- The Best Creativity Techniques
- Classical Brainstorming
- Synectics
- Morphological analysis
- Free Association – creative technique
- Analogy technique as a tool for creative problem solving
- Method of focal objects
- The Kipling method (5W1H)
- How to solve a problem – checklist by G. Polya
- Five Why – interrogative technique
- SCAMPER – Creative technique for ideation
- The Phoenix checklist – Creative Thinking Technique
- Lateral thinking technique – effective tool for creative problem solving
- Mind Mapping for creativity and innovation
- The Six Thinking Hats as a tool for creativity and innovation
- Wishful Thinking – creativity technique for breakthrough innovation
- Reversal (Inversion) as a creative problem solving technique
- TRIZ – method of enhancing creativity and generating breakthrough innovations
- 40 Inventive Principles in classical and modern TRIZ
- “What if?” – A powerful creativity and possibility thinking technique
- Lotus Blossom Technique
- Role Playing as a Creative Problem Solving Technique
- Freewriting – Subconscious creative technique
- C. Jung’s “16 Associations” Test as a Problem Solving Method
- Dream Journaling as a technique for finding creative solutions
- Metaphor technique for creative problem solving
- Design Thinking – New Way of Vision and Creative Problem-solving
- Proven Gamification Techniques to Boost Creativity & Problem-Solving
Polya’s checklist
Author: Hungarian mathematician George Polya (1887–1985), one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century.
History: In 1945 George Polya proposed the four-step approach to problem solving (Polya, G.,(1945), How to Solve it, Princeton University Press and Polya George (1957), How To Solve It, by 2nd ed., Princeton University Press.)
Polya’s checklist is most effective in solving educational mathematical and technical problems, however, it can be of help in successfully solving any life problem and is applicable for any domain, such as business, management and invention. It also can be used as a guide to thinking about problems and for researching them in general.
The four steps that are vital in solving a problem
Understanding The Problem
- You have to understand the problem.
- What is the unknown? What are the data? What is the condition?
- Is it possible to satisfy the condition? Is the condition sufficient to determine the unknown? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or contradictory?
- Draw a figure. Introduce suitable notation.
- Separate the various parts of the condition. Can you write them down?
Devising a Plan
- Find the connection between the data and the unknown. You may be obliged to consider auxiliary problems if an immediate connection cannot be found. You should obtain eventually a plan of the solution.
- Have you seen it before? Or have you seen the same problem in a slightly different form?
- Do you know a related problem? Do you know a theorem that could be useful?
- Look at the unknown! And try to think of a familiar problem having the same or a similar unknown.
- Here is a problem related to yours and solved before. Could you use it? Could you use its result? Could you use its method? Should you introduce some auxiliary element in order to make its use possible?
- Could you restate the problem? Could you restate it still differently? Go back to definitions.
- If you cannot solve the proposed problem try to solve first some related problem. Could you imagine a more accessible related problem? A more general problem? A more special problem? An analogous problem? Could you solve a part of the problem? Keep only a part of the condition, drop the other part; how far is the unknown then determined, how can it vary? Could you derive something useful from the data? Could you think of other data appropriate to determine the unknown? Could you change the unknown or data, or both if necessary, so that the new unknown and the new data are nearer to each other?
- Did you use all the data? Did you use the whole condition? Have you taken into account all essential notions involved in the problem?
Carrying Out The Plan
- Carry out your plan.
- Carrying out your plan of the solution, check each step. Can you see clearly that the step is correct? Can you prove that it is correct?
Looking Back
- Examine the solution obtained.
- Can you check the result? Can you check the argument?
- Can you derive the solution differently? Can you see it at a glance?
- Can you use the result, or the method, for some other problem?