A powerful methodology for creative problem-solving
Projects of all kinds frequently reach a point where as much analysis as possible has been carried out, but the way forward is still unclear. Progress seems blocked, and if the project team is to move forward, it must develop creative solutions to the problems it faces.
You'll already know about techniques such as brainstorming, which can help with this sort of situation. However, this type of approach, which depends on intuition and the knowledge of the members of the team, tends to have unpredictable and unrepeatable results. What's more, a huge range of possible solutions can be missed, simply because they're outside the experience of the project team.
TRIZ is a problem solving methodology based on logic, data and research, not intuition. It draws on the past knowledge and ingenuity of many thousands of engineers to accelerate the project team's ability to solve problems creatively. As such, TRIZ brings repeatability, predictability, and reliability to the problem-solving process with its structured and algorithmic approach.
About TRIZ
"TRIZ" is the (Russian) acronym for the "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving." G.S. Altshuller and his colleagues in the former USSR developed the method between 1946 and 1985. TRIZ is an international science of creativity that relies on the study of the patterns of problems and solutions, not on the spontaneous and intuitive creativity of individuals or groups. More than three million patents have been analyzed to discover the patterns that predict breakthrough solutions to problems, and these have been codified within TRIZ.
TRIZ is spreading into corporate use across several parallel paths - it is increasingly common in Six Sigma processes, in project management and risk management systems, and in organizational innovation initiatives.
Generalized Solutions
TRIZ research began with the hypothesis that there are universal principles of creativity that are the basis for creative innovations, and that advance technology. The idea was that if these principles could be identified and codified, they could be taught to people to make the process of creativity more predictable. The short version of this is:
Somebody someplace has already solved this problem (or one very similar to it.) Today, creativity involves finding that solution and adapting it to this particular problem.
The three primary findings of the last 65 years of research are as follows:
Problems and solutions are repeated across industries and sciences. By classifying the "contradictions" (see later) in each problem, you can predict good creative solutions to that problem.
Patterns of technical evolution tend to be repeated across industries and sciences.
Creative innovations often use scientific effects outside the field where they were developed.
Much of the practice of TRIZ consists of learning these repeating patterns of problems-solutions, patterns of technical evolution and methods of using scientific effects, and then applying the general TRIZ patterns to the specific situation that confronts the developer. Figure 1, below, describes this process graphically.
Here, you take the specific problem you face, and generalize it to one of the TRIZ general problems. From the TRIZ general problems, you identify the TRIZ solutions to those general problems, and then see how these can be applied to the specific problem you face.
Example
A powerful demonstration of this method was seen in the pharmaceutical industry. Following the flow of Figure 1, the specific problem was as follows: an important process needed cell walls to be broken down in bacteria cells so that hormones inside the cells could be harvested. A mechanical method for breaking the cell walls had been in use at a moderate scale for some time, but the yield was only 80%, and was variable. Higher yields and a scaleable solution were needed.
The TRIZ general problem at the highest level is to find a way to produce the product with no waste, at 100% yield, with no added complexity. One of the patterns of evolution of technology that TRIZ identifies is that energy (fields) replaces objects (mechanical devices). For example, consider using a laser instead of a scalpel for eye surgery. In this case, ultrasound could be used to break the cell walls, or an enzyme could be used to "eat" it (chemical energy). This may seem very general, but it led the pharmaceutical researchers to analyze all the resources available in the problem (the cells, the cell walls, the fluid they are in, the motion of the fluid, the processing facility, etc.) and to conclude that three possible solutions had a good potential for solving their problem:
The cell walls could be broken by sound waves (from the pattern of evolution of replacing mechanical means by fields).
The cell walls could be broken by shearing, as they pass through the processing facility (using the resources of the existing system in a different way).
An enzyme in the fluid could "eat" the cell walls and release the contents at the desired time.
All three methods have been tested successfully. The least expensive, highest yield method was soon put in production.
Eliminating contradictions
Another of the fundamental concepts behind TRIZ is that at the root of many problems is a fundamental contradiction that causes it (we'll give examples below.) In many cases, a reliable way of solving a problem is to eliminate these contradictions. TRIZ recognizes two categories of contradictions:
Technical contradictions are classical engineering "trade-offs." The desired state can't be reached because something else in the system prevents it. In other words, when something gets better, something else automatically gets worse. Classical examples include:
The product gets stronger (good), but the weight increases (bad).
Service is customized to each customer (good), but the service delivery system gets complicated (bad).
Training is comprehensive (good), but keeps employees away from their assignments (bad).
Physical contradictions, also called "inherent" contradictions, are situations in which an object or system suffers contradictory, opposite requirements. Everyday examples abound:
Software should be complex (to have many features), but should be simple (to be easy to learn).
Coffee should be hot for enjoyable drinking, but cold to prevent burning the customer
Training should take a long time (to be thorough), but not take any time.
Example
Dairy farm operators could no longer dry cow manure for use as fertilizer due to an increased cost of energy. They were faced with a technical contradiction between dry manure (good) and cost (bad). TRIZ led the operators to a drying method used for the concentration of fruit juice, which required no heat.
Some of the TRIZ Tools:
The "General TRIZ Solutions" referred to in Figure 1 have been developed over the course of the 65 years of TRIZ research, and have been organized in many different ways. Some of these are analytic methods such as:
The Ideal Final Result and Ideality
Functional Modeling, Analysis and Trimming
Locating the Zones of Conflict. (This is more familiar to Six Sigma problem solvers as "Root Cause Analysis.")
Some are more prescriptive such as:
The 40 Inventive Principles of Problem Solving
The Separation Principles
Laws of Technical Evolution and Technology Forecasting
76 Standard Solutions.
In the course of solving any one technical problem, one tool or many can be used.
One of these tools, "The 40 Principles of Problem Solving" is the most accessible "tool" of TRIZ.
The 40 Principles of Problem Solving:
These 40 Principles are the ones that were found to repeat across many fields, as solutions to many general contradictions, which are at the heart of many problems. A list of all 40 Principles of Problem Solving can be found at http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/1997/07/b/index.html.
Here are just a few of the Principles and examples of how they could have been used to create products that were once new and innovative:
Principle
Solution
Segmentation (Divide an object into independent parts)
Individually wrapped cheese slices
Local quality (Provide different packaging for different uses)
"Adult" editions of Harry Potter books
Universality (make an object perform multiple functions)
Chocolate spread sold in glasses (with a lid) that can be used for drinking afterwards
Nested Doll
Store within store (coffee shops in bookstores)
Another dimension (Tilt or re-orient object)
Squeezable ketchup bottles that sit on their lids
Using TRIZ
The best way to learn and explore TRIZ is to identify a problem that you haven't solved satisfactorily and try it. Use the List of the 40 Principles of Problem Solving and the Contradiction Matrix tool that can be found at www.triz-journal.com to help you through the process.
Showing posts with label Practical creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Practical creativity. Show all posts
A Powerful Integrated Problem-Solving Process
Simplex is an industrial-strength creativity tool. Developed by Min Basadur, it takes the approach of DO IT to the next level of sophistication.
Rather than seeing creativity as a single straight-line process, Simplex sees it as the continuous cycle it should be. Completion and implementation of one cycle of creativity leads straight into the next cycle of creative improvement.
How to Use the Tool:
Simplex uses the eight stages shown in figure 1, below:
These are explained below:
1. Problem Finding
Often finding the right problem to solve is the most difficult part of the creative process. When using Simplex, actively seek problems out. Wherever they exist you have opportunities for change and improvement.
Problems may be obvious, or can be flushed out using trigger questions like the ones below:
What would your customers want you to improve?
What could they be doing better if we could help them?
Who else could we help using our core competences?
What small problems do we have which could grow into bigger ones?
What slows our work or makes it more difficult? What do we often fail to achieve?
How can we improve quality?
What are our competitors doing that we could do?
What is frustrating and irritating?
These questions deal with problems that exist now. It is also useful to try to look into the future. Think about how you expect markets and customers to change over the next few years; the problems you may experience as your organization expands; and social, political and legal changes that may affect it.
At this stage you may not have enough information to formulate your problem precisely. Do not worry about this until step 3!
