Change of perspective. Try pretending you are rich, poor, a child, a visitor from another planet. How do you see the problem from this new perspective? Einstein imagined riding on a beam of light, and used the insights from that to come up with his theory of relativity, so this technique has been known to work.
Attribute listing. Used by research-and -development departments of many companies, this method starts by identifying existing attributes. These may including physical, social, emotional and whatever other aspects that occur to you. You then work on one attribute at a time.
Designing a baby seat for cars, for example, might start with appearance. Will a different color sell better? The attribute of comfort might be examined to create a new padding. Emotional considerations may lead to seats that "feel" safer to parents, perhaps with a name change ("Guardian Angel Car Seats?"). Looking at the attribute of mobility could lead to lighter designs, or seats that become backpack child-carriers.
Seeing the solution. Try clearly imagining what a successful outcome would look like. For example, restaurant employees often don't clean well, because they can't "see" the mess they work in. The owner might find that a daily checklist doesn't work. Then he imagines a successful outcome - a health inspector looking around, and commenting on how clean things are. This mental picture suggests that outsiders more easily see what's wrong, giving the owner the idea of weekly "inspections" by a friend, customer, or anyone from outside the business.
Challenge your assumptions. This can be a powerful problem solving technique, especially for personal issues, where there are so many hidden assumptions. The kids are fighting over the television, and you are tired of it. You may be assuming the following: 1. You need to have a TV; 2. Fighting over the TV is the problem; 3. The fighting needs to stop; 4. It's your problem.
What solutions does challenging these assumptions suggest? 1. Get rid of the TV, or limit it's use; 2. Deal with the general issue of the kids' behavior; 3. Leave the room, close the door and let them fight; 4. Tell the kids it's their problem, and they have a week to come up with a solution, or the TV goes.
Random Input. Look around, and randomly pick an object, then ask what it might teach you about your problem. Stressed out by driving? A mailbox might suggest using the mail and phone more to avoid driving places. A toy truck may remind you that it's less stressful to drive a smaller car. A map could give you the idea to move to a less-busy town. What can a bird, a bike, a lamp, or a blanket tell us about the problem of stressful driving?
You'll have many silly ideas when using problem solving techniques like this one. Don't be too dismissive of them, as they sometimes trigger a thought that's more useful. "Tired of job," plus "snow," may rattle around in your brain for a minute, to become "snow... melts, and runs into little streams... little streams add up to bigger streams... If I had several other streams of income, I wouldn't need my job." Work with each random input for at least a few seconds before moving on to the next.
Assume the absurd. Then make it make sense. "Put our store in the customer's house" was absurd until there were shopping networks on TV.
Ask people. They may have good ideas, but in any case this helps you be sure that you are not overlooking anything obvious.
Solve problems by causing them. Think of all the ways you could make a problem worse, and each of these may suggest a partial solution.
Write it down. Then find another way to express it, and write that down. Write everything that comes to mind, and later you can sort through your notes for the good ideas.
Break it down. It's easier to motivate yourself if you attack one part of a problem at a time, and many problems are really a collection of smaller problems.
Sleep on it. Outline a problem in your head before bed, then let your subconscious mind go to work. It's a good idea to have a pen and paper available, ready for any middle-of-the-night inspirations.
