Creative Thinkering

Resurrecting your natural creativity through inspiring techniques and practical examples.

by Michael Michalko

A Technique Guaranteed to Generate Ideas Easily and Effortlessly

A creative thinking technique that generates ideas almost involuntarily.

Published on February 13, 2012 by Michael Michalko in Creative Thinkering

SCAMPER is a checklist of nine creative-thinking principles based on the notion that everything new is some addition or modification of something that already exists. You take a subject and change it into something else. (E.g., drilled petroleum becomes chemical feedstock becomes synthetic rubber becomes automobile tires. Natural gas becomes polyethylene becomes milk jugs. Mined ore becomes metal becomes wire becomes parts of a motor.)

SCAMPER. Elaborate on your ideas by applying a checklist of nine creative-thinking principles that were first formally suggested by Alex Osborn and later arranged by Bob Eberle into the following mnemonic.

S = Substitute?

C = Combine?

A = Adapt?

M = Magnify? = Modify?

P = Put to other uses?

E = Eliminate?

R = Rearrange? = Reverse?

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You isolate the subject you want to think about and ask a checklist of questions to see what new ideas and thoughts emerge. Think about any subject from improving the way you present your ideas at meetings to reorganizing your corporation and apply the "Scamper" checklist of questions. You'll find that ideas start popping up almost involuntarily.

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THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Imagine you are a metal paper clip manufacturer and want to improve the metal clip. What ideas can you create by asking the following SCAMPER questions:

Can you substitute something?

Can you combine it with something else?

Can you adapt something to your subject?

Can you magnify or add to it?

Can you modify or change it in some fashion?

Can you put it to some other use?

Can you eliminate something from it?

Can you rearrange it?

What happens when you reverse it?

One example is to substitute plastic for metal, add color and produce plastic clips in various colors so that clipped papers could be color-coded, thereby creating another use for clips.

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SUBSTITUTE SOMETHING? The principle of substitution is a sound way to develop alternative ideas to anything that exists. Think up ways of changing this for that and that for this. The scientist, Paul Ehrlich, kept substituting one color for another---well over 500 colors---until he found the right dye to color the veins of laboratory mice. You can substitute things, places, procedures, people, ideas, and even emotions. Ask:

Can you substitute something? Who else? What else?

Can the rules be changed?

Other ingredient? Other material? Other power? Other place? Other approach?

What else instead? What other part instead of this?

COMBINE IT WITH SOMETHING ELSE? Much of creative thinking involves combining previously unrelated ideas or subjects to make something new. This process is called synthesis, and is regarded by many experts as the essence of creativity. Gregor Mendel created a whole new scientific discipline, genetics, by combining mathematics with biology. Ask:

What can be combined?

Can we combine purposes?

How about an assortment? A blend? An alloy? An ensemble?

Combine units? Combine materials? What other article could be merged with this?

How could we package a combination?

What can be combined to multiply possible uses?

Combine appeals?

ADAPT SOMETHING TO IT? One of the paradoxes of creativity is that in order to think originally, we must first familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others. Thomas Edison put it this way: "Make it a habit to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are working on." Ask:

What else is like this? What other ideas does it suggest?

Does the past offer a parallel?

What could I copy? Whom could I emulate?

What idea could I incorporate?

What other process could be adapted? What else could be adapted?

What different contexts can I put my concept in?

What ideas outside my field can I incorporate?

MAGNIFY IT? An easy way to create a new idea is to take a subject and add something to it. Japanese engineer Yuma Shiraishi made the home VCR possible by figuring out how to lengthen videotapes so they would be long enough for feature-length movies. Ask:

What can be magnified, made larger, or extended?

What can be exaggerated? Overstated?

What can be added? More time? Stronger? Higher? Longer?

How about greater frequency? Extra features? What can be duplicated?

What can add extra value?

How can I carry it to a dramatic extreme?

MODIFY IT? What can be modified? Just about any aspect of anything. The hub-and-spoke transportation system that makes Federal Express work was a feature of at least three air freight services as early as 1930. What Fred Smith did was to modify the dimensions, process and purposes of the system and turned an old idea into an elegant concept. Ask:

How can this be altered for the better? What can be modified?

Is there a new twist?

Change meaning, color, motion, sound, odor, form, shape? Change name?

What changes can be made in the plans? In the process? In marketing? Other changes?

What other form could this take? What other package? Can the package be combined with the form?

PUT IT TO SOME OTHER USE? A subject t

akes its meaning from the context in which you put it. Change the context, and you change the meaning. George Washington Carver, botanist and chemist, discovered over 300 different uses for the lowly peanut. Ask:

What else can this be used for?

Are there new ways to use as is?

Other uses if modified?

What else can be made from this?

Other extension? Other markets?

ELIMINATE? Sometimes subtracting something from your subject yields new ideas. Trimming down ideas, objects, and processes may gradually narrow the subject down to its truly necessary part or function—or spotlight a part that is appropriate for some other use. Ask:

What if this were smaller? Understate?

What should I omit? Delete? Subtract? What is not necessary?

Should I divide it? Split it up? Separate it into different parts?

Streamline? Make miniature? Condense? Compact?

Can the rules be eliminated?

REARRANGE IT INTO SOMETHING ELSE? Creativity, it could be said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Rearrangement usually offers countless alternatives for ideas, goods, and services. A baseball manager, for example, can shuffle his lineup 362,880 times. Ask:

What other arrangement might be better?

Interchange components?

Other pattern? Other layout? Other sequence? Change the order?

Transpose cause and effect?

Change pace? Change schedule?

REVERSE IT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS? Reversing your perspective opens your thinking. Look at opposites and you'll see things you normally miss. Ask "What is the opposite of this?" to find a new way of looking at things. The historical breakthroughs of Columbus and Copernicus were the polar opposites of the current beliefs of their day. Ask:

What are the opposites?

What are the negatives?

Can I transpose positive and negative?

Should I turn it around? Up instead of down? Down instead of up? Consider it backwards?

Reverse roles?

Do the unexpected?