Serious Creativity

Edward de Bono

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

ISNB 0-88730-566-0

Purpose

Challenge

Alternative

Provocation

Using the power of lateral thinking to create new idea

The first part concerned with the nature, logic, and important of creative thinking

The second part specifically concerned with the deliberate and systematic tools of latral thinking

The third part concerned with the application of creative thinking

Will cover the difference between everyday creativity and specific creativity

The application of creativity is bit easy

The need for serious creativity and the serious application of serious creativity

Creativity in " everyday fashion" There always the willingness to look for new ideas and to consider the new ideas that are turned by others

Creative Pause

Challenge

Green Hat

Alternative

Provocation

Simple focus

Listening

Sensitization

Training

Programs and structures

Specific creativity

Focus or creative task, systematic and deliberate effort to generate new ideas and new concept

Defining the focus

Structure for creative thinking

Evaluation and Implemention

Two alternative approhes

Focus the important for two reasons

By focusing upon things which no one else has focused, can develop valuable new ideas with little creative effort

The systematic creative tools are most powerful when we are specific about the creative focus and stick to this

Compiling the Creative Hit List

Creative Hit List for an individual or a group or a team

Items Creative Hit List

Problem

The problem should not be so technical and require much technical detail

Improvement task

The specific improvement

Project

The project must include invitations to invent or design something new

Whim and opportunity

Choose any area and invites thinkers to develop ideas in that area

Use the creative Hit List

Can provide items for creativity training and also formal creative thinking sessions

Creative Hit List and problem solving

Cooperate problems that need to be solved by collecting information and further analysis

Value of Creative Hit List

There are matters that really need creative attention

Reminder of the need for creativity and helps to falter a culture of creative effort

Dangers

First: the list become filled with "general problems" that need information and analysis

Second: Creative Hit List become filled with trivial item so trivializes creativity itself

It not the "crazy creativity" but serious and systematic approach to an important subject

Sensitization

Six thinking hats

Nominated champion/ Process champion

Structures and Programs

Nothing much will happen with creativity unless someone make it happen

The process champion

Make things happen with creativity

Creativity is a fragile as any product

Creativity need champion to fight for

The concept manager

Responsibility for collecting. generating and developing new concepts

Creativity trainers

Office

Network

Distribution of people who locally responsible and motivated to put energy into the creative process

Human resource department

Comprehensive and ranges from training to assessment to problem solving and general care

Trainers

Organization send people to be trained in the training of creative thinking techniques

Structures and programs are frameworks for encouraging and rewarding creative behaviour

Quality circles

The use of creative techniques within quality circles depends heavily on defined creative focuses

Quality, Serious improvement, and cost cutting

Specific element designed by people with experience in creativity

Creativity center

Provide a way of doing things that need to be done

Concept R&D

Creative Hit List

Formal serious manner

Cloud "9" File

Signifies dream

Creative Task sheet

To elicite new idea

Opportunity audit

Requesting executive to put forward the opportunity

Regular Creative session

Trainer and training

Facilitator

The FAT/CAT program

Messing around

Train in creative thinking

Training needs

General creative skills

Special area creativity

Operating creative skills

Allocation of time

Forms of training

Practical formats in which the lateral thinking tools can be used

Instant use

The process to be the idea

Individual formats

Faster thinking to create new idea

Group formats

Focus stage in group are different from focus stage individual

Example: 30 minutes

Focus stage: 3 minutes

Techniques stage: 3 minutes

Output stage: 10 minutes

Final output (harvesting): 10 minutes

Formal output: 4 minutes

Recording

Tape recording

Group structures

Number of people

Nature of people

Official Roles

Time

Format

The part of assessment, judgment, and decision capacity for individual/ organization

End catagories

Directly disable idea, good idea but not for us, good edea but not now

Major consideration

benefit, feasibility, resources, fit

Essential factors

Vital factors, flexibility, fatal factors

Fall-back position

Testability

Risk

The final decision

Need six thinking hat

Point system

Direct comparison

Handsight logic

Circumstance

Emotion

Making an idea

to solve the problem

Understanding the nature and logic of creativity

"Creative" means means bringing into being something that was not here before, new and have high value

Tool and techniques

Specific tools that can be used systematically and deliberately in order to create new ideas

Depends on practice, example if you get rid of your inhibitions, you will be creative

Focus and intention

"Concern with motivation"

Example: Red Telephone by Australian Telecom

Passive system

All the activity comes from an external organizer that relates the information and moves it around

Active system

The information and the surface are active and the information organizes itself without help for an external organizer

self-organizing system

Creativity is not simply way to make things better

But the creativity with the information that we have will make things real or true

A new idea offers opportunity, advantage and benefit

Cutting costs and quality programme

Use the less cost but with a good quality service

Continue the improvement

Maintenance management

Depend on market muscle and a strong niche position

Competition and sur/petition

Terms of price, quality, distribution, and promotion

The first phase of business was "product or service."