2. Fact Finding
The next stage is to find out as much information relating to the problem as possible.
This gives you the depth of knowledge you need to:
Use the best ideas your competitors have had
Understand customers needs in more detail
Know what has already been tried
Fully understand any processes, components, services or technologies that you may need to use
Ensure that the benefits of solving the problem will be worth the effort you will put into it
This stage also involves assessing the quality of the information that you have. Here it is worth listing your assumptions and checking that they are correct.
3. Problem Definition
By the time you reach this stage, you should know roughly what the problem is and should have a good understanding of the facts relating to it. From here the thing to do is to crystallize the exact problem or problems you want to solve.
It is important to solve a problem at the right level. If you ask questions that are too broad, then you will never have enough resources to answer them effectively. If you ask questions that are too narrow, you may end up fixing symptoms of a problem, rather than the problem itself.
Min Basadur (who created the Simplex Process) suggests using the question 'Why?' to broaden a question, and 'What's stopping you?' to narrow it.
For example, if your problem is one of trees dying, ask 'Why do I want to keep trees healthy?'. This might broaden the question to 'How can I maintain the quality of our environment?'.
A 'What's stopping you?' here could be 'I do not know how to control a disease killing the tree'.
Big problems are normally made up of many smaller ones. This is the stage at which you can use a technique like Drill-Down to break the problem down to its component parts.
4. Idea Finding
The next stage is to generate as many ideas as possible. Ways of doing this range from asking other people for their opinions, through programmed creativity tools and lateral thinking techniques to brainstorming.
Do not evaluate ideas during this stage. Instead, concentrate on generating many ideas as possible. Bad ideas often trigger good ones.
5. Selection and Evaluation
Once you have a number of possible solutions to your problem, it is time to select the best one.
The best solution may be obvious. If it is not, then it is important to think through the criteria you will use to select the best idea. The Decision Making Techniques section of Mind Tools lays out a number of good methods for this. Particularly useful techniques may be Decision Trees, Paired Comparison Analysis and Grid Analysis.
Once you have selected an idea, develop it as far as possible. It is then essential to evaluate it to see if it is good enough to be considered worth using. It is important not to let your ego get in the way of your common sense. If your idea does not give big enough benefit, then either see if you can generate more ideas, or restart the whole process. You can waste years of your life developing creative ideas that no-one wants.
There are two excellent techniques for doing this. One is Edward de Bono's 6 Thinking Hats, which is an excellent tool for qualitative analysis. The other is Cost/Benefit Analysis, which gives you a good basis for financially based decisions.
6. Planning
Once you have selected an idea, and are confident that your idea is worthwhile, then it is time to plan its implementation.
The best way of doing this is to set this out as an Action Plan, which lays out the who, what, when, where, why and how of making it work. For large projects it may be worth using more formal planning techniques.
7. Sell Idea
Up to this stage you may have done all this work on your own or with a small committee. Now you will have to sell the idea to the people who must support it. This might be your boss, a bank manager or other people involved with the project.
In selling the project you will have to address not only the practicality of the project, but also things such internal politics, hidden fear of change, etc.
8. Action
Finally, after all the creativity and preparation, comes action! This is where all the careful work and planning pays off.
Once the action is firmly under way, return to stage 1, Problem Finding, to continue improving your idea.
Min Basadur's book, The Power of Innovation, explores this process in much more detail.
Key points:
The Simplex Process is a powerful, sophisticated approach to innovation. It is suitable for projects and organizations of almost any scale.
The Process is an eight-stage cycle. Upon completion of the eight stages you start it again to find and solve another problem. This helps to ensure continuous improvement.
Stages in the process are:
Problem finding
Fact finding
Problem Definition
Idea Finding
Selection and Evaluation
Planning
Selling of the Idea
Action
By moving through these stages you ensure that you solve the most significant problems with the best solutions available to you. This process can help you to be intensely creative.
Simplex is an industrial-strength creativity tool. Developed by Min Basadur, it takes the approach of DO IT to the next level of sophistication.
Rather than seeing creativity as a single straight-line process, Simplex sees it as the continuous cycle it should be. Completion and implementation of one cycle of creativity leads straight into the next cycle of creative improvement.
How to Use the Tool:
Simplex uses the eight stages shown in figure 1, below:
These are explained below:
1. Problem Finding
Often finding the right problem to solve is the most difficult part of the creative process. When using Simplex, actively seek problems out. Wherever they exist you have opportunities for change and improvement.
Problems may be obvious, or can be flushed out using trigger questions like the ones below:
What would your customers want you to improve?
What could they be doing better if we could help them?
Who else could we help using our core competences?
What small problems do we have which could grow into bigger ones?
What slows our work or makes it more difficult? What do we often fail to achieve?
How can we improve quality?
What are our competitors doing that we could do?
What is frustrating and irritating?
These questions deal with problems that exist now. It is also useful to try to look into the future. Think about how you expect markets and customers to change over the next few years; the problems you may experience as your organization expands; and social, political and legal changes that may affect it.
At this stage you may not have enough information to formulate your problem precisely. Do not worry about this until step 3!
2. Fact Finding
The next stage is to find out as much information relating to the problem as possible.
This gives you the depth of knowledge you need to:
Use the best ideas your competitors have had
Understand customers needs in more detail
Know what has already been tried
Fully understand any processes, components, services or technologies that you may need to use
Ensure that the benefits of solving the problem will be worth the effort you will put into it
This stage also involves assessing the quality of the information that you have. Here it is worth listing your assumptions and checking that they are correct.
3. Problem Definition
By the time you reach this stage, you should know roughly what the problem is and should have a good understanding of the facts relating to it. From here the thing to do is to crystallize the exact problem or problems you want to solve.
It is important to solve a problem at the right level. If you ask questions that are too broad, then you will never have enough resources to answer them effectively. If you ask questions that are too narrow, you may end up fixing symptoms of a problem, rather than the problem itself.
Min Basadur (who created the Simplex Process) suggests using the question 'Why?' to broaden a question, and 'What's stopping you?' to narrow it.
For example, if your problem is one of trees dying, ask 'Why do I want to keep trees healthy?'. This might broaden the question to 'How can I maintain the quality of our environment?'.
A 'What's stopping you?' here could be 'I do not know how to control a disease killing the tree'.
Big problems are normally made up of many smaller ones. This is the stage at which you can use a technique like Drill-Down to break the problem down to its component parts.
4. Idea Finding
The next stage is to generate as many ideas as possible. Ways of doing this range from asking other people for their opinions, through programmed creativity tools and lateral thinking techniques to brainstorming.
Do not evaluate ideas during this stage. Instead, concentrate on generating many ideas as possible. Bad ideas often trigger good ones.
5. Selection and Evaluation
Once you have a number of possible solutions to your problem, it is time to select the best one.
The best solution may be obvious. If it is not, then it is important to think through the criteria you will use to select the best idea. The Decision Making Techniques section of Mind Tools lays out a number of good methods for this. Particularly useful techniques may be Decision Trees, Paired Comparison Analysis and Grid Analysis.
Once you have selected an idea, develop it as far as possible. It is then essential to evaluate it to see if it is good enough to be considered worth using. It is important not to let your ego get in the way of your common sense. If your idea does not give big enough benefit, then either see if you can generate more ideas, or restart the whole process. You can waste years of your life developing creative ideas that no-one wants.
There are two excellent techniques for doing this. One is Edward de Bono's 6 Thinking Hats, which is an excellent tool for qualitative analysis. The other is Cost/Benefit Analysis, which gives you a good basis for financially based decisions.
6. Planning
Once you have selected an idea, and are confident that your idea is worthwhile, then it is time to plan its implementation.
The best way of doing this is to set this out as an Action Plan, which lays out the who, what, when, where, why and how of making it work. For large projects it may be worth using more formal planning techniques.
7. Sell Idea
Up to this stage you may have done all this work on your own or with a small committee. Now you will have to sell the idea to the people who must support it. This might be your boss, a bank manager or other people involved with the project.
In selling the project you will have to address not only the practicality of the project, but also things such internal politics, hidden fear of change, etc.
8. Action
Finally, after all the creativity and preparation, comes action! This is where all the careful work and planning pays off.
