Creativity Techniques for Problem Solving and Innovation

I describe below the creative thinking steps and techniques from my book in a sequence designed to achieve the highest quality solutions to a problem. Your creative thinking will soar as you use them regularly. This eight-step sequence creates focus and clarity.

Step 1: Define Problems Creatively

The first key creative step.

• List dozens of “How to” problem statements.
• Use analogies and metaphors.
• Find the problem's essence.
• Use the problem's essence with analogies and metaphors.
• Apply Like-Improve Analysis.
• Use Reversal-Dereversal.
• Reverse assumptions.
• Use the Guided Fresh Eye Approach.
• Substitute words.
• Ask Why, Who, What, Where, When, and Why.
• Identify needs, obstacles, and constraints.
• Identify weaknesses in quick-fix solutions.

Step 2: Identify Criteria

Identify the criteria you will use to select the best problem statement.

Step 3: Choose the Problem Statement

Choose the final problem statement or statements to solve.

Step 4: Generate Ideas Abundantly

The second key creative step.

• Brainstorming
• Non-Evaluative Listing
• Buzz Group
• Idea Gallery
• Idea Card
• Clustering
• Brainwriting Circle
• Forced Combinations and Trigger-Ideas
• Analogies, metaphors, pictures, random words, and quotations as trigger-ideas
• Idea Grid
• Improve Bizarre Trigger-Ideas Game
• Weird to the Workable Idea
• Free Word Association Imagery
• Combining-Ideas Team
• Future Fantasy
• Future Pretend Year
• Idea Improvement
• Like-Improve
• Improve Your Idea Creatively
• Idea Improvement Checklist

Step 5: Combine Ideas Into Trigger-Proposals

The third key creative step.

• Forced Withdrawal
• Trigger-Proposals

Step 6: Identify Criteria to Choose Ideas

Identify the criteria you will use to choose the strongest ideas.

Step 7: Develop Sensible, Workable Solutions

• Return to Reality
• Idea Board

Step 8: Make Action Plans

Turn the best solutions into specific action plans.

A Special Idea-Generating Sequence

One idea-generating sequence I like to use during a Creativity & Innovation Meeting is:

Non-Evaluative Listing → Improve Bizarre Trigger-Ideas Game → Weird to the Workable Idea → Idea Gallery → Idea Card

This sequence begins with walls covered in flip chart paper containing more than 150 “How-to” problem statements. I ask participants to walk around the room and check five to ten statements they consider important.

Each team then chooses three problem statements they want to solve. We do not kill any problem statements. We merely leave them behind.

Non-Evaluative Listing

I start with non-evaluative listing, or brainstorming, because it allows people to record their pet ideas and flushes out obvious ideas so the more advanced techniques work better. Still, at best, it provides a nice warm-up.

Each team chooses a recorder and non-evaluatively lists ideas on flip chart paper to solve one of the How-to problem statements. I occasionally ask for bizarre ideas.

Improve Bizarre Trigger-Ideas Game

I suggest that participants do not understand what I mean by a bizarre idea, then ask them to play the Improve Bizarre Trigger-Ideas Game.

The goal is to stretch each person's imagination and express bizarre ideas beyond previous levels. The game also shows the team how to develop an idea, no matter how bizarre, and strengthen it until it becomes useful. Paradigms shift constantly.

The rules are simple. Each team has four minutes to generate the most bizarre idea it can to solve the problem. The team passes the idea to another team.

The second team has four minutes to use the idea as a trigger for a better idea. If it succeeds, it gets one point. If it does not, the other team gets one point.

I repeat the game two or three times. It amazes me how bizarre the ideas can get and how ingeniously people use them to trigger useful ideas. I sometimes pass out folded blank flip chart paper as the bizarre idea. Even a folded blank sheet can spark new ideas.

Weird to the Workable Idea

I ask the recorder of each team to divide a large sheet of flip chart paper into four quadrants. The team writes a very “weird” idea to solve its problem in the first quadrant. It should be exotic, absurd, and bizarre.

The team passes the paper to another team. That team uses the weird idea to trigger a “better” idea in the second quadrant. The paper moves to another team, which uses the better idea to trigger a “practical” idea in the third quadrant.

A fourth team uses the practical idea to create a “workable” idea in the final quadrant and turns it into a sensible, practical solution.

In general, the more bizarre and weird the first idea, the more likely the final workable idea will shift a paradigm and create an original, unexpected outcome.

Idea Gallery

Earlier, I noted the six to ten problem statements that people checked most often. I write these problem statements at the top of flip chart paper, one statement per sheet, and attach them to the wall.

People walk around and write ideas and solutions directly on the papers. Ideas on the sheets often trigger ideas in other people as they move around the room. This movement can help creative thinking.

Idea Card

People sit quietly for about 30 to 40 minutes and privately write one idea per card on 5" x 8" colored index cards using a dark marker. I ask them to write non-evaluatively and suggest they use the Zen-like automatic writing principles described in my book.

Occasionally I encourage them to write an absurd, bizarre, or exotic idea to trigger other ideas. After a while, I suggest exchanging cards so someone else's ideas can spark new thinking.

I encourage people to write down the first idea that comes to mind when they look at each new card. After 20 minutes, I call a five-minute break.

As another variation, participants write an absurd, bizarre, or exotic idea on an index card and pass it to the person on their right. That person uses it as a trigger-idea to spark a better idea and writes down the first idea that comes to mind.

Idea Card gives each person time to sit quietly, reflect on the problem, mull over new paradigms, and privately generate ideas. Many new ideas emerge.

Conclusion

This sequence of idea-generating techniques teaches people, in turn:

• Stay non-evaluative: Get rid of pet ideas and open your mind to fresh ideas through non-evaluative listing.
• Use bizarre ideas: Let bizarre ideas trigger better ideas through the Improve Bizarre Ideas Game and Weird to Workable Idea.
• Force new connections: Generate bizarre ideas and combine them with the problem through free word association imagery.
• Work alone: Quietly record ideas through Idea Gallery and Idea Card.

Best of all, as this learning takes place, many paradigms shift and people create hundreds of ideas that can lead to a high-quality solution.