🔨 Edward De Bono GPT: Maximise Creativity With AI
Think laterally and find surprising ideas for your problems.
Every product manager, designer, engineer should read Edward De Bono’s books.
They are packed with amazing ideas for how to reframe a problem & come up with a creative solution.
Too often we go into a brainstorm not only with an impotent problem framing, but with limited, pre-concieved ideas.
Garbage in, garbage out.
NOTE: This post won’t help you frame your problem yet, but checkout below post to get started on that. I’ll be sharing a problem-framing prompt in the coming weeks:
So I’ve curated 2 prompts I’ve been testing:
More broad, focusing on various methods De Bono has created
More narrow, focusing on my favorite and the weirdest method: PO or Provocation.
Narrow
PROBLEM = {Describe the problem statement is an much detail}
Use the writings of Edward De Bono and use the concepts from his book Serious Creativity to come up with creative ways to reframe this and come up with 20 more options
Examples of mental provocations from everyday life are:
- PO The rules of the game are variable.
- PO The football field is hilly.
- PO The dial of a watch moves, the hands stand still.
- PO The snack eats the buyer.
- PO The longer you call, the cheaper the call becomes.
- PO The innkeeper drinks, the guests serve presents.
- PO Players draw and discard their cards.
- PO The Baltic Sea is filled with lemonade.
- PO The rules of the game are not known to everyone.
- PO The business card does not contain an address.
- PO All phone numbers change regularly.
The following approaches exist to win provocations:
- abandon
- ideal case
- reversal
- exaggeration
- fortuity
- falsificationBroad
Utilizing Edward De Bono's concepts from 'Serious Creativity,' analyze a current PROBLEM I am facing in my professional life.
Apply all known techniques from Edward De Bono, such as Lateral Thinking, Six Thinking Hats, PO, Random Entry Point or others to generate solutions.
Provide examples of how each technique influenced your thought process.
Structured Response Example:
Introduction
Briefly describe the problem you're facing in your professional life. Make it specific and measurable.
Technique 1: Lateral Thinking
Application:
Instead of tackling the problem directly, think about parallel scenarios where a similar problem exists and how they are solved. Extract principles and try to apply them to your problem.
Example:
If the problem is low team morale, a parallel scenario might be a sports team that turned around a losing streak. They used open dialogues and new training routines. You could apply the principle by organizing weekly team-building sessions.
Technique 2: Six Thinking Hats
Application:
Use De Bono's Six Thinking Hats to look at the problem from different perspectives (Factual, Emotional, Critical, Optimistic, Creative, Organized).
Example:
White Hat (Factual): Data shows a 20% decrease in productivity.
Red Hat (Emotional): Team members are reporting burnout.
Black Hat (Critical): The current pace is unsustainable.
Yellow Hat (Optimistic): The team has previously shown great adaptability.
Green Hat (Creative): What if we have a rotational leadership model?
Blue Hat (Organized): Plan a meeting to discuss implementing changes.
Technique 3: Random Entry Point
Application:
Choose a random word and associate it with your problem to generate new insights.
Example:
Random word: "Ocean"
Insight: Just as tides change, so can team morale. Implement a 'tide chart' for team mood and performance metrics.
PO
Examples of mental provocations from everyday life are:
- PO The rules of the game are variable.
- PO The football field is hilly.
- PO The dial of a watch moves, the hands stand still.
- PO The snack eats the buyer.
- PO The longer you call, the cheaper the call becomes.
- PO The innkeeper drinks, the guests serve presents.
- PO Players draw and discard their cards.
- PO The Baltic Sea is filled with lemonade.
- PO The rules of the game are not known to everyone.
- PO The business card does not contain an address.
- PO All phone numbers change regularly.
The following approaches exist to win provocations:
- abandon
- ideal case
- reversal
- exaggeration
- fortuity
- falsification
PROBLEM = {describe your problem in as much detail}
Ready to start?Remember: AI is still new, so if you don’t like what you see, run the prompt again or fill it in with your own ideas.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
Chat soon,
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Ideas you’d like covered in future editions
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