Once the action is firmly under way, return to stage 1, Problem Finding, to continue improving your idea.
Min Basadur's book, The Power of Innovation, explores this process in much more detail.
Key points:
The Simplex Process is a powerful, sophisticated approach to innovation. It is suitable for projects and organizations of almost any scale.
The Process is an eight-stage cycle. Upon completion of the eight stages you start it again to find and solve another problem. This helps to ensure continuous improvement.
Stages in the process are:
Problem finding
Fact finding
Problem Definition
Idea Finding
Selection and Evaluation
Planning
Selling of the Idea
Action
By moving through these stages you ensure that you solve the most significant problems with the best solutions available to you. This process can help you to be intensely creative.
A Simple Process for Creativity
DO IT is a process for creativity.
Techniques outlined earlier in this section focus on specific aspects of creative thinking. DO IT bundles them together, and introduces formal methods of problem definition and evaluation. These help you to get the best out of the creativity techniques.
DO IT is an acronym that stands for:
D - Define problem
O - Open mind and apply creative techniques
I - Identify best solution
T - Transform
These stages are explained in more detail below.
How to Use the Tool:
1. Define the Problem
This section concentrates on analyzing the problem to ensure that the correct question is being asked. The following steps will help you to do this:
Check that you are tackling the problem, not the symptoms of the problem. To do this, ask yourself why the problem exists repeatedly until you get to the root of it.
Lay out the bounds of the problem. Work out the objectives that you must achieve and the constraints that you are operating under.
Where a problem appears to be very large, break it down into smaller parts. Keep on going until each part is achievable in its own right, or needs a precisely defined area of research to be carried out. See Drill-Down for a detailed description of this process.
Summarize the problem in as concise a form as possible. Robert W. Olsen suggests that the best way to do this is to write down a number of 2 word problem statements and choose the best one.
2. Open Mind and Apply Creative Techniques
Once you know the problem that you want to solve, you are ready to start generating possible solutions. It is very tempting just to accept the first good idea that you come across. If you do this, you will miss many even better solutions.
At this stage of DO IT we are not interested in evaluating ideas. Instead, we are trying to generate as many different ideas as possible. Even bad ideas may be the seeds of good ones.
You can use the whole battery of creativity techniques covered earlier in this section to search for possible solutions. Each tool has its particular strengths and benefits, depending on the problems that you want to solve. While you are generating solutions, remember that other people will have different perspectives on the problem, and it will almost certainly be worth asking for the opinions of your colleagues as part of this process.
3. Identify the Best Solution
Only at this stage do you select the best of the ideas you have generated. It may be that the best idea is obvious. Alternatively, it may be worth examining and developing a number of ideas in detail before you select one.
The Decision Making Techniques section of Mind Tools explains a range of excellent decision making techniques. Decision Tree Analysis and Force Field Analysis are particularly useful. These will help you to choose between the solutions available to you.
When you are selecting a solution, keep in mind your own or your organization's goals. Often Decision Making becomes easy once you know these.
4. Transform
Having identified the problem and created a solution to it, the final stage is to implement this solution. This involves not only development of a reliable product from your idea, but all the marketing and business side as well. This may take a great deal of time and energy.
Many very creative people fail at this stage. They will have fun creating new products and services that may be years ahead of what is available on the market. They will then fail to develop them, and watch someone else make a fortune out of the idea several years later.
The first stage in transforming an idea is to develop an Action Plan for the transformation. This may lead to creation of a Business or Marketing Plan. Once you have done this, the work of implementation begins!
DO IT was devised by Robert W Olsen in his book ‘The Art of Creative Thinking’.
Key points:
DO IT is a structured process for creativity. Using DO IT ensures that you carry out the essential groundwork that helps you to get the most out of creativity tools.
These steps are:
Problem Definition: During this stage you apply a number of techniques to ensure that you are asking the right question.
Open Mind: Here you apply creativity techniques to generate as many answers as possible to the question you are asking. At this stage you are not evaluating the answers.
Identify the best solution: Only at this stage do you select the best solutions from the ones you came up with in step 2. Where you are having difficulty in selecting ideas, use formal techniques to help.
Transform: The final stage is to make an Action Plan for the implementation of the solution, and to carry it out. Without implementation, your creativity is sterile.
DO IT is a process for creativity.
Techniques outlined earlier in this section focus on specific aspects of creative thinking. DO IT bundles them together, and introduces formal methods of problem definition and evaluation. These help you to get the best out of the creativity techniques.
DO IT is an acronym that stands for:
D - Define problem
O - Open mind and apply creative techniques
I - Identify best solution
T - Transform
These stages are explained in more detail below.
How to Use the Tool:
1. Define the Problem
This section concentrates on analyzing the problem to ensure that the correct question is being asked. The following steps will help you to do this:
Check that you are tackling the problem, not the symptoms of the problem. To do this, ask yourself why the problem exists repeatedly until you get to the root of it.
Lay out the bounds of the problem. Work out the objectives that you must achieve and the constraints that you are operating under.
Where a problem appears to be very large, break it down into smaller parts. Keep on going until each part is achievable in its own right, or needs a precisely defined area of research to be carried out. See Drill-Down for a detailed description of this process.
Summarize the problem in as concise a form as possible. Robert W. Olsen suggests that the best way to do this is to write down a number of 2 word problem statements and choose the best one.
2. Open Mind and Apply Creative Techniques
Once you know the problem that you want to solve, you are ready to start generating possible solutions. It is very tempting just to accept the first good idea that you come across. If you do this, you will miss many even better solutions.
At this stage of DO IT we are not interested in evaluating ideas. Instead, we are trying to generate as many different ideas as possible. Even bad ideas may be the seeds of good ones.
You can use the whole battery of creativity techniques covered earlier in this section to search for possible solutions. Each tool has its particular strengths and benefits, depending on the problems that you want to solve. While you are generating solutions, remember that other people will have different perspectives on the problem, and it will almost certainly be worth asking for the opinions of your colleagues as part of this process.
3. Identify the Best Solution
Only at this stage do you select the best of the ideas you have generated. It may be that the best idea is obvious. Alternatively, it may be worth examining and developing a number of ideas in detail before you select one.
The Decision Making Techniques section of Mind Tools explains a range of excellent decision making techniques. Decision Tree Analysis and Force Field Analysis are particularly useful. These will help you to choose between the solutions available to you.
When you are selecting a solution, keep in mind your own or your organization's goals. Often Decision Making becomes easy once you know these.
4. Transform
Having identified the problem and created a solution to it, the final stage is to implement this solution. This involves not only development of a reliable product from your idea, but all the marketing and business side as well. This may take a great deal of time and energy.
Many very creative people fail at this stage. They will have fun creating new products and services that may be years ahead of what is available on the market. They will then fail to develop them, and watch someone else make a fortune out of the idea several years later.
The first stage in transforming an idea is to develop an Action Plan for the transformation. This may lead to creation of a Business or Marketing Plan. Once you have done this, the work of implementation begins!
DO IT was devised by Robert W Olsen in his book ‘The Art of Creative Thinking’.
Key points:
DO IT is a structured process for creativity. Using DO IT ensures that you carry out the essential groundwork that helps you to get the most out of creativity tools.
These steps are:
Problem Definition: During this stage you apply a number of techniques to ensure that you are asking the right question.
Open Mind: Here you apply creativity techniques to generate as many answers as possible to the question you are asking. At this stage you are not evaluating the answers.
Identify the best solution: Only at this stage do you select the best solutions from the ones you came up with in step 2. Where you are having difficulty in selecting ideas, use formal techniques to help.
Transform: The final stage is to make an Action Plan for the implementation of the solution, and to carry it out. Without implementation, your creativity is sterile.
Carrying Out Thought Experiments
Provocation is an important lateral thinking technique. Just like Random Input, it works by moving your thinking out of the established patterns that you use to solve problems.
As explained earlier, we think by recognizing patterns and reacting to them. These reactions come from our past experiences and logical extensions to those experiences. Often we do not think outside these patterns. While we may know the answer as part of a different type of problem, the structure of our brains makes it difficult for us to link this in.
