Lateral Thinking

by Edward de Bono

  It is the chairman’s duty to state the problem at the beginning of the session and to repeat this statement frequently in the course of the session. If it should prove to have been stated badly then he — or anyone else in the group — can suggest a better way of stating it. A suitable statement of the problem mentioned above would be: ‘Methods of improving traffic flow given the present arrangement of roads.’

  Examples

  Transcript 1

  The following is a transcription of part of a brainstorming session that was considering the redesign of a teaspoon.

  … A rubber spoon.

  … I feel that the secondary function of a spoon which is that of transferring sugar from the basin to the cup has largely disappeared and that a teaspoon in the shape of an egg whisk would be much more efficient.

  … (Put down egg whisk.)

  … And make it electrically driven.

  … Incorporate a musical box for the aesthetic function.

  … Have something like a pipette tube which you dip in the sugar with your finger over the top and transfer sugar in that way. Then the sugar would be provided with a dispersing agent so that you would entirely lose the pleasure of stirring.

  … Going back to the egg whisk I think one ought to have a sort of screw thing, rather like an electrical swizzle stick. The axle would be hollow…

  … (Can I interrupt here? You are beginning to tell us how you would make it and that is not the function of tins session.)

  … No, I am just describing what it looks like.

  … (Could you describe it more simply?)

  … A rotating spoon?

  … No, if s got a screw. You know, a propeller type screw.

  … You push it up and down?

  … No, if s electric, you just press the button on the top.

  … It seems to me this is too complicated. Now you have ordinary sugar tongs and each individual would have his own sugar tongs and would pick up a couple of lumps of sugar. The tongs have two ends and you could create turbulence just as easily as with a spoon.

  … Doesn’t this restrict you to lump sugar?

  … Yes, small lumps. But you can still get the quantity of sugar you want.

  … (What shall we put down there?)

  … Tongs.

  … What about something like those ashtrays which spin as you press them. We could have something that you placed over a cup and as you pressed it it opened out to release some sugar and at the same time spun to stir the sugar in.

  … If there is so much fun stirring in sugar then perhaps we ought to have some sort of inert sugar which people who don’t like sugar could use in order to enjoy stirring in.

  … A once off spoon made of sugar.

  … A device which contains sugar and which is moved up and down in the cup. But if you don’t want sugar you keep a gate closed.

  … I would like to take up the idea of electricity but not using a battery or anything like that but using the static electricity present in the body.

  … This idea of a screw. One could do it on the autogiro principle. As the screw went up and down the fluid would make it revolve.

  … Like a spinning top.

  … A vibrating table that would agitate everything on it — whether you had sugar or not.

  … What about a sugar impregnated stick.

  Transcript 2

  The session was attempting to discover a better design for the windscreen wiper/washer function. Something to prevent impairment of vision by an accumulation of mud and/or water.

  … A conventional windscreen wiper with water or some other washing agent coming in through the arms of the wiper itself instead of being sprayed onto the screen from another point.

  … A rotating centrifugal disc…

  … Like on a ship?

  … Yes.

  … How about doing away with the screen and just having a very fast flow of air through which no particles of dust or water could penetrate?

  … A wiper that would move straight across the screen from side to side or from top to bottom, the rate to be controlled by the driver.

  … Have a liquid which makes the dirt transparent so you don’t have to take it off.

  … A screen that acts as a shutter and wipes itself clean as it revolves.

  … An electrically heated screen that boils off the water.

  … Radar control of the car itself.

  … A high speed screen that ejected some liquid as it went up and wiped it off as it came down.

  … Ultrasonics.

  … Make mudflaps compulsory on all vehicles.

  … Develop two types of magnet, one of which attracts water and the other attracts dirt and locate them on the bottom.

  … Channel water off the roof of the cab and so make wipers less necessary.

  … Have a liquid windscreen.

  … How about a surface which is perpetually in motion?

  … Vibration.

  … Have a circular car with a windscreen that passes round it and through a washer on the way round.

  … Windscreen wiper with jets in the wiper.

  … (I think we have that down already as jets in the wiper arm itself.)

  … Experiment with rotating sponges and brushes and things other than the conventional sweeper.

  … Sheet of water flowing down the windscreen and get rid of the wipers altogether.

  …(So far we have been trying to get rid of the wiper. Suppose we did not want to get rid of the wiper but just to improve it. Is there any way we could do things hydraulically?)

  … A very high pressure jet of water that would dislodge the dirt and also provide volume for washing it away.

  … Experiment with partial windscreen so that you don’t actually look through glass, you look through a gap.

