Rather than thinking original ideas, this tool provokes us to gather ideas from divergent fields, manipulate and fuse them into our requirements.

SCAMPER is an acronym for seven techniques.

S stands for substitute, C for combine, A for adapt, M for modify or magnify, P for put to some other use, E for eliminate, R for reverse or rearrange.

We have to divide our problem into several tasks or stages and then ask SCAMPER some questions at each of the steps in order for SCAMPER to provide us with some clear ideas.

Let's consider the following scenario.

A friend of yours is growing a lot of orange trees in his farm.

Your friend is planning to put these oranges to work.

He wants to manufacture and sell orange juice.

He's facing difficulties in selling the product owing to stiff competition.

Anxious of his product and the position that the product has in the market, he understands that he needs to create a new marketplace or extend the market boundary to grow some more sales.

Let's generate ideas using the SCAMPER technique.

The first step of the SCAMPER model is substitute.

This is a technique for replacing something with another thing.

Here we need to discuss and consider the following questions.

What materials or resources can you substitute to improve the product?

What other product or process could you use?

What rules could you substitute?

Can you use this product somewhere else or as a substitute for something else?

What will happen if you change your feelings or attitudes towards this product?

Let's see how this works in practice.

Consider substituting the shape or the form of the product.

For example, we can substitute the box from a rectangular shape to a circle shape.

What else can we substitute?

The form of the principal medium from liquid to concentrate perhaps.

We have the primary medium being liquid, the orange juice.

Perhaps we can transform it into orange powder form or we can solidify it into cubes.

Let's think about the processes that we can substitute.

For example, instead of squeezing a piece of orange into water, you may as well drop cubes of ice to dissolve in the water and those cubes of ice would be infused with the orange flavor.

However, the idea of having cuboid concentrate already exists in the market, so we may as well consider what if we actually provide slice-shaped concentrate.

Perhaps this would be something new that customers would be interested in buying and trying.

The next technique within the scamper model is combine.

Combine is a process of combining unrelated ideas to create something new.

Here we need to consider the following questions.

What would happen if you combine this product with another one to create something completely new?

What if you combine purposes or objectives?

What could you combine to maximize the uses of this product?

How could you combine talent and resources to create a new approach to this product?

Using this principle, we may decide to combine powder and cream form together.

Can the same product be made into a creamy form by adding a mix of a limited amount of water and perhaps another ingredient?

The next technique of the scamper model is adapt.

Adaptation is a widely practiced tool in creativity.

When we are attempting to apply this technique, we need to consider addressing the following questions.

How could you adapt or readjust this product to serve another purpose or use?

Who or what could you emulate to adapt this product?

What other context could you put your product into?

What other products or ideas could you use for inspiration?

To use this technique, we may focus on the kind of marketing or selling technique to be adopted.

Then we can adapt the product to follow the selling technique that we have chosen.

We can upsell or cross-sell this product.

Can we have some value-added suggestions for the product?

For example, we may have some specific recommendations for patients with diabetes and how they should consume this product.

The next step of the scamper model is modify or magnify.

In order to address this step of the scamper model, we need to consider the following question.

How could you change the shape, look or feel of the product?

What could you add to modify this product?

What could you emphasize or highlight to create more value?

What elements of this product could you strengthen to create something new?

As part of this step, we can consider what can be extended.

What kind of characteristics can we magnify?

Perhaps color can signify intensity.

The darker the color, the more sugary the product would be.

And then if it's lighter, there is more medium sugar.

And if it's very light in terms of color, perhaps this product is sugarless.

The next step of the scamper model is put to other uses.

Here we need to address the following questions.

Can you use this product somewhere else?

Perhaps in another industry?

Who else could use this product?

How would this product behave differently in another setting?

Could you recycle the waste from this product to make something new?

It's time for us to consider what else can be done with our sliced orange product.

How else can it be used?

Can we use orange sliced tissue paper along with our product?

Can we provide compact, expandable, good quality mesh bags which can be used for carrying vegetables or fruits?

Can we provide orange chewing paper?

Maybe a mouth freshener?

Can we use the waste oil from orange as orange sliced sanitizer perhaps?

The next step of the scamper model is eliminate.

We can consider what can be eliminated.

But before that, let's have a look at the following questions that we need to address as part of this step.

How could you streamline or simplify this product?

What features, parts or rules could you eliminate?

What could you understate or tone down perhaps?

How could you make it smaller, faster, lighter or more fun?

What would happen if you took away a part of this product?

What would you have in its place?

It is time to consider what part of our product or its packaging we can eliminate.

Can we eliminate the human faces in our tv ads or banners or posters?

Can we provide animation instead which perhaps can be appealing to a specific age group of customers?

The final step of the scamper model is rearrange.

We need to consider the following questions.

What would happen if you reversed the process or sequenced things quite differently?

What if you try to do the exact opposite of what you're trying to do now?

What components could you substitute to change the order of the product?

What roles could you reverse or swap?

How could you reorganize this product?

We may consider rearranging the schedule of the product.

So instead of selling the product for the whole 30 days per month, we can actually sell only for the first 10 days in each month.

Can we purposefully limit the stock?

Perhaps we can limit the quantities per person?

Maybe we can only sell to our members?

Simply put, humans place a higher value on an object that is scarce and a lower value on those objects that are abundant.

So can we actually create an artificial scarcity?

Alright, so you hopefully saw how powerful the scamper model is.

It can definitely help you get started with your business coming up with unique business ideas or perhaps you can scale up your business by diversifying your product portfolio.

So let me know if you like this video by clicking the like button or subscribing and if you have any feedback, put some comment below.