Free Technique For Creative Problem Solving

So I posted this same post in the war room, so any of your war room members, if you already read it there, don't bother here. I thought to myself that posting it in only the war room kind of felt elitist and beside the point of my sharing this information. I feel that anyone could benefit from this and, therefore, I want to share it with all warriors . Hope you enjoy.

I have been doing a lot of research into creative thinking recently and have come across some really interesting ideas, techniques and methods that I think some of you would be able to benefit from. I wrote an ebook recently with some of the ideas I've learned about, but here is one that I saved for later use. Read on if you're interested in learning a new trick for your creative writing, product creation, quality content generating, and all other creative practices.

This technique/methodology/frame of mind is known as synectics. Some of you may be familiar with it while other may not. This technique was created to help us delve into the irrational, non-traditional part of our brains to allow us to think in more creative ways. William J. Gordon, a co-founder, and coiner of the term synectics had this to say about it,

Once I discovered how to develop new connections on purpose and how to use them, it became possible to apply this insight to a broad range of problems and to train people how to take the simple steps needed for producing new connections.

This technique will help you increase the chances of successfully dealing with problem solving situations. All right. With no further ado, here's a framework of how synectics works.

First of all, you should know these three things:

1. Smply by understanding the processes of how your mind works, you will at least double your own ability to think creatively and, therefore, at a minimum, double the quality of your work.
2. The emotional and irrational processes of your mind are ten-fold more important during this process than your intellectual and rational mind.
3. Finally, to implement the above two statements, we need to understand these emotional and irrational components.

More on that in a moment. Right now let's take the problem you have, whether it's a writer's block, or you need to get over a particular problem in your business management, or you want to create a new product and don't know where to start, and analyze it using the "Synectics 5-step Creative Problem Process" approach. This is a crucial part of synectics, so read carefully. The following is just a brief outline of the 5 steps. I will go into further depth on each afterwards.

1. Problem Framing:
   • Generally state the problem at hand
   • Make the strange familiar through thorough analysis of information surrounding your problem
2. Direct Effort to Solve:
   • Purge your immediate solutions and views
   • If the problem was given from an outside source (client or expert), restate the problem in your own words
   • If there are multiple portions of a larger problem, or many possible problems to tackle, then choose one
3. Putting the Problem Away:
   • Compare the problem with an analogy
   • Empathetic identification with the problem
   • Evoke questions for "Book Title" (not what it sounds like, read below to find out)
4. Connection-Making:
   • Select one of the analogies
   • Force fit your analogy to the problem
   • View the problem from different angles
5. Developmental Thinking:
   • Itemized reponse
   • Possible Solutions
   • Next steps: who, what, when, where, why, how

Ok, I understand that you've heard all these said before in gradecshool times. You've tried them, but they never seemt work, or they take up too much time. I agree I've thought the same thing before. However, if you really put in the effort necessary for each step, I assure you that you'll find great value in each and every step towards increasing your productivity, quality, and, in the end, save overall time by making every minute you spend count to the fullest. Naturally, there will be many skeptics, but it's easy to rule something out before trying it. I urge you to really try it out and THEN tell me what you think about it.

Moving on, those above five steps are what you'll be using in this method, but they definitely need some further explanation.

I think the first part of #1 is pretty self-explanatory. You need a problem before you come to this method, so if you're lacking that, then go read up on your situation and I'm sure you'll find some problem you can tackle. Go read forums, or scholarly journals and they'll sometimes literally tell you their problems.

In the second part of #1, making the strange familiar, you are going to need a few tools to help you do this. Use the following ideas to help bring the problem within your scope of what you can wrap your head around.

1. Analysis: Break your problem down into bite sized chunks that you can swallow individually.
   EX - You want to buy a present for your lover. The individual parts of that problem might be: your lover's interests, price range, time frame, time you've been together, etc.
2. Generalization: Look for patterns between the individual chunks
   EX - Maybe you've been in this situation previously with another lover. Or, you've been short on money before and figured out a way to make more, or stretch the money you have. Or, maybe you're short on time and have done something in the past when you were short on time and needed a present for someone else.
3. Analogy: Take that pattern and search your memory or personal experience for something similar that you can liken the pattern to.
   EX - If you were short on time, maybe you asked someone for help, or regifted something nice and it worked. Or, if you were short on money, maybe you made something by hand with things around the house. Try to relate some aspect of the problem to something you've experienced before. More on this later

Next, in step #2, you want to immediately vent the obvious solutions to the problem. These will only clutter your mind if you don't, so just say what you're thinking and get it out of the way.

