly novel solutions.

In sum, experimentation is key for radical creativity. Prototyping and testing are the definition of experimentation: prototypes are built in order to test ideas and learn how they can be improved, ideally in rapid iteration. The practice of experimentation allows people and organizations to explore new ideas. Experiments can be used to define the next steps in the creative process. In other words, having cycles of experimenting, prototyping, testing and learning is a key practice in radical creativity.

Experimentation doesn’t only happen at the end of the creative process for validation and verification. It also helps practitioners test ideas, learn and explore new directions.

Artistic play

What can we learn from contemporary art?

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Experimentation is at the heart of contemporary art. Often the whole point of an art project is to ask questions and experiment, and just play, without any actual outcome in mind. That’s the freedom of art. A dose of that kind of freedom would be a good addition in other fields where radical creativity is pursued.

Watch the video for an example of a contemporary art experimentation.

Serendipity

Making use of the unexpected

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Serendipity can play a big role in the creative process, such as in scientific discoveries and breakthroughs. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, serendipity means finding valuable or agreeable things that were not sought out. In other words, serendipity means an unplanned but fortunate discovery.

Serendipity’s role in science has been widely discussed. Merton’s and Barber’s (2006) research offers a history of serendipity, using the history of the word to explore the miracle of intellectual discovery. The creative process can be a messy blend of inspiration, perspiration, error, and happy chance. Simonton (2003) argues that scientific creativity cannot be entirely explained unless one incorporates randomly determined or stochastic elements as an integral part of the discovery process, including serendipitous events.

When creating something new and heading toward the unknown, the path is very seldom clear, straight or linear. The most important thing is to be persistent (Runco, 2014) while also trying different approaches. Experimentation and learning from failures offer a valuable tool for this. As discussed in the Ideation sub-chapter, the creative process can start even without an actual idea, from mere intuition or a feeling that there could be something interesting to explore. An idea can also develop significantly while doing experiments. How a an initial thought is cultivated further is at least as important as the idea itself—the first idea is rarely the best or the most radical.

When we do experiments, we observe whether things behave as expected. Working is embodied and sensory, and we constantly make observations as we work. It’s especially important to make observations when something unexpected happens or when things go wrong. This kind of serendipitous discovery can sometimes revolutionize an entire field or industry. Without serendipity, we wouldn’t have penicillin or microwave ovens, for example. Or Post-it notes.

In 1968, Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M, was tasked with developing a stronger adhesive but instead created microspheres—tiny adhesive particles that were sticky yet removable. For years, Silver struggled to find a practical application for his invention. In 1974 his colleague, Art Fry, had a ‘eureka moment.’

During choir practice, Fry realized he needed a bookmark that could stick to the pages of his hymnbook without falling off or damaging the paper. He remembered Silver’s microspheres and saw their potential as a solution to his problem. This unexpected connection between Silver’s adhesive and Fry’s bookmark challenge led to the creation of the Post-it note.

References

Björklund, Tua, Eriksson, Vikki, Feng, Xiaoqi, Kirjavainen, Senni, Klenner, Nico, Kuukka, Anna and van der Marel, Floris. 2022. Toward Radical Creativity. https://www.aalto.fi/sites/g/files/flghsv161/files/2022-11/Aalto%20University%20Toward%20Radical%20Creativity%20REPORT%20October%202022.pdf

Carlgren, Rauth, and Elmquist. 2016. Framing Design Thinking: The Concept in Idea and Enactment.

Kronqvist, J., Erving, H., & Leinonen, T. (2013). Cardboard hospital – Prototyping Patient-centric Environments and Services. In P. E. Eva Brandt, M. H. R. Troels Degn Johansson, & A. V. Thomas Markussen (Eds.), NORDES 2013. Proceedings of the Nordes 2013 conference (pp. 293-302). Kunstakademiets Arkitektskoles Forlag.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/serendipity

Merton, Robert K. & Barber, Elinor. 2006. The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691126302.

Mäkikoskela, Riikka. 2018. From Far to Close (and Back). Material Resistance and Changing Perspectives in Visual Art Practice. Research in Art and Education, Vol. 2018 No. 3: Special issue on Catalyses, Interventions, Transformations, 349–378, https://journal.fi/rae/article/view/118874.

Runco, Mark A. 2014. Creativity. Theories and Themes: Research, Development, and Practice. Second edition. New York, NY: Elsevier.

Scharmer, Otto. 2016. Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges. 2nd edition. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Simonton, D. K. 2003. Scientific creativity as constrained stochastic behavior: The integration of product, person, and process perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 129(4), 475-494.

Wallas, Graham. 1926. The Art of Thought. Turnbridge Wells: Solsis Press.