The second phase of business was "competition."

The third phase of business will be "integrated values."

More information and approach the perfect state of complete knowledge and the need of thinking is lessened

Make sense of the information

Explaination

Need to undestand what going on in order to take appropriate action

Concept of hypothesis, method guess and speculation to creativity and possibilities

Market analysis

Convinced of a product's success before taking the risk

"logical" reason for action

The future

Use deliberate creativity in order to put forward certain future possibilities

Enriches our concept map of the future, for example: working from home

Concept drivers

Driving concept

Example the Wright brothers set out to cope with unstable machines

Analyze data in order to see the trends and what is happening

Ingredients

More information is valuable to creativity

Collecting Information

The design of question may require creativity

Creativity is a natural talent and cannot be taught

Training, structures, and systematic techniques can raise general level of creative ability

Creativity comes from the rebels

Creativity can be more constructive and can build on existing idea means quality

No need to against (rebels)

Right brain and left brain

Use left and right brain at the same time to create creativity involved in changing concepts and perception

Right brain- uneducated "innocent" that has learned nothing

drawing, music, and right brain can see things with an innocent eye

Left brain- the "educated" part of the brain

Picks up on language, symbols and seeing things that should be

Art, artist and creativity

Believe that people have to behave like artists

Creativity involved in changing concepts and perceptions

Release

Judgement system

Creativity no more than saying anything in their mind

Behavior of information systems it is very hard to see how any "memory" system could be creative- except by mistake

Intuition

Two separate meanings

One meaning implies "insight" and the sudden viewing of something in a new way

Second meaning of the word "intuition" covers a feeling that is generated from experience and considerations

The need of "craziness"

Craziness is easy to encourage because it seems so different from normal thinking

At first time, the idea seem crazy compared to existing idea

Legitimate techniques of lateral thinking is provocation

Scatter-gun success

Shooting out a crazy idea might hit a useful target

The difficult of any valuable idea will be perfectly logical

Big jump and small jump creativity

Need for both big jump and small jump creativity

Group or individual

Must be a group process

Produce far more idea and far wider range of ideas when working together in the group and also discipline to the work

Intelligent and creativity

Intelligent is a potential mind but creativity depends on human skills

Creativity thinking are part of skills of thinking but can learn directly in their own right

Habits, training and expectations

Innocence

method fresh and original (approach)

The classic creativity for child

Experience

Modification in order for it to appear as a new idea

Low risk, to seek build upon and repeat pass success

Motivation

Looking for further alternatives when everyone is satisfied with obvious ones

Continue looks for explainations

Tuned judgment

Creativity of doing something

Change, accident, mistake, madness

Give change or something like that

Triggered new ideas and insights

Style

Give a stream of new product

Release

Release from traditional cautions and inhibitions

Lateral thinking

Systematic techniques of lateral thinking

Logic (self organizing system)

Simplest way of thinking or approaches other alternative

Lateral thinking relates to creativity, try new different perception, different concepts, different point and various method

Lateral thinking is other soft of thinking which include (thinking, perceptual thinking, self organizing system)

Creativity take place in the perceptual phase of thinking

With the perception, things will be become real with the processing

Water logic

Water logic and perception are concerned with "what might be"

The logic of perception

Traditional way of looking at things "nothing if not history"

Replace with the word "can be"

In order to understand situations, we need to analyze them

Modes of design

Normal mode= set out the all the requirement

Creative mode= develop some creative concepts in their own right and see how it might work

Sometimes we can find the "cause" but cannot remove it (because of the human nature) and need to design "a way forward"

Understand "logic" of perception will be become stronger

Improvement

Biggest "use" of creative thinking or"potential"

Better means lower cost and less in time

Problem solving

Not a routine problem

Use the concept of fan

Value and opportunity

Creating value and design opportunities

Integrated values- to provide the consumers what they need

The future

We can never have full information about future

But we have to prepare to generate further alternatives for considerations

Motivation

Rethinking, new attention turn up improvement

The six thinking hats

White hat

Think of the white paper, which is neutral and carries information also the data

Black hat

The "cautious" hat

Prevents us from making mistakes, doing silly things, and doings things which might be illegal

Red hat

Feeling, intuition, hunches and emotions

Red hat "signal" felling as such, they can come into the discussion without pretending to be others