Provocation, originally developed by Edward de Bono, is one of the tools we use to make links between these patterns.
How to Use the Tool:
We begin by making deliberately stupid statements (Provocations), in which something we take for granted about the situation is not true. Statements need to be stupid to shock our minds out of existing ways of thinking. Once we have made a provocative statement, we then suspend judgment and use that statement to generate ideas. Provocations give us original starting points for creative thinking.
As an example, we could make a statement that 'Houses should not have roofs'. Normally this would not be a good idea! However this leads one to think of houses with opening roofs, or houses with glass roofs. These would allow you to lie in bed and look up at the stars.
Once you have made the Provocation, you can use it in a number of different ways, by examining:
The consequences of the statement
What the benefits would be
What special circumstances would make it a sensible solution
The principles needed to support it and make it work
How it would work moment-to-moment
What would happen if a sequence of events was changed
Etc.
You can use this list as a checklist.
Edward de Bono has developed and popularize use of Provocation by using the word 'Po'. 'Po' stands for 'Provocative operation'. As well as laying out how to use Provocation effectively, he suggests that when we make a Provocative statement in public the we label it as such with 'Po' (e.g. 'Po: the earth is flat'). This does rely on all members of your audience knowing about Provocation!
Edward de Bono's books, including Serious Creativity, explore this sort of technique in detail.
As with other lateral thinking techniques, Provocation does not always produce good or relevant ideas. Often, though, it does. Ideas generated using Provocation are likely to be fresh and original.
Example:
The owner of a video-hire shop is looking at new ideas for business to compete with the Internet. She starts with the provocation 'Customers should not pay to borrow videos'.
She then examines the provocation:
Consequences: The shop would get no rental revenue and therefore would need alternative sources of cash. It would be cheaper to borrow the video from the shop than to download the film or order it from a catalogue.
Benefits: Many more people would come to borrow videos. More people would pass through the shop. The shop would spoil the market for other video shops in the area.
Circumstances: The shop would need other revenue. Perhaps the owner could sell advertising in the shop, or sell popcorn, sweets, bottles of wine or pizzas to people borrowing films. This would make her shop a one-stop 'Night at home' shop. Perhaps it would only lend videos to people who had absorbed a 30-second commercial, or completed a market research questionnaire.
After using the Provocation, the owner of the video shop decides to run an experiment for several months. She will allow customers to borrow the top ten videos free (but naturally will fine them for late returns). She puts the videos at the back of the shop. In front of them she places displays of bottles of wine, soft drinks, popcorn and sweets so that customers have to walk past them to get to the videos. Next to the film return counter she sells merchandise from the top ten films being hired.
If the approach is a success she will open a pizza stand inside the shop.
Key points:
Provocation is an important lateral thinking technique that helps to generate original starting points for creative thinking.
To use provocation, make a deliberately stupid comment relating to the problem you are thinking about. Then suspend judgment, and use the statement as the starting point for generating ideas.
Often this approach will help you to generate completely new concepts.
In the next article we look at DO IT - a simple but useful creativity process. To see the article, click 'Next Article' below. Alternatively, look at some of the other places you can go.
Provocation is an important lateral thinking technique. Just like Random Input, it works by moving your thinking out of the established patterns that you use to solve problems.
As explained earlier, we think by recognizing patterns and reacting to them. These reactions come from our past experiences and logical extensions to those experiences. Often we do not think outside these patterns. While we may know the answer as part of a different type of problem, the structure of our brains makes it difficult for us to link this in.
Provocation, originally developed by Edward de Bono, is one of the tools we use to make links between these patterns.
How to Use the Tool:
We begin by making deliberately stupid statements (Provocations), in which something we take for granted about the situation is not true. Statements need to be stupid to shock our minds out of existing ways of thinking. Once we have made a provocative statement, we then suspend judgment and use that statement to generate ideas. Provocations give us original starting points for creative thinking.
As an example, we could make a statement that 'Houses should not have roofs'. Normally this would not be a good idea! However this leads one to think of houses with opening roofs, or houses with glass roofs. These would allow you to lie in bed and look up at the stars.
Once you have made the Provocation, you can use it in a number of different ways, by examining:
The consequences of the statement
What the benefits would be
What special circumstances would make it a sensible solution
The principles needed to support it and make it work
How it would work moment-to-moment
What would happen if a sequence of events was changed
Etc.
You can use this list as a checklist.
Edward de Bono has developed and popularize use of Provocation by using the word 'Po'. 'Po' stands for 'Provocative operation'. As well as laying out how to use Provocation effectively, he suggests that when we make a Provocative statement in public the we label it as such with 'Po' (e.g. 'Po: the earth is flat'). This does rely on all members of your audience knowing about Provocation!
Edward de Bono's books, including Serious Creativity, explore this sort of technique in detail.
As with other lateral thinking techniques, Provocation does not always produce good or relevant ideas. Often, though, it does. Ideas generated using Provocation are likely to be fresh and original.
Example:
The owner of a video-hire shop is looking at new ideas for business to compete with the Internet. She starts with the provocation 'Customers should not pay to borrow videos'.
She then examines the provocation:
Consequences: The shop would get no rental revenue and therefore would need alternative sources of cash. It would be cheaper to borrow the video from the shop than to download the film or order it from a catalogue.
Benefits: Many more people would come to borrow videos. More people would pass through the shop. The shop would spoil the market for other video shops in the area.
Circumstances: The shop would need other revenue. Perhaps the owner could sell advertising in the shop, or sell popcorn, sweets, bottles of wine or pizzas to people borrowing films. This would make her shop a one-stop 'Night at home' shop. Perhaps it would only lend videos to people who had absorbed a 30-second commercial, or completed a market research questionnaire.
After using the Provocation, the owner of the video shop decides to run an experiment for several months. She will allow customers to borrow the top ten videos free (but naturally will fine them for late returns). She puts the videos at the back of the shop. In front of them she places displays of bottles of wine, soft drinks, popcorn and sweets so that customers have to walk past them to get to the videos. Next to the film return counter she sells merchandise from the top ten films being hired.
If the approach is a success she will open a pizza stand inside the shop.
Key points:
Provocation is an important lateral thinking technique that helps to generate original starting points for creative thinking.
To use provocation, make a deliberately stupid comment relating to the problem you are thinking about. Then suspend judgment, and use the statement as the starting point for generating ideas.
Often this approach will help you to generate completely new concepts.
In the next article we look at DO IT - a simple but useful creativity process. To see the article, click 'Next Article' below. Alternatively, look at some of the other places you can go.
Making Creative Leaps
Random Input is a lateral thinking tool. It is very useful when you need fresh ideas or new perspectives during problem solving.
For many types of problem solving, we tend to think by recognizing patterns. We react to these patterns based on past experience and extensions to that experience. Sometimes, though, we get stuck inside them. Within a particular pattern there may be no good solution to a particular sort of problem.
Random input is a technique for linking other thinking patterns into the ones we are using. Along with this new pattern comes all of the experience you have connected to it.
How to Use the Tool:
To use Random Input, select a random noun from either a dictionary or a pre-prepared word list. It often helps if the noun is something that can be seen or touched (e.g. 'helicopter', 'dog') rather than a concept (e.g. 'fairness'). Use this noun as the starting point for brainstorming your problem.
You may find that you get good insights if you select a word from a separate field in which you have some expertise.
If you choose a good word, you will add a range of new ideas and concepts to your brainstorming. While some will be useless, hopefully you will gain some good new insights into your problem. If you persist, then at least one of these may be a useful creative leap.
Example:
Imagine that you are thinking about the problem of reducing car pollution. So far in thinking through the problem you have considered all the conventional solutions of catalytic conversion and clean fuels.
Selecting a random noun from the titles of the books in a bookcase you might see the word 'Plants'. Brainstorming from this you could generate a number of new ideas:
Plant trees on the side of roads to convert CO2 back into oxygen
Similarly, pass exhaust gases through a soup of algae to convert CO2 back into oxygen. Perhaps this is how an 'air scrubber' in a space craft could work?
Put sulfur-metabolizing bacteria into an exhaust gas processor to clean up exhaust gases. Would nitrogen compounds fertilize these bacteria?
