In the previous programme, we asked you to brainstorm ideas for becoming really fit. When we ask people to do this, most of them find that they can create 10-20 ideas quite easily, but then they often get stuck. And, what’s worse is that if you were to compare your list of ideas with someone else’s, you would probably find lots of them were identical. So, how can we get beyond our creative blocks, and create more unusual ideas?
Well, that’s where the more advanced creativity tools come into play. Over the next four programmes, we will introduce you to some tools that will extend your brainstorming in lots of different directions, and help you create many many more ideas.
We are going to start with a tool called SCAMPER, but just before we begin, we need to remind you to apply the divergent guidelines, each time you use any of these tools. Just in case you have forgotten, the guidelines are:
- delay your judgment,
- look for wild and unusual ideas,
- come up with as many ideas as you can, and
- build on other people’s ideas.
SCAMPER is a very simple tool. In fact, it is really just a series of questions. But, don’t be fooled by its simplicity. Each question is designed to stretch your thinking in a different way, and when used correctly, the results can be quite remarkable. To use the tool, all you have to do is ask yourself the questions, and then write down all the ideas which come to mind. You might think of it as brainstorming with a bit of guidance.
There are seven questions that make up SCAMPER, and they are:
- What could I Substitute
- What could I Combine
- What could I Adapt
- What could I Maximise or Minimize
- What could I Put to other uses
- What could I Eliminate, and
- What could I Rearrange
Now, even though the questions are simple, applying them can be tricky. So, we are going to show you are few examples, using the Combine, Rearrange, and Eliminate questions, and applying them to our play problem.
We started by asking ourselves, “what could we combine, in our life, to make us fitter? One idea we had was to combine heavy weights with our cutlery, so that we could work out even as we eat. Another thought was to combine our shoes, so that we had to jump everywhere.
Moving on, we asked ourselves “what we could rearrange to make us fitter.” Some ideas we had were:
rearrange our appointments, so that we had to constantly run from one thing to the next, or perhaps we could rearrange our home so that every activity became an opportunity for exercise.
One final question. What could we eliminate from our life to help us get fitter? For example, we could eliminate all fences, which would mean that dogs would be free to chase us around, helping us to improve our running speed
As you can see, the process is very simple, but focusing your mind, using these questions, can really help you to explore areas that you may not have thought about. Remember not to judge the ideas as they come to you no matter how silly they might at first seem
What we would like you to do is to take some time and apply each of the SCAMPER questions to our play problem. The order of the questions doesn’t matter, so please start wherever you want. It is likely that some questions might stimulate more ideas than others. Don’t worry about this, but please don’t give up on a question too soon. Sometimes it takes a little while for the ideas to start flowing.
See you in the next programme.