SCAMPER
Substitute · Combine · Adapt · Modify · Put to another use · Eliminate · Rearrange
What is SCAMPER?
- Forced ideation with 7 questions
- Modify what exists, not a blank page
- Time-box each question
The first thing SCAMPER changes in a meeting is not the number of ideas but what people bring. Instead of showing up with a blank sheet and sticky notes, they arrive with a spec of the thing to be improved. Unless you write down its components, sequence, and the time and cost of each step, you can’t point to what to substitute or what to remove. In practice the biggest difference is that breaking down the subject comes before the questions. None of the seven questions can get a grip on an undivided lump.
The seven questions are not equally hard. Substitute, Combine, and Adapt produce answers in 30 seconds, but those answers usually stay within the existing frame. The answers that shake things up come from Eliminate and Rearrange, and they surface last because of the worry that 'if we take that out, who is accountable when something goes wrong?' So run Round 1 evenly at 3–5 minutes per letter, then give Round 2 only to Eliminate and Rearrange, 10 more minutes each. A group of 5–7 working for 40–50 minutes gathers 40–60 ideas, and usually only 2–4 are worth carrying forward.
The difference from brainstorming is not freedom but input. Brainstorming runs on a topic alone, while SCAMPER only works when there is a real thing to change. Conversely, if you ask the seven questions before you know why customers aren’t buying, you’ll just get variations on the existing product. In that case it’s faster to start with customer interviews or design thinking and do problem framing first. Remember that this is an improvement tool, not a discovery tool, and you won’t waste time.
The most common failure in the field is the compulsion to fill all seven boxes. Forcing answers just to fill a box leaves 49 items in the minutes but zero actions, and at the next workshop you hear, “We did this last time too.” Tell participants up front that some letters may be left blank. Also, Eliminate and Rearrange are matters of authority, so without a decision-maker in the room they end with “The higher-ups won’t allow that.” SCAMPER run without an approval path tends to become a venting session.
John KimAuthor of B2B Marketing Design and CEO of Nanum Consulting
Soyeon KimExpert in design thinking, social venture startups, and the social economyBob Eberle organized Alex Osborn’s ideation checklist into the acronym SCAMPER in 1971.
Let’s look at a hypothetical case: Company A, an industrial packaging manufacturer with 180 employees and annual revenue of about KRW 40 billion (≈ US$29,926,700). Replying to new quote requests took an average of 6.1 days, and the quarterly win rate fell from 29% to 22%. The head of sales said, “We’ve lost at least ten deals this year alone because our delivery answers came too late,” and requested two improvement workshops.
- Deputy General Manager Kim of Sales Planning broke the quoting process into eight steps, from intake to dispatch, and posted them on the whiteboard before starting. He pinned down the subject with: “Today we’re only looking at these eight boxes.”
- Round 1 ran 4 minutes per letter, but most answers from Substitute and Combine amounted to merging forms; what shook things up was the Eliminate question in Round 2.
- In the Eliminate round, someone proposed: “Don’t put every quote through design-team pre-review; only those of KRW 50 million (≈ US$37,400) or more.” The supporting number was that 71% of the past year’s 320 quotes were under KRW 30 million (≈ US$22,400).
- In the Rearrange round, someone proposed reversing the order: confirm the delivery date before calculating costs. Manager Park from Sales Team 2 chimed in: “What customers ask first has always been delivery, not price.”
- Of 52 ideas, 3 were selected with a payoff matrix, and the CEO, who was in the room, approved 2 changes to the review criteria on the spot.
- Eight weeks later, average quote reply time fell from 6.1 days to 2.4 days, and the win rate recovered from 22% to 29% the following quarter.