Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

by Michael Michalko

Thinkertoys provide concrete techniques to help you become an active thinker. Thinkertoys reflect linear and intuitive thinking, both of whic...

We have two eyes, two ears, two hands, and two minds. Our left brain thinks in terms of words and symbols while our right brain thinks in terms of images. Linear Thinkertoys are for the left brain, intuitive Thinkertoys for the right brain.

If you pick just one, you might choose a perfectly adequate technique for getting ideas, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. In school, when you add a column of numbers, you get a sum. If you have the right answer, you move on to the next problem. Many people carry that idiom over into creative thinking. As soon as they have an answer, they stop thinking. They are satisfied with the first answer that comes along. Reality, though, is different from arithmetic. Some answers are better than others: They cost less, afford more status, are made better, easier to use, more aesthetic, are easier to install, or whatever. There is no reason for supposing that the first answer is the best one.

The second reason for using a variety of different techniques is to cultivate a creative attitude. A good actor plays many different parts, and plays each to the fullest, depending on which mask he is wearing. A good actor will take pride in being versatile, in being able to play many different types in comedies and tragedies. The more parts he plays, the more accomplished he becomes. The varied experiences give depth to the actor’s performance.

In the same way, you need to take pride in your skill as a creative thinker. The ability to use all the techniques and to carry through the thinking that goes along with them will give depth to your creativity. Once you have experienced all the Thinkertoys, you can call up any one of them to help you with a particular problem. Some of these toys are like the reverse gear on a car. It’s there, but you rarely use it—you seldom see people driving their cars down the road in reverse. On the other hand, one needs to have it and know how to use it for maneuverability whenever you’re stuck and can’t move forward. The key is to use the Thinkertoys. Merely reading and not using them is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

Work with one particular Thinkertoy at a time. Use it over and over again until you are thoroughly familiar with the technique. Spend several hours or even several days.

Select one linear and one intuitive Thinkertoy to take advantage of both sides of your brain. The left one handles logic and language while the right side excels at nonverbal tasks. Research into the thought processes of highly creative people reveals that they utilize both sides of their brains.

Select Thinkertoy at random. Write the Thinkertoy titles on slips of paper and put them in a container. When you have a challenge, shake the box and ran...

Thinkertoys produce an enormous quantity of ideas, and quantity is a key to creativity. Alex Osborn, a pioneer of creativity research, said: “Quantity! Quantity! And more Quantity! Is the order of the day.” And he added, “The more sights you take, the more likely you are to hit port.” The writer Stendahl said, “...

You can’t try all your ideas either, so you’ll need guidelines to help sort through and judge them.

Inventory all the ideas in the sequence in which they occurred.

Browse through the list. As you do, you will find that you are subconsciously prioritizing the ideas. If you have difficulty prioritizing, try the technique desc...

Develop criteria for judging the ideas. They should be ideal criteria, regardless of how impossible they might seem to fulfill. These criteria, of course, depend upon the specific challenge and will vary according to your objectives. The criteria to judge a new sales promotion will differ from those used to judge a shoe design. A bonus program will not be evaluated the same way a negotiations program will. And so on. Some key questions to ask when developing criteria are: • What standards might be applied to these ideas? • How might we determine the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas? • Which cr...

Use judgment and intuition to choose the best ideas. Using your criteria, you should be able to funnel the huge quantity of ideas into a select few. Do not allow yourself to be wholly analytical. Your intuition may tell you when an idea that does not meet your criteria is, nevertheless, so powerful that it is the one to adopt. Use a simple classification scheme to label ideas: excellent likely—needs refinement possible chance—needs improvement 50/50—could go either way long shot—remote You may never choose to back a long shot or a 50/50 idea; however,...

Take your best ideas and get feedback. Use the techniques descri...

Technique: Reversal. Profile: How to find ideas by reversing conventional assumptions.

Technique: Attribute listing. Profile: How to get new ideas from a challenge’s attributes.

Technique: Fractionation. Profile: How to get ideas by dividing a challenge into two or more components and then reassembling them in new and different ways.

Technique: Mind mapping. Profile: How to map your thoughts so as to spark new ideas.

Technique: Questions. Profile: How to manipulate what exists into something different.

Obviously, many things have to be taken for granted, and the purpose is not to pretend that one has the time to challenge every assumption, but instead to show nothing is sacrosanct. Once you truly realize this, you are open to all sorts of discoveries. Imagine diving into a lake that everyone assumes is freezing and discovering balmy, warm water. Until you jump, you will never know for sure.

BLUEPRINT To reverse a challenge: State your challenge. List your assumptions. Challenge your fundamental assumptions. Reverse each assumption. Write down the opposite of each one. Record differing viewpoints that might prove useful to you. Ask yourself how to accomplish each reversal. List as many useful viewpoints and ideas as you can.

Reversing your assumptions broadens your thinking. You may often find yourself looking at the same thing as everybody else, yet seeing something different. Many creative thinkers get their most original ideas when they challenge and reverse the obvious.

Suppose you want to start a new restaurant and are having difficulty coming up with ideas. To initiate ideas, try the following reversals: List all your assumptions about your subject. Example: Some common assumptions about restaurants are: Restaurants have menus, either written, verbal, or implied. Restaurants charge money for food. Restaurants serve food. Reverse each assumption. What is its opposite? Example: The reverse assumptions would be: Restaurants have no menus of any kind. Restaurants give food away for free. Restaurants do not serve food of any kind.

