Problem Solving Tools and Techniques

Aug 20, 2007 21:39

Have you been faced with a problem but haven’t had the right tools and techniques for solving it. I’ve dug up 20 great problem solving tools and techniques that will reduce the time it takes you to solve problems. It doesn’t matter whether you’re solving small mental problems or really serious and complex problems these problem solving tools and techniques will still apply.

These tips can aid you through everyday life and will teach you how to deal with sometimes the most abstract of situations. One great tip for solving problems is to never be one dimensional about the whole process, creativity in many different forms will guide you to the answers.

These tips come from the great Win Wenger. . . He’s a modern day thinker in creative problem solving.

20 Problem Solving Tools and Techniques
1. Really want to solve the problem.

2. Have wide-ranging interests, and feed them.

3. Be willing to entertain ideas and inspirations from outside the box-not only “think outside the box.” Learn from any and every source as per our new ancient saying:

“Anyone can learn from someone wise….it takes someone pretty wise to be able to learn even from fools.”

4. Be willing to keep coming back to the problem from different directions.

5. Be willing to let go of it between times, deal with other matters or to-

tend the garden
wash the dishes
meditate
experience or ‘do’ in the arts.
take inordinate pleasure in little things-sometimes that’s all you’ll have, sometimes those become big worthy things

6. Keep/build your stamina and follow-through.

7. Keep your health.

8. “Keep your day job.”

9. Keep your sense of humor.

10. Be fully creative, then fully critical, then fully creative…..

11. Raise and keep up your level of ongoing tinkering-

tinker with the problem
tinker with the idea or with ideas
tinker with other things
be opportunistic
fiddle in other creative activities, keep those further resources of yours in the picture

12. Work in creative bursts; don’t 9-to-5 it. Grinding a chapter a day just doesn’t do it. Fly on inspiration as fast as possible before the pattern dissipates. Fly fast on inspiration as long as possible, then climb right back on and go up again. You get more of what you reinforce. Moreover, the unique rewards of working inspired will keep you reinforced to be creative. Be willing to dog-plod some of the task, on some sort of scheduled regular basis of production, but do as much as possible inspired. Don’t wait for inspiration, find it.

13. Build high self-esteem-

Reinforce your confidence by being self-critical from time to time.

Search hard for everything that might be wrong with your idea-theory-discovery-invention, then: “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!”

14. Do your homework, keep on getting better informed in the context.

15. Pat yourself on the back on some of those many occasions when no one is going to do that for you. Find others also doing something worthwhile and pat them on the back.-A small but definite percentage will reciprocate. Find/create a support group. You don’t have to be alone. Support can be found in unexpected places.

16. Appreciate: “the closest distance between two points” in human affairs is usually a very zig-zag line!

17. Appreciate: the assets and abilities which have brought you this far already.

18. Appreciate: the many, many others who have been this part of the road and somehow made it through. Resolve to be with them and not with those who instead fell to the wayside. You deserve to make it through, you’re going to make it through, you have within you and above you what it takes to make it through! People need, human beings depend on, what you’re bringing through! And many with far less to do it with than you, have made it through!

19. Be sure of at least some of the worth of what you are seeking to bring through.

20. Get visibly on record everyone who says “no” to you and their grounds for saying “no.” Prepare for publication your running memoirs about your campaign and how these people, by name, title and position, said “no.” Some will find it safer to say “yes” rather than join the public ranks of the following, as reported once in Reader’s Digest under “History Lessons”-

Source

There it is . . . BUT surely you have some great problem solving tools and techniques of your own that work really well. We want to here about your great tools and techniques you use to solve any kind of problems. Why not read more on Problem Solving Tools and Techniques with “6 Ways to Master Difficult Subject Matter”.

Read more about Creativity, problem solving

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