Creative thinking is a way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective to conceive of something new or original. Critical thinking is the logical, sequential disciplined process of rationalising, analysing, evaluating, and interpreting information to make informed judgments and/or decisions. Not be confused, Creative skills are definitely not just for ‘creative types’ like artists and musicians. Everyone can benefit from creative thinking from time to time to look at solution in a different way i.e. ‘Think out of the box’
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Creative thinking techniques
There are many techniques for Creative Thinking. Some of them will be familiar to you already. I find that a particularly useful one in a client meeting is the problem reversal, the questions, and the good old brainstorm. However here is al list of approaches:
- Applied Imagination – Question Summary
- Ask Questions
- Attribute Listing
- Brainstorming
- Checklists
- Forced Relationships/Analogy
- Imitation
- In the realm of the senses
- Lateral Thinking
- Lotus Blossom Technique
- Metaphorical thinking
- Mindmapping
- Morphological Analysis
- Problem Reversal
- Random Input
- Six Thinking Hats
- Storyboarding
- Synectics
- The Discontinuity Principle
- Use of drawing (from Robert McKim’s Experiences in Visual Thinking IdeaToons (by Michael Michalko) New!
- NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Techniques
- Assumption Smashing
- DO IT! method of Roger Olsen
- LARC Method
- Unconscious Problem Solving
- Simplex – a “complete process with three stages (finding problems, solving problems, implementing solutions)
- The TRIZ method of Semyon D. Savransky
- Fuzzy Thinking
- Breakthrough Thinking – The seven steps of uniqueness, purpose, solution after next, systems, needed information collection, people design, and betterment timeline.
One of the best approaches for identifying new opportunities is to use brainstorming (note brainstorming will also help you search, assess and develop your changes)
Brainstorming
The basic rules of brainstorming are:
Planning and Preparation
- Think about what you are trying to achieve and identify any limits (musts and wants)
- Ensure that you have enough people to trigger ideas and methods of recording them
- Lay down the ground rule e.g. no evaluation or ridicule
- Generation of ideas for exploitation
Start the storming session and make use of various stimulation methods to trigger further thoughts for example:
- Use random words to trigger off further thoughts e.g. if installing a new expenses payment procedure what exploitation actions could the following words give you? File, edit, search, layout, mark, tools, font, graphics, help
- Reverse the change – rather than “obtain support of all staff for the change try “ensure that change is seen to support the staff”
- Try changing the boundaries e.g. “if we were installing this payments procedure in ‘Barclays Bank’ how would they do it?
- Try worst case for example “if we had to ensure that the payments procedure was working properly in one month instead of the six, what could we do?”
Once you have enough ideas to help you exploit the change, then you can re-filter. You could use some of the techniques outlined earlier (force fields or just eliminate the changes which are:
- Illegal, immoral or otherwise acceptable
- Highest risk
- Highest cost
Having screened them it is worthwhile trying to re-evaluate to see whether the options become available. You should get lots of new ideas from such a session.
You will also need to ensure that the support processes are in place if you wish to get the most from the change, for example, some accelerator (and trigger actions require a more active promotion of the change. You will need to think about what as well as the Techniques required.
Problem reversal technique
Key steps to utilising the reversal technique are:
- Clearly identify the challenge or problem. Write it down in the reverse, changing a positive statement into a negative one or by giving a negative problem a positive outcome.
- Brainstorm what the problem or challenge is not. Question what can cause the challenge or problem and what can be achieved from its opposite.
- Review the new information and determine if there is an added perspective. Are there new ideas to solve the reversed problem or challenge?
- Flip the results! Evaluate the solutions and determine whether or not the added perspective garners an answer to the original problem or challenge.
The order for the restructured challenge or problem has no reflection on the outcome. The key is that the essential words are reversed. The reversed problem can seem strange or even clever. The ideas that are created from this reversal technique can lead to surprisingly valid and opportunistic results.
Because there is no time limit to this technique, it can be used to encourage altering views and assumptions about a challenge or problem. Utilizing the reversal technique can lead to a change in the direction or location of your perspective. By simply looking at a problem or challenge in a reverse way can give a starkly different projection of its successes.