Creative Thinking Techniques in Action – Forty Uses For a Brick

Imaginative imagining techniques aid us master to proliferate suggestions. When we study to proliferate thoughts we grow to be greater at divergent considering – a single of the most potent tools in a challenge solver’s toolbelt.

When a person asks you to come up with suggestions to fix a dilemma, how lots of do you generally make? One? Two? Five?

The subsequent instance illustrates how we can use a couple of simple artistic pondering approaches to generate tons of practical concepts.

The problem: How a lot of diverse techniques can we use a brick?

Our target is forty tips.

Action One particular – Empty Your Intellect

Promptly listing all the strategies you can feel of, off the top rated of your head, to use a brick.

1. Create a wall
2. Construct a mailbox
3. Facet a dwelling
4. Use it for a desk paperweight
5. Use it as a melee weapon (whack somebody on the head)
6. Use it as a projectile weapon (toss it at someone)
7. Use it to pave a sidewalk or patio
8. Build a deck

8, overall. Not several.

Step Two – Group the merchandise into widespread themes

Various of my tips fell into the classification of ‘building content.’ So concentrating on that, what other points can be constructed out of bricks?

1. Flowerpots
2. Landscaping
3. Mailboxes
4. Barbecues
5. Smokehouses
6. Outhouses
7. Shelving
8. Out of doors bar

8 a lot more suitable there. My jogging overall: 16.

Also, a several of the ideas fell into the classification of ‘small, really hard, relatively weighty objects.’ What other utilizes are there for that?

1. Doorstop
2. Bug whacker
3. Ballast
4. Keep down sheets of cloth, plastic and so forth.

You will find four a lot more. My running total: 20

Phase Three – Contemplate the typical attributes

What are the attributes of bricks?

• Really hard
• Sturdy
• Rectangular
• Smallish
• Retains heat well/insulates
• Compact
• Occur in a number of earth-tone colours
• Low cost

“Retains heat properly” conjures up a new focus for thoughts.

1. Kiln
2. Lining for a metallic grill
3. Some thing to secure a susceptible floor from a warm pot or pan
4. Mount a metal grill/smoker on a wooden deck
5. Mount a scorching h2o heater on a wood/tile/linoleum ground

Also bricks are “difficult.” Do some uses call for excess strength or sturdiness?

1. Higher explosives/harmful supplies storage properties
2. High explosives/dangerous supplies dealing with amenities
3. Backstop for a capturing assortment
4. Firing place
5. Vault

Ten much more there. Operating overall: 30. We are 3 quarters of our way to the focus on, and we have stored matters quite standard.

The creative pondering procedures I have employed so far are pretty linear. To arrive up with genuinely new and various suggestions, we need to get far more abstract in our thinking.

The subsequent instrument requires us into the summary arena. It falls below the group of ‘forced connections’ – analyzing the romance concerning two factors that are seemingly unrelated.

Step Four: Force Connections

‘Random words’ is a basic resource for forcing connections. I pull out a random phrases checklist, close my eyes and issue a finger at:

• nut
• pet
• Mass
• healthcare facility
• trophy

How could these words quite possibly help me occur up with more makes use of for a brick?

Only list the things you affiliate with each word, and ‘force’ a link with bricks.

Right here are the text and phrases that I affiliate with every:

• nut – little, delicious, almond, walnut, squirrel, fiber, pecan, pie, cookie, peanut, bought in bags, baseball video games, marketed alone or blended
• pet – dog, cat, hamster, gerbil, snake, lizard, bought in specialty stores, adorable, pet foods, fish tank
• Mass – Catholic, church, service, Eucharist, sanctuary, baptism, wafer, wine, Pope, priest, nun, prayer, forgiveness, collection
• medical center – crisis, rooms, beds, patients, medical professionals, nurses, functions, x-ray, MRI, highly-priced, health care, ambulance, surgical procedures, healing
• trophy – prize, engraving, specified to the winner, valuable, status, mantle piece, exhibit situation, pleasure

Forcing connections with the text and phrases I get these tips:

1. Pet – doggy – Create a doghouse
2. Nut – squirrel – Construct a squirrel/fowl feeder
3. Mass – services – Develop a memorial
4. Mass – support – Develop an out of doors altar
5. Medical center – x-ray – Line an X-ray or radiology room
6. Mass – baptism – Construct a baptismal font
7. Trophy – mantle piece – Make a fireplace
8. Trophy – display scenario – Build a trophy scenario
9. Pet – fish tank – Establish an aquarium stand or case
10. Trophy – engraving – Make engraved pavers for fund boosting

That’s ten more, bringing my full up to 40. Intention accomplished!

To be straightforward, this was also quick. I could have held making concept immediately after notion by employing other inventive contemplating tools.

And just imagine of what a Team of thinkers could come up with – in an innovation workshop, for a team of five I would have set the aim at 100-150 thoughts.

“Forty works by using for a brick” might have sounded challenging at to start with, based on the ideas at the best of our heads.

But as I have proven it won’t get a lot of thinking to proliferate suggestions, as lengthy as you do it systematically, applying verified applications and strategies.

Strategy generation is the basis of divergent thinking, which drives small business creativeness. Study to proliferate suggestions in this method and you can turn into a superior innovator for it.