A CHECKLIST FOR NEW IDEAS

To recap, with personal comments from Say Keng within the brackets:

- Define your problem (conceptualising your problem statement is a vital starting point!);

- Define & visualise the ideal solution (assuming you have unlimited power, resources, including money, & time to deal with the problem, beyond the given constraints);

- Gather the facts: specific & general (another vital function; recommend using the Journalist's Questions for a start!);

- Break the pattern (especially of current thinking, so as to see & explore other possibly hidden relationships - or reveal your own blindspots - to the problem);

- Go outside your own field (to explore how others, especially in unrelated spheres of activity, may have solved similar problems, or to draw useful analogies from other outside or disparate disciplines to solve your current problems);

- Try new combinations (to see what may come out of the new relationship, or mix & match to create new perspectives; after all, creativity is combining & recombining what already exists - just think of the 'Medici Effect'! &/or 'Innovation on the Verge');

- Use all your senses (not only your physical senses, but also your metaphysical senses, like intuition or gut feelings; remember, a pair of sharp "ears" can detect what's not said, & a keen "nose" can smell opportunities!);

- Switch off – let it simmer (incubate) (by indulging yourself in some mundane tasks, like day-dreaming, commuting, doing domestic chores, sitting in a park, loafing in a shopping mall, or just reading a book under a tree, etc., so as to allow raw ideas to gell or percolate in the mind on their own for a while);

- Use music or nature to relax (as we know, music, especially Baroque, Classical & New Age, soothes the mind, while nature is our most inspiring teacher! Japan's inventor extraordinaire Dr Nakamats often listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as well as Jazz to spur his mind!);

- Sleep on it (while allowing the powerful unconscious mind to take over the final processing work - experts call it 'dreamwork'!); Do you remember the story of Friedrich Kekule & the Benzene Ring?;

- Eureka! It pops out! (it's the AhA experience, which is often beyond words to describe! According to creativity guru Edward de bono, we can make this act of illumination as a deliberate initiative through 'provocation' - I will probably talk about it in a separate post);

- Recheck it; Evaluate (it's time to test & verify! Sometimes, we may need a small prototype or pilot project to simulate!);

[Excerpted from 'Catalysing Creativity' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]