  …3, 6 or 8 or any number of wipers operating along the bottom or along the top and sides of the screen.

  … Have two fairly conventional windscreens that go up and down alternately and pass through wipers as they go up and down.

  … Have a rotating screen, part of which went underneath where it was cleaned so you always had a fresh piece.

  … Have a choice of washer tanks so you could vary the liquid according to the conditions — for instance using something special to wash off oil.

  … A periscope that you could see above the dirt.

  … Have a Venetian blind principle.

  … Have a double thickness of glass with water in between. The front sheet would have small holes through which the water was constantly trickling.

  … Some screen that would intercept most of the dirt before it reached the windscreen proper.

  … Change the driving position. Turn around and drive from the back.

  … Drive in tunnels.

  … Television arrangement so that the driver does not have to actually look out.

  … An ordinary wiper with a variable speed which is automatically adjusted according to the speed of the car or the amount of light getting through the windscreen or something like that.

  … Have a multi-layer windscreen in which you just peel off the outer dirty layer.

  … Have a soluble surface windscreen so that the water is constantly dissolving it and so keeping it clean.

  … Have windscreen made of ice which is constantly melting and so keeping itself dean.

  … You could just put a layer of the soluble stuff on before you went out.

  Comment

  The remarks within brackets were made by the chairman. No attempt is made to distinguish the remarks of the other participants. The nature of the suggestions varies from the outright ridiculous to the solid and sensible. It may also be seen how one idea springs from another. There is very little attempt at evaluation. Almost every remark contributes a new idea.

  Practice

  The classroom is divided up into groups of a suitable size for a brainstorming session. Each group elects its own chairman. If there is any difficulty about this th
en the teacher makes a suggestion. The notetaker is also selected in each group. It may be useful to have an auxiliary notetaker who can relieve the first one halfway through the session.

  The general principles of the brainstorming session are explained with emphasis on the following points:

  1. No criticism or evaluation.

  2. Say anything you like no matter how wrong or ridiculous.

  3. Do not try and develop ideas at length or make speeches, a few words are enough.

  4. Give the notetaker a chance to get things down.

  5. Listen to the chairman.

  A warm up problem is then given to each group and they have a ten minute warm up session. At the end of this session they go straight into the main session for thirty minutes.

  The teacher may sit in on the groups in turn. It is better not to be too intrusive. Few comments are made at the time but mental notes are kept for discussion afterwards. The only thing which justifies an intervention is any tendency to evaluate or criticize.

  At the end of the sessions the groups come together again. In turn the notetakers from each group read out the list of ideas. The teacher may then comment as follows:

  1. Comments on the actual session stressing perhaps the tendency to evaluate or the tendency to be too timid.

  2. Comments on the lists of ideas. These could point out the similarity of some of the ideas, the originality of others.

  3. Comments on the tone of the ideas. Some of the suggestions may have been quite sensible others quite ridiculous. If the suggestions do tend to be too solemn the teacher might point out that at least some of the suggestions during the sessions should be outrageous enough to cause a laugh.

  4. The teacher then adds some ideas and suggestions of his own concerning the problems that have been discussed.

  In going through the lists of suggestions the teacher may pick out some of the more outrageous ideas and proceed to show how they can be useful. This is done by extracting the functional principle of the idea and developing it further.

  The general impression that should be encouraged is that the brainstorming session is a generative situation in which one should not be too selfconscious. In practice there is a tendency for some students to show off and try to be deliberately humorous if they know that their suggestions are to be read out to the assembled class. One has to deal with that situation as best one can without denying people the right to be outrageous. One way is to ask the person to explain the idea further.

  Suggested problems for use in brainstorming sessions might include:

  The design of money.

  The lack of sufficient playgrounds.

  The need for examinations.

  Mining under the sea.

  Providing enough television programmes for everyone to see what they want to see.

  Making the desert fertile.

  Heating a house.

  In each case what is being asked for is a way of doing it, a better way of doing it, a new way of doing it These are merely suggestions and the teacher ought to be able to generate further problems.

  Evaluation

  Evaluation sessions should not be held on the same day as the brainstorming sessions. The evaluation sessions are best done in front of the whole class and each idea is considered in turn for its direct or indirect usefulness.

  One can have different categories into which each idea is placed.

  These might be:

  Directly useful.

  Interesting approach.

  For further examination.

  Discard.

  An alternative to this general evaluation is to write the brainstorm lists on the blackboard a few items at a time and get each student to evaluate the items with votes. At the end the different evaluations can be compared by seeing how many ‘votes’ each item gets.