Now, make sure you can rephrase the problem in your own words. You need to know that you are now familiar enough with the problem itself to be able to internalize the situation. Finally, If there are multiple problems you need to deal with, now is the time decide which is the most important. Which is the problem that needs to be solved first? In the example before, if you don't have money OR time, then you'd probably want to deal with the time issue first. Otherwise you might find yourself up **** creek without a paddle -_-;

As for step #3, this is the phase where you make the strange familiar. This is an important feature of synectics that contrasts to the making the familiar strange (step #1). These two need to be balanced. Using the following three tools will explain the sub-points in #3, and will prompt you better to create analogies to your problem that you tried to do in step #1, part 3:

1. Direct Analogy: Compare the subject at hand with something else you know. Making an analogy works well.
   EX - The value of premium gas compared to the performance of your car is similar to the use of vitamins and your body's health. (Gas is to Performance as Vitamins are to Health)
2. Personal Analogy: empathizing with something outside yourself can help you identify with the problem on a new level.
   EX - If you were a mechanic, you might try visualizing yourself going through the engine to help in troubleshooting. Making sure each part is working properly as you follow the route of the fuel through the engine.
3. Compressed Conflict: Also known as "Book Title", this is where you can compare two paradoxical words.
   EX - involuntary willingness; balanced confusion; connected pauses

In step #4 you need to choose the best analogy that you created in the previous step. Make sure you make the analogy stick to your problem so that you can see your problem in a new light. Finally, at this stage you want to examine your new view point to come up with as many new ideas as possible. After you've done this with your most immediate problem, try it with your other secondary problems. The point is to generate as many potentially viable ideas as possible, because quality is definitely correlated to quantity when it comes to creative problem solving. The more ideas you have, the more likely you are to get one that is great.
This is a tool that will help your best ideas to come forth. Use the following concepts to help you release the censors in your mind that make you judge ideas. Just generate as many ideas as you can based on these promptors:

• Subtract - remove parts or elements; compress or make it smaller; what can be disposed or reduced?; can you break any rules?; can you simplify it?
• Add - extend or expand; augment, advance or annex it; magnify or add
• Transfer - move it to a new situation; adapt, transpose, relocate or dislocate; adapt to new frame or reference; move out of normal environment; how might subject be converted, translated or transfigured?
• Empathize - sympathize with the situation/subject; put yourself in its shoes; relate to subject emotionally and subjectively
• Miscellaneous - Animate, superimpose, change scale, substitute, fragmentate, isolate, distort, disguise, contradic, parody, prevaricate, analogize, hybridize, metamorphose, symbolize, mythologize, fantasize, repeat, combine

Finally, in step #5, the technique known as "itemized response" is employed to help you make the best decision out of all the ideas you've generated. This includes such techniques as:

• Matrix - Make a grid with the most important criteria you're looking for in a solution along the top, and your ideas along the side. You can either rate them (1-10) or check mark them for whether they have them or not.
• Edison's Technique - This is just the famous pro vs con list. Edison created it, that's all.
• ALUo (Advantages, Limitations, Unique Qualities, overcoming limitations) - Write out everything that you can fit into these four categories for your idea, to determine if it is worthwhile to pursue.
• LCOb (Likes, Concerns, Opportunities, brainstorming to overcome concerns) - Write out everything that you can fit into these four categories for your idea, to determine if it is worthwhile to pursue. This is similar to ALUo, but basically replaces the limiatations catgorie with opportunities instead. They are good to balance each other out, so maybe just do ALUOo or LCOLb, lol.

You don't have to employ all of these (as it would probably take way too much time), but using one or more could help you make a more beneficial decision. Or, use your own method of choosing.

Finally, simply write up your decision to concretize it, so that you don't waste time second guessing yourself. Make the decision and run with it now that you've done all this work to increase your chances of making the best one.

On a final note, you can always ask the question: "what comes next", which is signified by step #5's "Next steps". Do this by asking the 5 "W" and 1 "H" questions (who, what, when, where, why, and how) to figure out where you should go with your decision.

I hope this system can help most of you (or all hopefully) in some way along your creative process. I know it has helped me make leaps towards my goals of financial freedom and security. If you have any questions, or concerns, or ideas for increasing the value of this method, feel free to email me at yourcreativityunleashed@gmail.com, or leave a post here.

Also, if you'd like to find out about more such techniques and implementation for tools like this, feel free to check out my new ebook that you can find a link to in my signature. It walks you through the process much more in-depth, so don't worry if you think you can't follow the information above. Take care, and all the best