Libro sobre creatividad

Problem solving
The Universal Traveler: A Soft ... - Google Book Search

This unique book will open your eyes to effective and stimulating formulas for solving problems. Discover how techniques developed in specialized disciplines can be applied to almost any business, social, or personal situation.



Comentario en la lista HCI:

I'd like to add to the discussion about solo ideation by framing of it as a dialog with ourselves. We want to get dialog of ideas flowing and keep them flowing. Here are some points of practice that I have found very useful:

1. Set up a defined time for the session. We want to challenge ourselves to think by different rules for a while because we're going to set aside our dominant analytical and critical thinking abilities and open up the wild side of imagination. So we give our critical side the assurance that we're going to play by these rules for only 20 or 30 minutes, then the critical function can come back in.

2. Keep the critical thinking function out of the room during the session. This is another way of thinking about Osborn's "defer judgement" principle, and it's fundamental to this kind of ideation. Without this principle, we end up driving with our foot on the brake. What it means in practice is that we want to entertain not only the wild, weird and improbable, but also the dumb, mundane, copycat, and obvious ideas. Let everything and anything come out. We want flow, and sometimes the best way to start the flow is with the most obvious solutions. Get them out and see what's behind them.

3. Get the ideas into the room. It's hard to have a constructive dialog with ourselves if it all takes place inside our head. Thoughts are ephemeral, and to really respond and build on an idea we need to make it persistent. Write things on postits or whiteboard, or slips of paper on the table, or anything that captures the ephemeral thoughts. Get them out of our head and into the room. This makes way for new thoughts and creates artifacts that we can sort, cluster, combine, etc., to see patterns and relationships, as well as reconsider and reflect on.

4. Be visual. It really helps to make some kind of visual sketch or notation for an idea as we create it. The process is more natural when we're brainstorming about physical objects, but don't be blocked by the notion that "there's no way to represent this idea...." Find a way to put some kind of glyph, scribble or symbol with even the most abstract concepts. The idea here is not to make a graphical explanation of the idea on the spot, because that may really break the flow. We just want to tie something visual to it. When we scan the wall or board or table full of ideas, these little graphical snips give the imagination something else to work with. A sketch or scribble that's tied to a verbal idea also makes individual ideas easier to identify and remember, when faced with a wall of 50-100 postits.

5. Be visual again later. I have found it useful to take a second visualizing pass on the ideas even after the brainstorm session is over. Take some set of the most promising ideas and make a sketch that represents each one. The process of thinking over the idea and trying to come up with a way to diagram or represent it often gives new insight into that idea and spawns other new ideas. Try this as a simple exercise or practice for time or two and see how it affects your overall attitude and results.