Squiggly Skill Sprint Day 15: Creativity

It’s day 15 & week 3 of the Squiggly Careers sprint, and today’s topic is Creativity https://www.amazingif.com/listen/skills-sprint-creativity/

Two things jumped out to me today from the podcast today. The first was the mention of tools and techniques, which is a really good way to progress your creativity. Helen and Sarah discussed the 8 in 8 technique, and mentioned that as a forcing function for creativity. Anything that pushes your mind down a certain path and makes you look at things in a certain way can help you to come up with great ideas.

As some examples, I’m a fan of the six hats technique for running brainstorms. This is especially useful when you have people in the team that are used to falling into their natural roles, and being able to tell them that now they have to be in a certain mindset is a really good way to constrain them.

I’m also a fan of the TRIZ technique, which is lesser known outside of engineering. This comes from the idea that any two parameters are linked as if on a see-saw. If one goes up, the other goes down. For example the safety of a car is based on weight, but this negatively affects performance. The trick to any great innovation is to find those see-saws, and figure out how to change one side without affecting the other.

The other thing that jumped out at me today was the idea of borrowing brilliance, something that these podcasts often talk about. You never know when a piece of information will come in useful, so taking any opportunity to learn something new can only be a good thing. Often you will be learning that from someone new, and you will both get a lot out of it. Even if you have a lot on in work, you can flex some different mental muscles when you learn about something else.