Another meaning of 'Plant' is factory. Perhaps exhaust gases could be collected in a container, and sent to a special plant to be cleaned? Perhaps you could offload these gases at the same time as you fill up with fuel?
These ideas are very raw. Some may be wrong or impractical. One of them might be original and the basis of some useful development.
Key points:
Random input is useful for generating new perspectives on a problem. It often leads to startling creative leaps.
It provides an easy way of breaking out of restrictive thinking patterns. It helps you to link in whole ranges of new solutions that you would not otherwise associate with the problem.
The best words to use are concrete nouns, which may come from areas in which you have some expertise. Nouns should not, however, come from the same field as the problem you are considering, as the whole idea of Random Input is to link in new thinking patterns, not to stay inside old ones.
In the next article we look at Provocation, another useful lateral thinking technique. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Alternatively, look at some of the other places you can go below.
Random Input is a lateral thinking tool. It is very useful when you need fresh ideas or new perspectives during problem solving.
For many types of problem solving, we tend to think by recognizing patterns. We react to these patterns based on past experience and extensions to that experience. Sometimes, though, we get stuck inside them. Within a particular pattern there may be no good solution to a particular sort of problem.
Random input is a technique for linking other thinking patterns into the ones we are using. Along with this new pattern comes all of the experience you have connected to it.
How to Use the Tool:
To use Random Input, select a random noun from either a dictionary or a pre-prepared word list. It often helps if the noun is something that can be seen or touched (e.g. 'helicopter', 'dog') rather than a concept (e.g. 'fairness'). Use this noun as the starting point for brainstorming your problem.
You may find that you get good insights if you select a word from a separate field in which you have some expertise.
If you choose a good word, you will add a range of new ideas and concepts to your brainstorming. While some will be useless, hopefully you will gain some good new insights into your problem. If you persist, then at least one of these may be a useful creative leap.
Example:
Imagine that you are thinking about the problem of reducing car pollution. So far in thinking through the problem you have considered all the conventional solutions of catalytic conversion and clean fuels.
Selecting a random noun from the titles of the books in a bookcase you might see the word 'Plants'. Brainstorming from this you could generate a number of new ideas:
Plant trees on the side of roads to convert CO2 back into oxygen
Similarly, pass exhaust gases through a soup of algae to convert CO2 back into oxygen. Perhaps this is how an 'air scrubber' in a space craft could work?
Put sulfur-metabolizing bacteria into an exhaust gas processor to clean up exhaust gases. Would nitrogen compounds fertilize these bacteria?
Another meaning of 'Plant' is factory. Perhaps exhaust gases could be collected in a container, and sent to a special plant to be cleaned? Perhaps you could offload these gases at the same time as you fill up with fuel?
These ideas are very raw. Some may be wrong or impractical. One of them might be original and the basis of some useful development.
Key points:
Random input is useful for generating new perspectives on a problem. It often leads to startling creative leaps.
It provides an easy way of breaking out of restrictive thinking patterns. It helps you to link in whole ranges of new solutions that you would not otherwise associate with the problem.
The best words to use are concrete nouns, which may come from areas in which you have some expertise. Nouns should not, however, come from the same field as the problem you are considering, as the whole idea of Random Input is to link in new thinking patterns, not to stay inside old ones.
In the next article we look at Provocation, another useful lateral thinking technique. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Alternatively, look at some of the other places you can go below.
Widening the Search for Solutions
Concept Fans help you find new approaches to problem solving, when you have rejected all obvious solutions. Originated by Edward de Bono in his book Serious Creativity, they develop the principle of 'taking one step back' to get a broader perspective.
How to Use the Tool:
To start a Concept Fan, draw a circle in the middle of a large piece of paper. Write the problem you are trying to solve into it. To the right of it radiate lines representing possible solutions to the problem. This is shown in Figure 1:
It may be that the ideas you have are impractical or do not really solve the problem. If this is the case, take a 'step back' for a broader view of the problem.
Do this by drawing a circle to the left of the first circle, and write the broader definition into this new circle. Link it with an arrow to show that it comes from the first circle:
Use this as a starting point to radiate out other ideas:
If this does not give you enough new ideas, you can take yet another step back (and another, and another…):
Drawn using SmartDraw. Click for free download.
Key points:
The Concept Fan is a useful technique for widening the search for solutions when you have rejected all obvious approaches. It gives you a clear framework within which you can take 'one step back' to get a broader view of a problem.
To start a concept fan, write the problem in the middle of a piece of paper. Write possible solutions to this problem on lines radiating from this circle.
If no idea is good enough, redefine the problem more broadly. Write this broader definition in a circle to the left of the first one. Draw an arrow from the initial problem definition to the new one to show the linkage between the problems. Then radiate possible solutions from this broader definition.
Keep on expanding and redefining the problem until you have a useful solution.
In the next article we look at Random Input, a useful lateral thinking technique. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Alternatively, look at some of the other places you can go in our "Where to go from here" section.
Concept Fans help you find new approaches to problem solving, when you have rejected all obvious solutions. Originated by Edward de Bono in his book Serious Creativity, they develop the principle of 'taking one step back' to get a broader perspective.
How to Use the Tool:
To start a Concept Fan, draw a circle in the middle of a large piece of paper. Write the problem you are trying to solve into it. To the right of it radiate lines representing possible solutions to the problem. This is shown in Figure 1:
It may be that the ideas you have are impractical or do not really solve the problem. If this is the case, take a 'step back' for a broader view of the problem.
Do this by drawing a circle to the left of the first circle, and write the broader definition into this new circle. Link it with an arrow to show that it comes from the first circle:
Use this as a starting point to radiate out other ideas:
If this does not give you enough new ideas, you can take yet another step back (and another, and another…):
Drawn using SmartDraw. Click for free download.
Key points:
The Concept Fan is a useful technique for widening the search for solutions when you have rejected all obvious approaches. It gives you a clear framework within which you can take 'one step back' to get a broader view of a problem.
To start a concept fan, write the problem in the middle of a piece of paper. Write possible solutions to this problem on lines radiating from this circle.
If no idea is good enough, redefine the problem more broadly. Write this broader definition in a circle to the left of the first one. Draw an arrow from the initial problem definition to the new one to show the linkage between the problems. Then radiate possible solutions from this broader definition.
Keep on expanding and redefining the problem until you have a useful solution.
In the next article we look at Random Input, a useful lateral thinking technique. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Alternatively, look at some of the other places you can go in our "Where to go from here" section.
Looking at problems from a different perspective
A Reframing Matrix is a simple technique that helps you to look at business problems from a number of different viewpoints. It expands the range of creative solutions that you can generate.
The approach relies on the fact that different people with different experience approach problems in different ways. What this technique helps you to do is to put yourself into the minds of different people and imagine the solutions they would come up with.
How to Use the Tool:
Put the question to be asked in the middle of a grid. We use boxes around the grid for the different perspectives. This is just an easy way of laying the problem out, so if it does not suit you, change it.
We will look at two different approaches to the reframing matrix - you could, however, use this approach in many different ways.
The 4 Ps Approach
This relies on looking at a problem from different perspectives within a business. The 4 Ps approach looks at problems from the following viewpoints:
Product perspective: Is there something wrong with the product?
Planning perspective: Are our business plans or marketing plans at fault?
Potential perspective: If we were to seriously increase our targets, how would we achieve these increases?
People perspective: Why do people choose one product over another?
An example of this approach is shown below:
The 'Professions Approach'
Another approach to using a reframing matrix is to look at the problem from the viewpoints of different specialists. The way, for example, that a doctor looks at a problem would be different from the approach a civil engineer would use. This would be different from a sales manager's perspective.
The idea of the Reframing Matrix was devised by Michael Morgan in his book Creating Workforce Innovation.
Key points:
The Reframing Matrix is a formal technique used to look at problems from different perspectives. It helps to expand the number of options open to you for solving a problem.
You draw up a reframing matrix by posing a question in a box in the middle of a piece of paper. You then draw a grid around it. Each cell will contain approaches to the problem, seen from one perspective.
