Mind Tools - Practical Creativity

Improving a product or service – Reversal and SCAMPER

Reversal
Use: As a brainstorm prompt to make something better How-To: think about how to make it worse

SCAMPER Use: Method of design thinking - prompts to ask yourself in coming up with something new How-To:

* S – Substitute – components, materials, people. • C – Combine – mix, combine with other assemblies or services, integrate. • A – Adapt – alter, change function, use part of another element. • M – Modify – increase or reduce in scale, change shape, modify attributes (e.g. color). • P – Put to another use. • E – Eliminate – remove elements, simplify, reduce to core functionality. • R – Reverse – turn inside out or upside down, also use of Reversal.

Creating or improving products, services and strategies: Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis & Matrix Analysis.

List out the attributes, think about how they might be different.

Morphological Analysis

Generating many radical ideas – Brainstorming and Reverse Brainstorming.

Use: trying to come up with as many ideas as possible, without criticizing/shut down
How-To: as individuals, as a group, with a random seed to prompt

Widening the search for solutions – Concept Fan.

Use: seeking solutions outside the obvious How-To: write the problem, then fan out options to solve. Then ask, is our problem actually a symptom of another problem, and analyze that problem. Continue as long as it's useful.

Looking at problems from different perspectives – Reframing Matrix.

Use: trying to think about the problem in new ways How-To: Put the question in the middle of a grid, and then the 4Ps -- a box for Product Perspective, Planning Perspective, Potential Perspective, and People Perspective. Or you could look at the problem from the perspective of multiple personas (doctor, technican, patient, insurance company).

Making creative leaps – Random Input.

Add a random word to your brainstorm

Carrying out thought experiments – Provocation.

Use: make deliberately stupid statements How-To: think about the consequences, benefits, how it might actually be sensible, how it might work, and what might happen. Shortcut from de Bono: Po (for Provocative operation)

A simple process for creativity – DO IT.

D – Define problem
O – Open mind and apply creative techniques
I – Identify best solution
T – Transform

A powerful integrated problem solving process – Simplex.

Use: 8 stages in a ring -- Problem finding, fact finding, problem definition, idea finding, selection, planning, sell idea, action.

A powerful approach to creative problem solving – TRIZ

Use: Look for a generalized solution from another domain How-To: catalog of solution patterns, lateral thinking