  In this context the evaluation session is a necessary part of the brainstorm session but not an important part. Evaluations tend to be critical analysis and vertical thinking. Emphasis should be directed much more to the brainstorm session itself than to the subsequent evaluation.

  It is important in any attempt at evaluation not to give the impression that the outrageous ideas were only of use in the brain-storming session but not of much practical use anywhere else. Such an impression would limit suggestions to the practical and the solemnly sensible which though worthwhile in themselves would never lead to new ideas. One of the most important functions of the evaluation session is to show that even the most outrageous suggestions can lead to useful ideas.

  Summary

  The brainstorming session is of value as a formal setting which encourages the use of lateral thinking. The brainstorming session has a value as a group activity in which there is a cross stimulation of ideas. Otherwise there is nothing special to a brainstorming session that could not be done outside it. Some people equate creative thinking with brainstorming. This is to equate a basic process with one relatively minor setting which encourages the use of that process. Perhaps the most important part of the brainstorming session is its formality. When one is first getting used to the idea of lateral thinking it is helpful to have some special setting in which to practise it. Later on there is less need for such a setting.

  Analogies 16

  In order to restructure a pattern, to look at a situation in a different way, to have new ideas, one must start having some ideas. The two problems of lateral thinking are:

  To get going, to get some movement, to start a train of thought.

  To escape the natural, obvious, cliché train of thought.

  The various techniques described so far have all been concerned with generating some movement. So is the analogy technique.

  In itself an analogy is a simple story or situation. It becomes an analogy only when it is compared to something else. The simple story or situation must be familiar. Its line of development must be familiar. There must be something happening or some process going on or some special type of relationship to observe. There must be some development either in the situation itself or at least in the way it is looked at Boiling an egg is a simple operation, but there is development in it The egg is placed in a special container and heated. In order to bring the heat into better contact with the egg a liquid is used. This liquid also serves to prevent the temperature from rising above a certain value. In the process the egg changes its nature. This change is a progressive one that is proportional to the amount of time the egg remains in this special situation. Different people have sharply different tastes about how far they want the process to go.

  The important point about an analogy is that it has a ‘life’ of its own. This ‘life’ can be expressed directly in terms of the actual objects involved or it can be expressed hi terms of the processes involved. One can talk of putting an egg into water in a saucepan and boiling it for four minutes until the white is hard but the yolk still quite runny. Or one can talk of the changing state of an object with time when that object is subjected to certain circumstances. Analogies are vehicles for relationships and processes. These relationships and processes are embodied in actual objects such as boiled eggs but the relationship and processes can be generalized to other situations.

  The analogy does not have to be complicated or long. A simple activity may suffice. Butterfly collecting is a special hobby yet the processes involved can be generalized to many other situations (e.g. rarity, supply and demand; information and search procedures; beauty and rarity; interference with nature for one’s own uses; classification).

  Analogies are used to provide movement The problem under consideration is related to the analogy and then the analogy is developed along its own lines of development. At each stage the development is transferred back to the original problem. Thus the problem is carried along with the analogy. In mathematics one translates things into symbols and then deals with these symbols by means of various mathematical operations. One forgets all about the real meaning of the symbols. At the end the symbols are transla
ted back and one finds out what has become of the original situation. The mathematical operation is a channel which directs the development of the original problem.

  Analogies can be used in the same way. One can translate the problem into an analogy and then develop the analogy. At the end one translates back and sees what might have happened to the original problem. It is probably more useful to develop the two in parallel What is happening in the analogy is transferred (as a process or relationship) to the actual problem.

  For instance one might use the analogy of a snowball rolling down a hill to investigate the spread of rumours. As the snowball rolls down the hill the farther it goes the bigger it gets. (The more a rumour spreads the stronger it gets.) As the snowball gets bigger it picks up more and more new snow. (The more people who know the rumour the more people it gets passed onto.) But for the snowball to increase in size there most be snow. At tills point one is not sure whether the size of the snowball is being compared to the number of people who know the rumour or the strength of the rumour. Does the snow on the ground correspond merely to people who can be influenced by the rumour or to people predisposed to believe this sort of rumour? One is already being forced by the analogy to look hard at the problem itself. A large snowball — perhaps an avalanche — can be very destructive but if one is forewarned one can get out of the way. (A rumour can also be destructive but can one get out of the way if forewarned, should one try to escape, to stop it, or to divert it?)

  Using an analogy in this way is very different from arguing by analogy. In argument by analogy one supposes that because something happens in a certain way in the analogy then it must happen in the same way in the problem situation. The use of analogies in lateral thinking is completely different. As usual one is not trying to prove anything. Analogies are used as a method for generating further ideas.