Coaching practices for Inventive Problem Solving Steps

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Inventive Problem Solving Steps, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’ve been treating this like a problem nobody’s ever solved, pouring original effort into it
• I’ve got maybe two ideas for what to do about this and both feel hopeless, so I shoot every other thought down before I even finish it
• I feel like I’m staring at this from inside my own little field with no fresh ideas, but I have a nagging sense that somebody, somewhere
• I’ve been brainstorming this for hours and every idea is a slight variation on the same one
• I try one way to crack a new problem, it doesn’t work, and I immediately stop and go look it up

Practices that may help

1. Calibrate whether the problem requires invention or just search
   Determine whether your problem is already solved elsewhere before investing in original invention.
   TRIZ: Systematic Invention and the Logic of Contradictions
2. Generate solutions without premature evaluation
   List as many potential solutions as possible before judging any of them.
   Problem-Solving Therapy, Made Practical
3. Import a frame from a different domain
   Describe your problem as if it were a challenge in an unrelated field, then steal the solutions from that field.
   Problem Reframing: Solving the Right Problem First
4. 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
5. Solution-space exploration
   Generate multiple different approaches to a problem before converging on one.
   Productive Failure: How Struggling First Makes Instruction More Effective
6. Concept fan: map the solution space before picking a direction
   Expand from specific solutions to the broader concept behind them, then generate alternatives at the concept level.
   Lateral Thinking, Made Practical
7. Reverse brainstorm: solve the opposite problem first
   Ask "How would we guarantee the worst possible outcome?" — then invert every answer.
   Lateral Thinking, Made Practical
8. Decompose the problem into independent parameters
   Identify the key dimensions that fully describe your problem space before generating solutions.
   Morphological Analysis, Made Practical
9. State the goal, then invert it
   Ask "what would guarantee I fail at this?" before asking how to succeed.
   Inversion: Solve Problems Backward
10. Load the problem then deliberately step away
    Immerse yourself in the problem first, then drop it — incubation requires prior loading.
    The Three Bs of Creativity: Bed, Bath, and Bus

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.