All games require competition. Reverse this to come up with a game that requires cooperation.

Don’t be a monkey. Challenge all assumptions.

Every problem is a house with many rooms. To stimulate new ideas, identify and list the various attributes of a problem and work on one attribute at a time.

People define attributes differently. When listing the attributes of a problem, think of them simply as its components, and make a general list without worrying about how correct it is. Trusting yourself will make your solutions unique and may produce an idea that will shake you down to your kneecaps.

Some common ways to describe attributes are descriptive, process, function, social, price, and ecological. Common descriptive attributes are: substance, structure, color, shape, texture, sound, taste, odor, space, and density. Common process attributes are: marketing, manufacturing, selling, function, and time. Common social attributes are: responsibilities, politics, and taboos. Common price attributes are: cost to manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, and consumer. Common ecological attributes are: positive or negative impact on the environment.

We usually describe an object by listing its functions. The way we use something is not inherent in the object itself—it grows out of experience and observation.

To discover new applications and ideas, you need flexibility of thought.

The more you are able to focus on a specific attribute, the more likely you are to think flexibly and discover alternative ideas.

BLUEPRINT State your challenge. Analyze the challenge and list as many attributes as you can. Take each attribute, one at a time, and try to think of ways to change or improve it. Ask “How else can this be accomplished?” and “Why does this have to be this way?” Strive to make your thinking both fluent and flexible.

Even trivial attributes sometimes provide the clue to a solution. Everything has meaning, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Even tiny pine needles have a clean fresh smell. Tiny improvements in a thousand places can lead to an innovation in almost any product or service. When you pay attention to attributes and improve them one by one you build a wave of ideas, drop by drop.

Sometimes ideas are just new information grafted onto an attribute and spliced with another thought.

State the essence of your challenge in two words. For instance, if your challenge is “In what ways might I improve my sales of Canon copiers?”, the two-word phrase that captures the essence of your challenge is: “Selling copiers.” In the example that follows, the challenge is “In what ways might we improve the methodology of picking cherries?”; the two-word phrase is “Cherry picking.”

Split the challenge into two separate units. In the diagram, note how “cherry” and “picking” are handled.

Split each attribute into two more attributes. For instance, “cherry” is split into “delicate” and “separate,” “picking” is split into “remove” and “transport.” Do not worry about the correctness of the split; no two people will split attributes in the same way. One person will look down a street and see an indescribable beauty in the shadows, the light, the brick walls, the dark porches, and the grayed snowbanks. Another ...

Continue splitting the attributes until you feel that you have enough to work with. In the cherry example, I split “delicate” into “damaged” and “blemished,” “separate” into “selecting” and “closeness to each other,” “remove” into “touch and...

Examine each attribute for ideas. The wonder of this method is that big ideas can dwell in the most insignificant attribute just as the flavor of an entire ocean is contained in one drop.

C.G. Jung was famous for a similar aphorism regarding trees and their seeds in Man and his Symbols.

Try reassembling the attributes. New combinations can induce new perspectives and new ideas. Splitting a challenge into several attributes is like removing a dividing panel from between chambers of very hot and very cold air: New forces rush together, creating new ideas.

Picking by lift would help to minimize the number of times fruit is handled, thus reducing damage. The separated attributes encourage rearranging of information, provoking you to search out new ways of doing things. It does not matter how many of the attributes you use or how you link them when you generate ideas. It’s just a way to add a few more ball bearings to your imagination.

To use Cherry Split as a group exercise, present a challenge to a group and ask them to split it into as many attributes as possible. List the attributes as they are suggested, and keep going as long as anyone has ideas for further splitting. It doesn’t matter if some of the suggestions overlap, but do ask anyone who volunteers a seemingly similar attribute to explain how it’s different. If they believe it offers something new, go ahead and list it. Ask each member of the group to reassemble the attributes into a new way of looking at the challenge. Start with one person’s idea and ask the rest of the group to build on it, until you’ve exhausted all possibilities. Then go on to the next person and repeat the process again and again, until you’re satisfied that you have drawn out as many creative ideas as possible.

Cherry Split enables you to break apart a challenge into separate pieces. When you do this, you begin to see new material that had once been part of something else. When you first try to fit the pieces back together, you will be like a child fitting together his first model fort—awkward and slow, but when a piece slips into a proper slot, ideas begin to jump and take shape like coveys of startled birds into the air.

When you look at the ceiling in an auditorium, you might say that the lights are on, or you might say that the light is on. In the first case, you are placing emphasis on the individual bulbs, in the second you are emphasizing their output. The important thing is not the emphasis but the process, the light.

Think Bubbles is a graphic technique for organizing your thoughts. It creates an actual, physical picture of the way your mind blueprints a challenge. Think Bubbles allows you to record, store, and manipulate information about a challenge in a variety of ways, as well as letting you see relationships between different parts of the problem.

This is what happens when you take your separate thoughts and organize them on paper by mapping them—the thoughts are immediately given a new identity. This new identity can be evaluated, developed, and resolved if resolution proves possible: altered or discarded if it does not. Once you project your blurred mental images onto paper, the process of idea evolution can really begin.

Although maps can and should be highly individualized, all mind maps share five basic characteristics:

Organization. Mapping presents information organized in the way you think it. It displays the way your mind works, complete with patterns and interrelationships, and has an amazing capacity to convey precise information, no matter how crudely drawn.

Key words. Ignore all irrelevant words and phrases and concentrate only on expressing the essentials, and what associations these “essences” excite in your mind.