One way of using the technique is the '4 Ps' approach. This looks at the problem from the following viewpoints: Product, Planning, Potential and People. Another set of perspectives is to ask your self how different professionals would approach the problem. Useful professions to consider would be medical doctors, engineers, systems analysts, sales managers, etc.
In the next article we look at the Concept Fan, a useful technique for widening your search for solutions. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list.
A Reframing Matrix is a simple technique that helps you to look at business problems from a number of different viewpoints. It expands the range of creative solutions that you can generate.
The approach relies on the fact that different people with different experience approach problems in different ways. What this technique helps you to do is to put yourself into the minds of different people and imagine the solutions they would come up with.
How to Use the Tool:
Put the question to be asked in the middle of a grid. We use boxes around the grid for the different perspectives. This is just an easy way of laying the problem out, so if it does not suit you, change it.
We will look at two different approaches to the reframing matrix - you could, however, use this approach in many different ways.
The 4 Ps Approach
This relies on looking at a problem from different perspectives within a business. The 4 Ps approach looks at problems from the following viewpoints:
Product perspective: Is there something wrong with the product?
Planning perspective: Are our business plans or marketing plans at fault?
Potential perspective: If we were to seriously increase our targets, how would we achieve these increases?
People perspective: Why do people choose one product over another?
An example of this approach is shown below:
The 'Professions Approach'
Another approach to using a reframing matrix is to look at the problem from the viewpoints of different specialists. The way, for example, that a doctor looks at a problem would be different from the approach a civil engineer would use. This would be different from a sales manager's perspective.
The idea of the Reframing Matrix was devised by Michael Morgan in his book Creating Workforce Innovation.
Key points:
The Reframing Matrix is a formal technique used to look at problems from different perspectives. It helps to expand the number of options open to you for solving a problem.
You draw up a reframing matrix by posing a question in a box in the middle of a piece of paper. You then draw a grid around it. Each cell will contain approaches to the problem, seen from one perspective.
One way of using the technique is the '4 Ps' approach. This looks at the problem from the following viewpoints: Product, Planning, Potential and People. Another set of perspectives is to ask your self how different professionals would approach the problem. Useful professions to consider would be medical doctors, engineers, systems analysts, sales managers, etc.
In the next article we look at the Concept Fan, a useful technique for widening your search for solutions. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list.
A different approach to brainstorming
Related variant: "Negative Brainstorming"
Reverse brainstorming helps you solve problems by combining brainstorming and reversal techniques. By combining these, you can extend your use of brainstorming to draw out even more creative ideas.
To use this technique, you start with one of two "reverse" questions:
Instead of asking, "How do I solve or prevent this problem?" ask, "How could I possibly cause the problem?"
Instead of asking "How do I achieve these results?" ask,"How could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?"
How to Use the Tool:
Clearly identify the problem or challenge, and write it down.
Reverse the problem or challenge by asking:
"How could I possibly cause the problem?", or
"How could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?"
Brainstorm the reverse problem to generate reverse solution ideas. Allow the brainstorm ideas to flow freely. Do not reject anything at this stage.
Once you have brainstormed all the ideas to solve the reverse problem, now reverse these into solution ideas for the original problem or challenge.
Evaluate these solution ideas. Can you see a potential solution? Can you see attributes of a potential solution?
Tip:
Reverse brain-storming is a good technique to try when it is difficult to identify solutions to the problem directly.
Example:
Luciana is the manager of a health clinic and she has the task of improving patient satisfaction.
There have been various improvement initiatives in the past and the team members have become rather skeptical about another meeting on the subject. The team is overworked, team members are "trying their best" and there is no appetite to "waste time" talking about this.
So she decides to use some creative problem solving techniques she has learned. This, she hopes, will make the team meeting more interesting and engage people in a new way.
Perhaps it will reveal something more than the usual "good ideas" that no one has time to act on.
To prepare for the team meeting, Luciana thinks carefully about the problem and writes down the problem statement:
"How do we improve patient satisfaction?"
Then she reverses problem statement:
"How do we make patients more dissatisfied?"
Already she starts to see how the new angle could reveal some surprising results.
At the team meeting, everyone gets involved in an enjoyable and productive reverse brainstorming session. They draw on both their work experience with patients and also their personal experience of being patients and customers of other organizations. Luciana helps ideas flow freely, ensuring people to not pass judgment on even the most unlikely suggestions.
Here are just a few of the "reverse" ideas:
Double book appointments.
Remove the chairs from the waiting room.
Put patients who phone on hold (and forget about them).
Have patients wait outside in the car park.
Discuss patient's problems in public.
More Brainstorming Tools
As an alternative to reverse brainstorming, these approaches can help you find suitable solutions by increasing the number of ideas that you generate:
The Stepladder Technique – This improves the contribution of quieter members of the group.
Brainwriting – A written approach to brainstorming.
The Crawford's Slip Approach – This helps you get plenty of ideas from all participants in your session, and gives you a view of the popularity of each idea.
The techniques below help you in specific brainstorming situations:
Starbursting – Brainstorm the questions you need to ask to evaluate a proposal.
Charette Procedure – This procedure helps you brainstorm effectively with large groups of people.
When the brainstorming session runs dry, the team has a long list of the "reverse" solutions. Now it's time to look at each one in reverse into a potential solution. Well, resulting discussions are quite revealing. For example:
"Well of course we don't leave patients outside in the car park – we already don't do that."
"But what about in the morning, there are often patients waiting outside until opening time?"
"Mmm, true. Pretty annoying for people on first appointments."
"So why don't we open the waiting room 10 minutes earlier so it doesn't happen?"
"Right, we'll do that from tomorrow. There are several members of staff working already, so it's no problem".
And so it went on. The reverse brainstorming session revealed tens of improvement ideas that the team could implement swiftly and easily.
Luciana concluded: "It was enlightening and fun to looking at the problem in reverse. The amazing thing is, it's helped us become more patient-friendly by stopping doing things rather than creating more work".
Key Points:
Reverse brain-storming is a good technique for creative problem solving, and can lead to robust solutions. Be sure to follow the basic rules of brainstorming to explore possible solutions to the full.
Related variant: "Negative Brainstorming"
Reverse brainstorming helps you solve problems by combining brainstorming and reversal techniques. By combining these, you can extend your use of brainstorming to draw out even more creative ideas.
To use this technique, you start with one of two "reverse" questions:
Instead of asking, "How do I solve or prevent this problem?" ask, "How could I possibly cause the problem?"
Instead of asking "How do I achieve these results?" ask,"How could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?"
How to Use the Tool:
Clearly identify the problem or challenge, and write it down.
Reverse the problem or challenge by asking:
"How could I possibly cause the problem?", or
"How could I possibly achieve the opposite effect?"
Brainstorm the reverse problem to generate reverse solution ideas. Allow the brainstorm ideas to flow freely. Do not reject anything at this stage.
Once you have brainstormed all the ideas to solve the reverse problem, now reverse these into solution ideas for the original problem or challenge.
Evaluate these solution ideas. Can you see a potential solution? Can you see attributes of a potential solution?
Tip:
Reverse brain-storming is a good technique to try when it is difficult to identify solutions to the problem directly.
Example:
Luciana is the manager of a health clinic and she has the task of improving patient satisfaction.
There have been various improvement initiatives in the past and the team members have become rather skeptical about another meeting on the subject. The team is overworked, team members are "trying their best" and there is no appetite to "waste time" talking about this.
So she decides to use some creative problem solving techniques she has learned. This, she hopes, will make the team meeting more interesting and engage people in a new way.
Perhaps it will reveal something more than the usual "good ideas" that no one has time to act on.
To prepare for the team meeting, Luciana thinks carefully about the problem and writes down the problem statement:
"How do we improve patient satisfaction?"
Then she reverses problem statement:
"How do we make patients more dissatisfied?"
Already she starts to see how the new angle could reveal some surprising results.
At the team meeting, everyone gets involved in an enjoyable and productive reverse brainstorming session. They draw on both their work experience with patients and also their personal experience of being patients and customers of other organizations. Luciana helps ideas flow freely, ensuring people to not pass judgment on even the most unlikely suggestions.
Here are just a few of the "reverse" ideas:
Double book appointments.
Remove the chairs from the waiting room.
Put patients who phone on hold (and forget about them).
