25 Brainstorming Techniques To Find An Angle

25 Brainstorming Techniques That Can Foster
creativity!
1. Time Travel. How would you deal with this if you were in a different time
period? 10 years ago? 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago?
How about in the future? 10 years later? 100 years later? 1,000 years later?
10,000 years later?
2. Teleportation: What if you were facing this problem in a different place?
Different country? Different geographic region? Different universe? Different
plane of existence? How would you handle it?
3. Attribute change. How would you think about this if you were a different
gender? Age? Race? Intellect? Height? Weight? Nationality? Your Sanity? With
each attribute change, you become exposed to a new spectrum of thinking
you were subconsciously closed off from.
4. Rolestorming. What would you do if you were someone else? Your parent?
Your teacher? Your manager? Your partner? Your best friend? Your enemy?
Etc?
5. Iconic Figures. This is a spinoff of rolestorming. What if you were an iconic
figure of the past? Buddha? Jesus? Krishna? Albert Einstein? Thomas Edison?
Mother Theresa? Princess Diana? Winston Churchill? Adolf Hitler? How about
the present? Barack Obama? Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Steven
Spielberg? Etc? How would you think about your situation?
6. Superpowers.This is another spinoff of rolestorming. What if you suddenly
have superpowers? Superman? Spiderman? Wonderwoman? X-Men? The
Hulk? One of the Fantastic Four? What would you do?
7. Gap Filling. Identify your current spot Point A and your end goal Point
B. What is the gap that exists between A and B? What are all the things you
need to fill up this gap? List them down and find out what it takes to get them.
8. Group Ideation. Have a group brainstorming session! Get a group of people
and start ideating together. More brains are better than one! Let the creative
juices flow together!
9. Mind Map. Great tool to work out as many ideas as you can in hierarchical
tree and cluster format. Start off with your goal in the center, branch out into
the major sub-topics, continue to branch out into as many sub-sub-topics as
needed. Source Forge is a great open-source mindmapping software that I
use and highly recommend.
10. Medici Effect. Medici Effect refers to how ideas in seemingly unrelated
topics/fields intersect. Put your goal alongside similar goals in different
areas/contexts and identify parallel themes/solutions. For example, if your
goal is to be an award winning artist, look at award winning musicians,
educators, game developers, computer makers, businessmen, etc. Are there
any commonalities that lie among all of them that you can apply to your
situation? What worked for each of them that you can adopt?
11. SWOT Analysis. Do a SWOT of your situation What are the Strengths?
Weaknesses? Opportunities? Threats? The analysis will open you up to ideas
you may not be aware before.
12. Brain Writing. Get a group of people and have them write their ideas on their
own sheet of paper. After 10 minutes, rotate the sheets to different people
and build off what the others wrote on their paper. Continue until everyone
has written on everyone elses sheet.
13. Trigger Method. Brainstorm on as many ideas as possible. Then select the
best ones and brainstorm on those ideas as triggers for more ideas. Repeat
until you find the best solution.
14. Variable Brainstorming. First, identify the variable in the end outcome you
look to achieve. For example, if your goal is to achieve X visitors to your
website, the variable is # of visitors. Second, list down all the possibilities for
that variable. Different variations of visitors are
gender/age/race/nationality/occupation/interests/etc. Think about the
question with each different variable. For example, for Genre: How can you
get more females to your website? How can you get more males to your
website? For age: How can you get more teenagers to your website? How can
you get more adults to your website? And so on.
15. Niche. This is the next level of variable brainstorming method. From the
variations of the variable you have listed, mix and match them in different
ways and brainstorm against those niches. For example, using the example in
#14, how can you get more male teenagers to your website? (Gender & Age)
How can you get more American female adults to your website? (Nationality,
Gender & Age)
16. Challenger. List down all the assumptions in your situation and challenge
them. For example, your goal is to brainstorm on a list of ideas for your
romance novel which you want to get published. There are several
assumptions you are operating in here. #1: Genre to write: Romance. Why
must it be that romance? Can it be a different genre? Another assumption is
for a novel. #2: Length of the story: Novel. Why must it be a novel? Can it be a
short story? A series of books? #3: Medium: Book. Why must be it a book?
Can it be an ebook? Mp3? Video? And so on.
17. Escape Thinking. This is a variation of Challenger method. Look at the
assumptions behind the goal you are trying to achieve, then flip that
assumption around and look at your goal from that new angle. For example,
you want to earn more income from selling books. Your assumption may be
People buy books for themselves. Flip the assumption around such that
People do NOT buy books for reading. What will this lead to? You may end
up with people buy books as gifts, for collection purposes, etc. Another
assumption may be People read books. The flip side of this assumption may
be people look at books (drawings). Escaping from these assumptions will

bring you to a different realm of thought on how to achieve your goal.
18. Reverse Thinking. Think about what everyone will typically do in your
situation. Then do the opposite.
19. Counteraction Busting. What counteracting forces are you facing in your
scenario? For example, if you want to increase traffic to your website, two
counteracting forces may be the number of ads you put and the pageviews of
your site. The more ads you put, the more users will likely be annoyed and
surf away. What can you do such that the counteraction no longer exists or
the counteraction is no longer an issue? Some solutions may be 1) Get ads
that are closely related to the theme of your site 2) Get contextual ads that
are part of your content rather than separate, and so on.
20. Resource Availability. What if money, time, people, supplies are not issues at
all? What if you can ask for whatever you want and have it happen? What will
you do?
21. Drivers Analysis. What are the forces that help drive you forward in your
situation? What are the forces that are acting against you? Think about how
you can magnify the former and reduce/eliminate the latter.
22. Exaggeration. Exaggerate your goal and see how you will deal with it now.
Enlarge it: What if it is 10 times its current size? 100 times? 1000 times? Shrink
it: What if it is 1/10 its current size? 1/100? 1/1000? Multiply it: What if you
have 10 of these goals now? 100? 1000?
23. Get Random Input. Get a random stimuli and try to see how you can fit it
into your situation. Get a random word/image from a
dictionary/webpage/book/magazine/newspaper/TV/etc, a random object
from your room/house/workplace/neighborhood/etc and so on.
24. Meditation. Focus on your key question such as How can I solve XX
problem? or How can I achieve XX goal? and meditate on it in a quiet place.
Have a pen and paper in front of you so you can write immediately whatever
comes to mind. Do this for 30 minutes or as long as it takes.
25. Write a list of 101 ideas. Open your word processor and write a laundry list
of at least 101 ideas to deal with your situation. Go wild and write whatever
you can think of without restricting yourself. Do not stop until you have at
least 101.

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25 Brainstorming Techniques That Can Foster

be people look at books (drawings). Escaping from these assumptions will

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