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The purpose of brainstorming and ideation is to get as many new ideas as possible. This frequently requires, not only a direct approach (vertical thinking), but the application of lateral or "zigzag thinking. Lateral thinking is thinking sideways, not developing a pattern, but rather restructuring a pattern.

In vertical thinking, you progress by sequential justified steps, each step arising directly for the previous step. In lateral thinking you proceed by any means at hand, so long as change results. Lateral thinking -

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  • Is not sequential - frequently jumping from point to point and then allowing the components to coalesce.
  • Does not have to be correct at every point. A ridiculous concept may be necessary to snap a the pattern into a new alignment that makes sense. Judgment in suspended.
  • Is not restricted by relevant information. Lateral thinking uses random or irrelevant information to bring about a perturbation of the system, which cannot happen within its self.

There are many articles and books that suggest a myriad of methods to aid in lateral thinking and brainstorming. One recent book, whose author was associated with food product development, illustrates some of these approaches ( Jump Start Your Brain, by Doug Hall, Warner Books, New York, N.Y. 1995.) He approached ideation with a number of concepts, including:

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  • Fun is fundamental - leading to enthusiasms essential to developing new ideas
  • Respect the newborn - recognize that newborn ideas, like babies are fragile. New ideas need nurturing, protecting, patience, loving and commitment and the y can not be hurried. Suspend judgment!! Don’t even think, let alone say out-loud -- "it will never work", "it's not possible", "it's not practical" or "its not even reasonable".
  • Reality is not relevant - Again Defer judgment during the inventing process of developing a new idea. Reality can come later - perceptions come first.
  • You have to swing a lot to make home runs - it takes a lot of ideas to get one outstanding one. The baseball player Reggie Jackson made 563 home runs during his career, but he also struck-out more times than anybody else - 1,597 times.

New ideas need new associations. Hall proposed the following list of questions to lead to new associations -- including the following:

• • What would be the simple solutions?
  • What would be the most courageous solution?
  • What would contradict history or current trends?
  • What would arouse curiosity?
  • What would make you boss, your banker, your partner exceedingly uncomfortable
  • What would turn your weakness into strengths?
  • What would be the farthest removed from the competition?

Hall recognized that people think in different ways and developed a questionnaire, which he calls the B.O.S. (brain operating system) profiler, to help classify people into three groups. These were the --

• • Realist - who prefers ideas that are a variation on familiar themes; has an ability to grasp the issues; is most creative when dealing on an incremental level, using direct stimulus; and is best with reacting to thoughts; he she likes to work in a structured environment
  • Builder - who sees in a 360-degree fashion and see what other types of thinkers miss; he/she connects the dots and make possible the existence of extremes; are equally at home with both structure and randomness; he/she has the ability to expand and refine an idea from an "acorn to a full grown oak"
  • Dreamer - sees what others do not see; works best without structure; he/she is caught in the look, feel and elegance of an idea, without reference to reality; is often the catalyst for other type of thinks; is less common than the realist or builder and makes up less that 15% of the work force.

Hall has developed a "toolbox" of approaches to stimulate the development of ideas. He developed 37 different tools and evaluated these on the basis of the preferences of different types of thinkers.

• Example given. For more information on the other approaches, see "Jump Start Your Brain" on closed reserve in the library.

This is a summary of some brain stimulating exercises from, "Jump Start Your Brain".

1. Brain Program #3: Stimuli One Step ( Realists, Builders, Dreamers)

Objective: To transform physical stimuli directly into ideas.

How to do it:

Look, smell, feel, touch, listen to as much stimuli, and as many different kinds of it, as possible. Move Quickly. Remember, you are looking for first glance ideas. Scribble all your ideas onto index cards and later go into more detail.

2. Brain Program #10: Kitchen Chemistry (Realists, builders)

Objective: To invent ideas based on interaction with your subject of inquiry. This involves playing, prototyping, and modeling alternative solutions.

How to do it:

As you approach the task, try building it in miniature. Try and visualize your thoughts in three dimensions, so you can see what works and what doesn't. Use any ingredients, methods, and tools to help you. Then, find ways to make the product better.

3. Flapdoodling #11: (Realists, builders, dreamers)

Objectives: To allow you to record and invent ideas in such a way that they can bulge, build and hitchhike on one another.

How to do it:

Get a big sheet of paper. Define you objective --a word, a who, a how, etc. -- write it in the center of the page. Draw a box around it. From each corner, push yourself to come up with one, two or more different areas of exploration, associations, ideas or related elements. Begin to free associate outwards in spokes from the epicenter, allowing each spoke to sprout spokes of its own.

4. Brain Program #12: 666 (Realists, builders)

Objective: To force-associate related elements of a problem in a random sequence.

How to do it:

Divide your task into as many separate aspects as you can. List all possible areas of exploration, along with characteristics that might be used to define each area. Select three to purse. Now create six options

for each area of opportunity. Arrange the list into columns that are numbered. Then, obtain three dice of different colors. Match one color with one die. Toss the dice and match the numbers on each die to the trait

in the appropriate column. Then, see what thoughts you can come up with. Keep rolling and keep thinking.

5. Brain Program #17: Eureka! Physics (Realists, builders)

Objective: To isolate trends and problem components, carry them forward to their extremes, and then pull them as far as you can in the other direction. Blow them out of proportion. Somewhere between here and there is a rainbow of wicked good ideas.

How to do it?

List overall trends or components that relate to your area of interest. Then take these ideas to the extreme. After that invent an idea that's the exact opposite of each of your other ideas. Hopefully, you will come up with many good ideas.

6. Brain Program #19: Edison (Builders)

Objective: To explore external factors that can influence your task. To identify the elements of the larger world of which your task is a part. To play with these elements with an eye toward improving the context and finding solutions.

How to do it:

Diagram the Big Picture around your task on a sheet of paper. List inputs on one side and outputs on the other. What forces, factors, requirements, constraints, and elements are at work? Then, keep adding new elements to your Big Picture. Look at all the elements that affect each idea.

04/04/03
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