Look for duct tape. Gain insight into unspoken customer needs by spending just a little time in their environment. Joyce Wycoff, co-founder of Innovation Network , suggests looking for places where duct tape or yellow stickies have been applied, or where a user has kludged something together to accomplish a task.

Act on direct observation. Schedule one day a month for IT staffers to spend with users and let that experience inform the work they do, suggests Tom Kelley, general manager at Ideo. After six months, "I'm willing to bet IT's perceived value will go up," he says.

Adopt a "reverse mentor." Ask a younger worker to keep you apprised of trends outside your purview, Kelley says. The practice has helped him understand blogging, podcasting and even why younger people don't tend to wear watches (answer: cell phones keep perfect time).

Do brain exercises. Brainstorm with people in different industries. Analogies from architecture or surgery might apply to your own problem.

Read. Other creative-thinking techniques are suggested at www.thinksmart.com and by Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres in their book, Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small (Harvard Business School Press, 2003). For instance, look for solutions in other contexts that can apply to your own, like "flipping" things, as both Heinz and Hunt's did with ketchup bottles to improve ease of use.