If you were to develop your concept further, what could go wrong? A ‘Pre-Mortem’ exercise can be used to think of the many ways your concept might fail, for example, by creating real harm for users, by damaging the reputation of your organisation, or by being completely impractical in reality. This is an engaging way to weigh up the potential risks and harms of your concepts.

The COCD Box method, so called as it was developed by the Centre for Development of Creative Thinking, can be used to establish the originality and feasibility of your concepts, enabling you to recognise which concepts should be abandoned, which might be good but not right to pursue at the moment, and finally which you should pursue.

In the Recognition stage you developed a set of design criteria to guide the development of your solution. This remains a vital record of the specifications that a successful innovation will likely need to fulfil. Use your design criteria to assess your concepts. If your concepts do not look like they will fulfil important criteria, you need to consider rejecting them as the basis for an appropriate solution.