Have patients wait outside in the car park.
Discuss patient's problems in public.
More Brainstorming Tools
As an alternative to reverse brainstorming, these approaches can help you find suitable solutions by increasing the number of ideas that you generate:
The Stepladder Technique – This improves the contribution of quieter members of the group.
Brainwriting – A written approach to brainstorming.
The Crawford's Slip Approach – This helps you get plenty of ideas from all participants in your session, and gives you a view of the popularity of each idea.
The techniques below help you in specific brainstorming situations:
Starbursting – Brainstorm the questions you need to ask to evaluate a proposal.
Charette Procedure – This procedure helps you brainstorm effectively with large groups of people.
When the brainstorming session runs dry, the team has a long list of the "reverse" solutions. Now it's time to look at each one in reverse into a potential solution. Well, resulting discussions are quite revealing. For example:
"Well of course we don't leave patients outside in the car park – we already don't do that."
"But what about in the morning, there are often patients waiting outside until opening time?"
"Mmm, true. Pretty annoying for people on first appointments."
"So why don't we open the waiting room 10 minutes earlier so it doesn't happen?"
"Right, we'll do that from tomorrow. There are several members of staff working already, so it's no problem".
And so it went on. The reverse brainstorming session revealed tens of improvement ideas that the team could implement swiftly and easily.
Luciana concluded: "It was enlightening and fun to looking at the problem in reverse. The amazing thing is, it's helped us become more patient-friendly by stopping doing things rather than creating more work".
Key Points:
Reverse brain-storming is a good technique for creative problem solving, and can lead to robust solutions. Be sure to follow the basic rules of brainstorming to explore possible solutions to the full.
Creating new products and services
Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis and Matrix Analysis are good techniques for finding new combinations of products or services. They are sufficiently similar to be discussed together. We use Attribute Listing and Morphological Analysis to generate new products and services.
How to Use the Tools:
To use the techniques, firstly list the attributes of the product, service or strategy you are examining. Attributes are parts, properties, qualities or design elements of the thing being looked at. For example, attributes of a pencil would be shaft material, lead material, hardness of lead, width of lead, quality, color, weight, price, and so on. A television plot would have attributes such as characters, actions, locations, and weather. For a marketing strategy you might use attributes such as of markets open to you, uses of the product, and skills you have available.
Draw up a table using these attributes as column headings. Write down as many variations of the attribute as possible within these columns. This might be an exercise that benefits from Brainstorming. The table should now show all possible variations of each attribute.
Now select one entry from each column. Either do this randomly or select interesting combinations. By mixing one item from each column, you will create a new mixture of components. This is a new product, service or strategy.
Finally, evaluate and improve that mixture to see if you can imagine a profitable market for it.
Example:
Imagine that you want to create a new lamp. The starting point for this might be to carry out a morphological analysis. Properties of a lamp might be power supply, bulb type, light intensity, size, style, finish, material, shade, and so on.
You can set these out as column headings on a table, and then brainstorm variations. This table is sometimes known as a "Morphological Box" or "Zwicky Box" after the scientist Fritz Zwicky, who developed the technique in the 1960s.
Drawn using SmartDraw. Click for free download.
Interesting combinations might be:
Solar powered/battery, medium intensity, daylight bulb - possibly used in clothes shops to allow customers to see the true color of clothes.
Large hand cranked arc lights - used in developing countries, or far from a mains power supply
A ceramic oil lamp in Roman style - used in themed restaurants, resurrecting the olive oil lamps of 2000 years ago
A normal table lamp designed to be painted, wallpapered or covered in fabric so that it matches the style of a room perfectly
Some of these might be practical, novel ideas for the lighting manufacturer. Some might not. This is where the manufacturer's experience and market knowledge are important.
Key points:
Morphological Analysis, Matrix Analysis and Attribute Listing are useful techniques for making new combinations of products, services and strategies.
You use the tools by identifying the attributes of the product, service or strategy you are examining. Attributes might be components, assemblies, dimensions, color, weight, style, speed of service, skills available, etc.
Use these attributes as column headings. Underneath the column headings list as many variations of that attribute as you can.
You can now use the table or "morphological box", by randomly selecting one item from each column, or by selecting interesting combinations of items. This will give you ideas that you can examine for practicality.
Notes:
Attribute Listing focuses on the attributes of an object, seeing how each attribute could be improved.
Morphological Analysis uses the same basic technique, but is used to create a new product by mixing components in a new way.
Matrix Analysis focuses on businesses. It is used to generate new approaches, using attributes such as market sectors, customer needs, products, promotional methods, etc.
In the next article we look at the Brainstorming, a popular and powerful technique for generating ideas. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list below.
Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis and Matrix Analysis are good techniques for finding new combinations of products or services. They are sufficiently similar to be discussed together. We use Attribute Listing and Morphological Analysis to generate new products and services.
How to Use the Tools:
To use the techniques, firstly list the attributes of the product, service or strategy you are examining. Attributes are parts, properties, qualities or design elements of the thing being looked at. For example, attributes of a pencil would be shaft material, lead material, hardness of lead, width of lead, quality, color, weight, price, and so on. A television plot would have attributes such as characters, actions, locations, and weather. For a marketing strategy you might use attributes such as of markets open to you, uses of the product, and skills you have available.
Draw up a table using these attributes as column headings. Write down as many variations of the attribute as possible within these columns. This might be an exercise that benefits from Brainstorming. The table should now show all possible variations of each attribute.
Now select one entry from each column. Either do this randomly or select interesting combinations. By mixing one item from each column, you will create a new mixture of components. This is a new product, service or strategy.
Finally, evaluate and improve that mixture to see if you can imagine a profitable market for it.
Example:
Imagine that you want to create a new lamp. The starting point for this might be to carry out a morphological analysis. Properties of a lamp might be power supply, bulb type, light intensity, size, style, finish, material, shade, and so on.
You can set these out as column headings on a table, and then brainstorm variations. This table is sometimes known as a "Morphological Box" or "Zwicky Box" after the scientist Fritz Zwicky, who developed the technique in the 1960s.
Drawn using SmartDraw. Click for free download.
Interesting combinations might be:
Solar powered/battery, medium intensity, daylight bulb - possibly used in clothes shops to allow customers to see the true color of clothes.
Large hand cranked arc lights - used in developing countries, or far from a mains power supply
A ceramic oil lamp in Roman style - used in themed restaurants, resurrecting the olive oil lamps of 2000 years ago
A normal table lamp designed to be painted, wallpapered or covered in fabric so that it matches the style of a room perfectly
Some of these might be practical, novel ideas for the lighting manufacturer. Some might not. This is where the manufacturer's experience and market knowledge are important.
Key points:
Morphological Analysis, Matrix Analysis and Attribute Listing are useful techniques for making new combinations of products, services and strategies.
You use the tools by identifying the attributes of the product, service or strategy you are examining. Attributes might be components, assemblies, dimensions, color, weight, style, speed of service, skills available, etc.
Use these attributes as column headings. Underneath the column headings list as many variations of that attribute as you can.
You can now use the table or "morphological box", by randomly selecting one item from each column, or by selecting interesting combinations of items. This will give you ideas that you can examine for practicality.
Notes:
Attribute Listing focuses on the attributes of an object, seeing how each attribute could be improved.
Morphological Analysis uses the same basic technique, but is used to create a new product by mixing components in a new way.
Matrix Analysis focuses on businesses. It is used to generate new approaches, using attributes such as market sectors, customer needs, products, promotional methods, etc.
In the next article we look at the Brainstorming, a popular and powerful technique for generating ideas. To read this, click 'Next Article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list below.
Creativity Tools - An Introduction...
The tools in this section can help you to become more creative.They are designed to help you devise creative and imaginative solutions to problems, and help you to spot opportunities that you might otherwise miss.
