Brain Storming

Take a blank sheet of paper and draw lines to divide it into six sections. Start a timer, and in the next six minutes each person independently draws a different idea or possible solution in each section on the page. Do not worry about minor details, scale / proportion, or specific content - focus on capturing the high-level idea, then move on. Try not to filter your ideas and discount or dismiss ideas, because time goes quickly - draw any ideas you may have. Do not stop if you reach six ideas before time runs out - turn the paper over and keep drawing and sketching until time runs out. Review and evaluate the ideas as a group after the time has run out.

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.

Concept Fans

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.

DO IT is an acronym that stands for:

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

DO IT

Most people process the same information over and over until proven wrong, without searching for alternatives, even when there is no penalty for asking questions that give them a negative answer. Look for a multiplicity of ways to approach a subject. Be willing to entertain different perspectives and alternative approaches to broaden your thinking and open you up to new information and new possibilities.

Diagrammatically organize your thinking around significant themes. Start with a central subject and expand into themes and subthemes, each with separate entry points. Pursue ever-widening circles until the subject or opportunity is comprehensively explored. The cluster of themes and surrounding ideas and applications, which are developed in one way or another, provide several different alternative possibilities.

Lotus Blossoms

Vertical solutions are based on existing ideas or knowledge -- solutions that others have already had some success with. Digging deeper into known, familiar territory carries little risk, but is unlikely to result in a breakthrough idea.

Generating a variety of ideas by thinking in totally new directions. Thinking "sideways", "lateral thinking", and "thinking outside the box."