Friday, July 01, 2005

Problem solving and a creativity technique: multiple redefinition

I like this multiple redefinition technique I found over at Mycoted's library of creativity techniques. I've been using it to redefine my project for automatic fiction.

Open-ended problems by definition are not well defined ‘the boundaries are fuzzy’

The following checklist of provocative statements is suggested:



- ‘There is usually more than one-way of looking at problems. You could also define this one as ….’

- '….but the main point of the problem is….’

- ‘What I would really like to do is….’

- ‘If I could break all laws of reality (physical, social etc.) I would try to solve it by ….’

- ‘The problem put in another way could be likened to …’

- ‘Another, even stranger, way of looking at it might be….’

The full details of the technique are over at Mycoted.