The section describes the following techniques:
Improving a product or service - Reversal and SCAMPER
Creating or improving products, services & strategies:
Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis & Matrix Analysis
Generating many radical ideas - Brainstorming and Reverse Brainstorming
Widening the search for solutions - Concept Fan
Looking at problems from different perspectives - Reframing Matrix
Making creative leaps - Random Input
Carrying out thought experiments - Provocation
A simple process for creativity - DO IT
A powerful integrated problem solving process - Simplex
A powerful approach to creative problem solving - TRIZ
Before you continue, it is important to understand what we mean by creativity, as there are two completely different types. The first is technical creativity, where people create new theories, technologies or ideas. This is the type of creativity we discuss here. The second is artistic creativity, which is more born of skill, technique and self-expression. Artistic creativity is beyond the scope of these articles.
Many of the techniques in this chapter have been used by great thinkers to drive their creativity. Albert Einstein, for example, used his own informal variant of Provocation to trigger ideas that lead to the Theory of Relativity.
Approaches to Creativity
There are two main strands to technical creativity: programmed thinking and lateral thinking. Programmed thinking relies on logical or structured ways of creating a new product or service. Examples of this approach are Morphological Analysis and the Reframing Matrix.
The other main strand uses 'Lateral Thinking'. Examples of this are Brainstorming, Random Input and Provocation. Lateral Thinking has been developed and popularized by Edward de Bono, whose books you can find in the appropriate articles.
Programmed Thinking and Lateral Thinking
Lateral thinking recognizes that our brains are pattern recognition systems, and that they do not function like computers. It takes years of training before we learn to do simple arithmetic - something that computers do very easily. On the other hand, we can instantly recognize patterns such as faces, language, and handwriting. The only computers that begin to be able to do these things do it by modeling the way that human brain cells work . Even then, computers will need to become more powerful before they approach our ability to handle patterns.
The benefit of good pattern recognition is that we can recognize objects and situations very quickly. Imagine how much time would be wasted if you had to do a full analysis every time you came across a cylindrical canister of effervescent fluid. Most people would just open their can of fizzy drink. Without pattern recognition we would starve or be eaten. We could not cross the road safely.
Unfortunately, we get stuck in our patterns. We tend to think within them. Solutions we develop are based on previous solutions to similar problems. Normally it does not occur to us to use solutions belonging to other patterns.
We use lateral thinking techniques to break out of this patterned way of thinking.
Lateral thinking techniques help us to come up with startling, brilliant and original solutions
It is important to point out that each type of approach has its strength. Logical, disciplined thinking is enormously effective in making products and services better. It can, however, only go so far before all practical improvements have been carried out. Lateral thinking can generate completely new concepts and ideas, and brilliant improvements to existing systems. In the wrong place, however, it can be sterile or unnecessarily disruptive.
Taking the Best of Each...
A number of techniques fuse the strengths of the two different strands of creativity. Techniques such as the Concept Fan use a combination of programmed and lateral thinking. DO IT and Min Basadur's Simplex embed the two approaches within problem solving processes. While these may be considered 'overkill' when dealing with minor problems, they provide excellent frameworks for solving difficult and serious ones.
The Creative Frame of Mind
Often the only difference between creative and uncreative people is self-perception. Creative people see themselves as creative and give themselves the freedom to create. Uncreative people do not think about creativity and do not give themselves the opportunity to create anything new.
Being creative may just be a matter of setting aside the time needed to take a step back and allow yourself to ask yourself if there is a better way of doing something. Edward de Bono calls this a 'Creative Pause'. He suggests that this should be a short break of maybe only 30 seconds, but that this should be a habitual part of thinking. This needs self-discipline, as it is easy to forget.
Another important attitude shift is to view problems as opportunities for improvement. While this is something of a cliché, it is true. Whenever you solve a problem, you have a better product or service to offer afterwards.
Using Creativity
Creativity is sterile if action does not follow from it. Ideas must be evaluated, improved, polished and marketed before they have any value. Other sections of Mind Tools lay out the evaluation, analysis and planning tools needed to do this. They also explain the time and stress management techniques you will need when your creative ideas take off.
Have fun creating!
In our first article, we look at Reversal, a useful tool for improving a product or service. To read this, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.
The tools in this section can help you to become more creative.They are designed to help you devise creative and imaginative solutions to problems, and help you to spot opportunities that you might otherwise miss.
The section describes the following techniques:
Improving a product or service - Reversal and SCAMPER
Creating or improving products, services & strategies:
Attribute Listing, Morphological Analysis & Matrix Analysis
Generating many radical ideas - Brainstorming and Reverse Brainstorming
Widening the search for solutions - Concept Fan
Looking at problems from different perspectives - Reframing Matrix
Making creative leaps - Random Input
Carrying out thought experiments - Provocation
A simple process for creativity - DO IT
A powerful integrated problem solving process - Simplex
A powerful approach to creative problem solving - TRIZ
Before you continue, it is important to understand what we mean by creativity, as there are two completely different types. The first is technical creativity, where people create new theories, technologies or ideas. This is the type of creativity we discuss here. The second is artistic creativity, which is more born of skill, technique and self-expression. Artistic creativity is beyond the scope of these articles.
Many of the techniques in this chapter have been used by great thinkers to drive their creativity. Albert Einstein, for example, used his own informal variant of Provocation to trigger ideas that lead to the Theory of Relativity.
Approaches to Creativity
There are two main strands to technical creativity: programmed thinking and lateral thinking. Programmed thinking relies on logical or structured ways of creating a new product or service. Examples of this approach are Morphological Analysis and the Reframing Matrix.
The other main strand uses 'Lateral Thinking'. Examples of this are Brainstorming, Random Input and Provocation. Lateral Thinking has been developed and popularized by Edward de Bono, whose books you can find in the appropriate articles.
Programmed Thinking and Lateral Thinking
Lateral thinking recognizes that our brains are pattern recognition systems, and that they do not function like computers. It takes years of training before we learn to do simple arithmetic - something that computers do very easily. On the other hand, we can instantly recognize patterns such as faces, language, and handwriting. The only computers that begin to be able to do these things do it by modeling the way that human brain cells work . Even then, computers will need to become more powerful before they approach our ability to handle patterns.
The benefit of good pattern recognition is that we can recognize objects and situations very quickly. Imagine how much time would be wasted if you had to do a full analysis every time you came across a cylindrical canister of effervescent fluid. Most people would just open their can of fizzy drink. Without pattern recognition we would starve or be eaten. We could not cross the road safely.
Unfortunately, we get stuck in our patterns. We tend to think within them. Solutions we develop are based on previous solutions to similar problems. Normally it does not occur to us to use solutions belonging to other patterns.
We use lateral thinking techniques to break out of this patterned way of thinking.
Lateral thinking techniques help us to come up with startling, brilliant and original solutions
It is important to point out that each type of approach has its strength. Logical, disciplined thinking is enormously effective in making products and services better. It can, however, only go so far before all practical improvements have been carried out. Lateral thinking can generate completely new concepts and ideas, and brilliant improvements to existing systems. In the wrong place, however, it can be sterile or unnecessarily disruptive.
Taking the Best of Each...
A number of techniques fuse the strengths of the two different strands of creativity. Techniques such as the Concept Fan use a combination of programmed and lateral thinking. DO IT and Min Basadur's Simplex embed the two approaches within problem solving processes. While these may be considered 'overkill' when dealing with minor problems, they provide excellent frameworks for solving difficult and serious ones.
The Creative Frame of Mind
Often the only difference between creative and uncreative people is self-perception. Creative people see themselves as creative and give themselves the freedom to create. Uncreative people do not think about creativity and do not give themselves the opportunity to create anything new.
Being creative may just be a matter of setting aside the time needed to take a step back and allow yourself to ask yourself if there is a better way of doing something. Edward de Bono calls this a 'Creative Pause'. He suggests that this should be a short break of maybe only 30 seconds, but that this should be a habitual part of thinking. This needs self-discipline, as it is easy to forget.
Another important attitude shift is to view problems as opportunities for improvement. While this is something of a cliché, it is true. Whenever you solve a problem, you have a better product or service to offer afterwards.
Using Creativity
Creativity is sterile if action does not follow from it. Ideas must be evaluated, improved, polished and marketed before they have any value. Other sections of Mind Tools lay out the evaluation, analysis and planning tools needed to do this. They also explain the time and stress management techniques you will need when your creative ideas take off.
Have fun creating!
In our first article, we look at Reversal, a useful tool for improving a product or service. To read this, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.
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