Toolkit Category: Creativity

The purpose of the model is to encourage you to think about the future of your business and to recognise signals about that future in the present.

The tool takes you through a number of steps to generate images of your business in the present and the future.

Problem reversal focuses on solving an identified problem by turning it on its head and encouraging you to think about it differently.

The purpose of the technique is to free you from the constraints of verbal or written language by taking a problem or issue and mapping it visually using a series of abstract symbols.

The purpose of paired comparison analysis is to allow you to determine the relative importance of a number of options.

The purpose of the tool is to help you prioritise the various elements of a project through using the acronym MoSCoW.

The idea behind this problem-solving technique is to encourage you to step as far away from a particular problem as possible. Developed by William Gordon (of Arthur D Little Consulting) in the 1960s, it involves a process of progressively more detailed revelation, to avoid defining the problem too soon and limiting possible solutions.

This tool encourages you to sketch, doodle or draw and takes you through a number of steps to help you think about your business differently. Don’t worry if you can’t draw; the exercise is designed to open up your thinking, not create masterpieces!

Using a future perfect approach to planning helps to achieve a shared vision of the future. It is a form of time travel that encourages you to consider preferred futures and their potential impact on what you are doing now.

Attribute listing is a means of getting you to focus on as many attributes of a product or problem as possible. In breaking down the elements of a problem or object, you can look at each in turn and generate new ideas. The technique is particularly useful for considering complex products or processes in that it allows you to consider each feature or stage and look at the associated attributes in detail.

The reversal technique encourages you to alter an aspect of the problem or your assumptions about it. By turning your assumptions on their head and creating a mirror image view, you can generate new ways of approaching problems and issues. Your original assumptions are not necessarily wrong but in reversing them you can generate new approaches.

Free association is useful as a creative problem-solving method. It won’t give you a specific answer to your problem but it will help you explore different approaches to it. Association can help generate ideas to lead you to a solution you might not otherwise have considered.