Creative Thinking and Brainstorming

Where do innovative new ideas come from? Can only highly creative individuals, born with this talent, have great ideas? Am I capable of such thinking?

You may ask these kinds of questions as you enter this section. Although some people have a natural talent for creative thinking, it is also a skill that can be learned with practice, much like riding a bicycle. Perhaps the most important first step is to believe that you can learn this skill and will improve with practice. Before proceeding, try to open your mind (at least a crack) to allow something new to shine in.

Roger von Oech discusses 10 different mental blocks to creative thinking and how to get beyond them in his book A Whack on the Side of the Head.

Although you will get a much more in-depth explanation by reading the book, the following is a brief discussion of some of these mental blocks.

Our educational system does not train people to think creatively. In fact, we are taught to compartmentalize our thinking into right and wrong answers based on what our teachers have told us. This method may have been effective in training factory workers during the era of heavy industrialization. However, it stifles self-expression and the creative flow of ideas, which are greatly valued in today's technologically advanced society. In reality, many questions or problems simply don't have a single solution. In fact, better and more elegant solutions often appear only after grappling with an initial set of workable ideas. Consequently, being able to generate a large quantity and range of ideas is the best approach.

Often, we have perfectly good ideas, but are afraid to express them due to such fears as:

Being wrong.
Being irrational.
Not following the rules.
Not being practical.
Being frivolous.
Not being an expert.
Being foolish.
Being ambiguous.
Making mistakes.
Not being creative.

So the morale of the story is to express your ideas even though you might hesitate. Only through expressing ideas and refining them do truly great ideas evolve.

In your next assignment, you will be asked to brainstorm ideas for your project. The object of brainstorming is to produce as many ideas as possible. The emphasis is on quantity (quality will be covered later). The rules for brainstorming are simple:

Put any fears or hesitations aside. Freely express anything that comes to mind that is even remotely connected to your project. Often, very good ideas grow from seemingly silly and/or outlandish suggestions.
To allow the free flow of ideas, don't discuss or judge any at this time. Except to ask for clarifications, leave off evaluating ideas until later.

Brainstorming:
Chris:	Okay. So far, all these places are on our list:Greek Islands and Turkey, Bali, New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, Tahiti, Ireland, Mexico, and Hawaii.
Lee:	How about going to the Moon?
Kim:	That would be cool. Did you hear about that gazillionaire who went up in a Russian space rocket?
Pat:	I'm not sure if the Moon would be in our price range.
Chris:	Come on now; let's just think of places where we'd like to go. We can talk about expenses later.
Kim:	In thinking about the Moon, I would like to go somewhere where the sky is open and I can feel free, like Montana - Big Sky Country, or the desert. Isn't there a place in Idaho called Craters of the Moon?
Pat:	Yeah, I've actually been there in the spring. There were wildflowers coming up through the lava. It was truly an amazing sight.
Lee:	Or, how about some place that looks like the Moon? Don't they train astronauts in the southwestern desert, around White Sands? I've seen of pictures of Baja that looks pretty much like the moon to me.

Don't discard far-out ideas.

As you can see from the above conversation, decent ideas can grow out of seemingly outlandish ones, like going to the Moon. Also notice in this example, it's wise to avoid any discussion on feasibility until the team has exhausted the brainstorming process.