Coaching practices for Creative Thinking Tools
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Creative Thinking Tools, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I need to come up with a whole range of options — names, angles, ways in — and staring at the blank page I keep circling the same two or three.
- I’ve been brainstorming this for hours and every idea is a slight variation on the same one
- My ideas always seem to land in the shower or on a walk, but I’ve started cramming a podcast into every one of those moments
- Every approach I come up with sounds like me, because I keep ruling out anything that doesn’t feel like something I’d do
- I’ve hit a wall where every new idea is just a slight rewording of the last one
Practices that may help
- Walk to generate ideas (divergent thinking)
When you need many options, walk while you brainstorm.
Walking for Creativity - Sample inventive principles to generate solution directions
Apply one or more of TRIZ’s 40 inventive principles as generative lenses, even without the full contradiction matrix.
TRIZ: Systematic Invention and the Logic of Contradictions - Use low-demand movement as incubation time
Walking, showering, or doing dishes — rhythmic, low-demand activities free up associative thinking.
The Three Bs of Creativity: Bed, Bath, and Bus - Ask what a specific other person would do
Step into a named other’s perspective to access approaches you would not generate as yourself.
Oblique Strategies, Made Practical - SCAMPER: A Systematic Creativity Technique
SCAMPER is a structured brainstorming checklist that prompts you to Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, and Reverse/Rearrange elements of an existing product, process, or problem. It is a practitioner-derived tool with no randomized trial evidence but a strong theoretical grounding in divergent thinking research — it works by forcing systematic exploration of an idea space that unguided brainstorming leaves partially uncovered. - Use SCAMPER and other prompts to vary ideas
Apply structured prompts (substitute, combine, adapt, modify, etc.) to push ideas in new directions.
Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas - Break associative barriers through randomness
Introduce random stimuli — words, objects, images — into your problem-solving sessions and force connections.
The Medici Effect: Innovation at the Intersection - Brainwrite instead of group brainstorm
Have people generate ideas silently and individually first, then pool and build.
Divergent Thinking: Generating Many Ideas - Combine and build on others’ ideas
Treat every idea as a building block — the best ideas in a session are usually hybrids.
Osborn’s Brainstorming Rules, Made Practical - Green hat: generate new ideas and creative possibilities
The green hat is for generating alternatives and possibilities without evaluation — quantity and novelty over quality and correctness.
Six Thinking Hats, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Creative Thinking Technique
Step into a named other’s perspective to access approaches you would not generate as yourself.
Ask what a specific other person would do
- Creative Thinking
Walking, showering, or doing dishes — rhythmic, low-demand activities free up associative thinking.
Use low-demand movement as incubation time
- Play And Divergent Thinking
Divergent thinking is generating many varied ideas before judging any of them — the opposite of converging on one answer. The most reliable practical principle is to separate idea generation from evaluation. An honest caveat: traditional group brainstorming usually underperforms the same people working alone and pooling ideas, due to a documented productivity loss.
- Group Creativity Method
The method is most powerful when multiple perspectives populate the dimensions and values.
Run a structured team morphological session
- How To Generate Creative Solutions
Have people generate ideas silently and individually first, then pool and build.
Brainwrite instead of group brainstorm
- How To Think Outside The Box
Introduce random stimuli — words, objects, images — into your problem-solving sessions and force connections.
Break associative barriers through randomness
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