Yellow hat

Think of sunshine

for optimism and the logical positive view of things

feasibility and how something can be done

Green hat

Think of vegetation and rich growth

for creative thinking, new ideas, creative effort

Blue hat

Think of sky and overview

Organizing and controlling the thinking process

that will become more productive

Instead of arguments

Can use the six hat to get more productive discussion

Ego and performance

The hat method separates ego from performance

Persistence negativity

The good black hat thinking

Game

more powerful the method games

fierce, arguments, crises, conflicts, dogmatic view

Not categories

Sometimes the people did not use hat is more comfortable

Space for positive and creative thinking

The space of thinking

Occasional use

Convenient use to switch thinking

Systematic use

In the group discussion, the member use different type of hat

Obstacle, gap the more reliable manner with just simple techniques

Creative effort

Add skill to the effort by formal training in lateral thinking techniques

The pause

Have reason to pause

Possible value

Motivation

Possibility of a new idea will come

Use of the creative pause

Pause to think and wonder for a moment, not long just 20-30 second

Proactive

Investment in creativity and an investment in the building of creative skill

Simple focus

Focus on something that no one else has bothered to think about, example focus on shape of drink

Deliberate effort to pick out a new focus point

Specific focus

Everyday creativity, time to time

Specific focus, systematic task of lateral thinking

Type of focus

General area type focus

Only generate ideas within a defined areas

Example: I want some ideas in the area of running a resort hotel

Allow us to think creatively about anything at all

Purpose focus

Improvement, problem solving, task, opportunity, focus occasion, multiple focuses, alternative definitions, rephrasing the focus, underlying problem

Special about the creative challenge: 1. critical challenge is sets out to assess 2. creative challenge is a challenge to uniqueness

The next step: the alternative ways of doing things

Block - If we block the current path, road, or way then we are forced to find an alternative way

Escape - Escape from dominating idea

Drop it - Existing way that we do need to do at all, can be just dropped

Why and why again

Real reason of doing something

Continue analysis

The continue of neglect

The continuity of lock in

The continue of complaceny

The continuity of time sequence

Breaking free

Break from old concept

Technology change

Value change

Cost change

Concept challenge and idea challenge

The concept will be challenge

Challenge the shaping factor

Dominating concept, assumptions, boundaries, essential factor, avoidance factors

Most basic of all creative problem

Stopping looking for the alternative

Alternative is provided for example the menu in the restaurant is provided

Finding more alternative, look at the advertisement

The fixed point

purpose: idea + idea = fixed point

Groups - group of something

Resemblance

The way for specifying a group

Concept

Fixed the concept first, foxed first point: money, power, status, reignition, responsibility, sense, social position

Attach something above use alternative way such as ladder or having people lift up

Level concept of fan

Direction: the broadest concept will become the direction

Concepts: ways of doing something

Ideas: A specific idea

Ideas is working at home then the concept is reducing the need to travel then direction is reducing the traffic loads

Concepts are very like road junctions, look back to find another way forward

The nature of concepts- to be precise and definite

Types of concepts means "adjustable"/ "powerful"

Example: Concepts of ladder, away of getting to a higher place such as elevator, escalator, climbing boots

Purpose concepts for example, provide protection against rain

Value concepts, value of concept

Working with concepts, the continual movement

Provocation led to a change in the normal way of handling such a product. "Move" from the provocation to an idea or concept, get out from normal track

Provocation and analysis: Change our perfection. The provocation is unreasonable and away from usual direction. The analysis is reasonable and have certain reason.

Two-stage process: 1) Setting up of the provocation 2) Use provocation to move forward to a useful new idea

Movement is to move forward from a weak idea to a stranger one

General attitude

Systematic tehniques

Extract the principle

Focus the diference

Moment to moment

Positive aspects

Circumstances

Covers a very wide spectrum (change the accident or mistake)

Two main source for provocation

Provocation arise

Something never in attended as provocation

"Juxtaposition" to seek new idea and the techniques very powerful but seems totally illogical

Black sheet

Additional ideas

Blocked

A sense of something to put forward in order to see what happen

Example, you declare that you already to pick out people wearing red clothes. Then, the brain has been "sensitized" to red

Strata

Pick random word to use and put together

From strata can make conclusion/ idea

The filament technique

Deliberate manner, creative focus

Filament consisting something for that focus

Focusing on the creative part of creative thinking, making notes during the session or listening carefully to a tape/ checklist

Specific ideas

Seeding ideas

Direct concepts

Direction

New focus

Changer

Flavor

Treatment of ideas produced by creative thinking

Quick rejection of the ideas

Focus on difference

Strengthening ideas

The process of the strengthening the ideas only with the power or strong points of the idea

Tailoring ideas

Certain background consciousness of the resource available

Reinforcing idea

Focus on the weaknest of the idea

Evaluation

Evaluation will be feasibility, benefit, resource and fit

Systematic procedures

Time

Fixed time

Technique

Provocative technique

Output

"Harvest" this focus in a systematic way

Focus

Concept

Idea

Combining the individual and group creative thinking

Interrupted session

Define the focus and also develop some idea around it

Listening feedback from the individual

Discussing ideas put forward

Direct group use of the technique

Sandwich method

People become more tollerant of the idea of others

Motivated to develop the skill