May 19, 2011
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Maciej Marosz
Nearly every day there is a new study that identifies some factor or another thought to enhance creativity: rest, meditation, food, environment, colors. The problem is, few research studies have practical application to the business setting.
A good part of my day job revolves around facilitating teams as they attempt to solve complex problems in some new way, and this much I know: creativity is about insight and inspiration—it can't be forced, canned, or made to magically appear on demand. All the science in the world can't guarantee breakthrough thinking in a business situation when you're stuck. The best you can do is enlist a few tried and true ways to stimulate the neural workings of the brain.
Not long ago I was fortunate enough to work with frog design as we teamed to help a mutual client solve a pretty wicked challenge, and they introduced me to an exercise which I now use regularly. It's called "Provocations." It's essentially a way to break free of the gravitational pull of your expertise and experience, and go off road with your thinking.
There are four different provocations, or ways to twist your current situation:
1. Reversal
Simply reverse the normal direction or action. For example, "the chef tells the diner what she will be eating," or "the diner makes the food instead of the restaurant."
2. Escape
Cancel, drop, remove or deny what was always taken for granted, or whatever the status quo is. Let's say you're working on a new cellphone design. List out all the features. "Keyboard" is obviously one of those features. Your escape statement: "Cell phones don't have keyboards."
3. Exaggeration
Exaggerate through magnification or minimization the normal quality of whatever you're working on: "Video cameras are smaller than mobile phones," or "Video cameras have only one button."
4. Fantasy
Imagine a wish become a reality: "Wouldn't it be nice to get paid for sleeping?"
I like to set aside an hour just to have fun and get whacky with the exercise. Here's how I conduct it:
- Step 1: Have people group up—in threesomes if possible.
- Step 2: Each team generates two or three provocative statements per the four categories, to get eight to ten provocations. Use traditional brainstorming rules: Quantity over quality, more is better, no judgment or thought editing. The list will tend to look bizarre, but that's a good thing. Give yourself 20 minutes.
- Step 3: Each teams picks the one most imaginative or provocative statement (the that lends itself best to many possibilities), and generates as many ideas (ways to accomplish the provocation) as you can in 15 minutes. Again, normal brainstorming rules apply.
- Step 4: Harvest the three most compelling ideas.
- Step 5: Divvy up the ideas, each person taking one. Then build the idea up in four ways: "Dub it!" with a catchy name, "Describe it!" explaining briefly what the idea is, "Defend it!" explaining briefly what makes it valuable or important, and finally "Draw it!"—a quick sketch or prototype that visually depicts the idea. Spend no more than 15 minutes.
- Step 6: Have a quick 10-minute "trade show" in which each creator posts and presents their idea in no more than 60 seconds. The whole group then votes on the best ideas with colored sticky dots...the top three ideas garnering the most dots can then be taken to the next level of development.
Every time I do this, I am amazed at the creative ideas that emerge. I'm certain you will be too.
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Maciej Marosz 4 months ago
Sorry for my Englishthis what I discover! not invent will be use in GPS sytem, Sports, Transport cost reduction, EDUCATION - newton,einstein mitakenew method for very precision speed measure plane,racket, vehicle - and planetsplease visit page see my another patent and support me I need any money support,from high school I can explain all in simply experiments one day one of my book will read many people my patents will save many people liveswww.maroszVSnewton.cba.pl ( English is my problem sorry )