Introduction to Creative Thinking

Summary

• The Current State of Creative Thinking
  • An uncharted genre where individuals define and interpret as they like
  • None captures its essence
• What is Creative Thinking
  • The only approach that can contend with Open-Ended Situations
  • No management whatsoever; exploration instead
• Approach to Creative Thinking
  • Neither communication nor documentation, but "spreadication"
  • "Solo work" over teamwork
  • "Shield and purge" to absolutely protect the act of exploration

Background

Era of Innovation Demand

Today's world is referred to as VUCA, a period of great change without definite answers. Additionally, as noted by terms like DEIB, our own standards and demands have risen. For developers, approaches like DevEx and DevRel that emphasize respect, consideration, and customer-centricity are gaining importance.

To survive such times, innovation is essential.

It's not necessary to change society itself, but we must at least alter ourselves and our surroundings. We need the power and structures to do this sustainably. This isn't about solving immediate technical problems—what I call "hard work." Rather, it's about exploration until we discover the hard work, requiring a completely different strategy.

Creativity and Open-Ended Situations

Let's define a situation where there's no clear answer and no direction in sight as an Open-Ended Situation (OES). As the name suggests, it is wide open with no building or point that can be called a goal. Rather, you must decide what the goal is.

Therefore, creativity is inherently required in OES.

Misguided Approaches to Creative Thinking

Despite attempts to make creativity replicable through what is called creative thinking, existing methods seem misguided.

For example, take the following explanations:

• Brainstorming is key
• Ideas generated in brainstorming need validation
• Advance your marketing channels, etc.

No, that's completely off. Creation is exploration. It is the activity before you start planning or working, without any tangible outcome. The only product is text expressed in words. Comparing it to generative AI, it's akin to creating prompts.

Creation requires deep dives and high, distant leaps, and anything related to work—planning, management, tasks—becomes an obstacle. You must eliminate everything and focus solely on thinking and articulation. Creative thinking must be designed for this purpose.

Therefore, I took a stand. Let me teach you what creative thinking truly is.

Creative Thinking

Overview

Creative Thinking is a method to maximize encounters with innovation.

The aim is to break through Open-Ended Situations and serves as the activity before any actual work begins.

The essence of creative thinking is exploration, engaging in thought and articulation until things start to "become visible." Ignoring all constraints, focusing solely on the theme, or even straying from the theme for detours, you explore and explore until you find that "Eureka!" moment. You're only as good as your persistence in finding it.

True to its name "creation," it necessitates deep dives and high leaps, eliminating anything that obstructs the process. You don't plan, manage, or assign tasks. You don't hide your own lack of persistence or loneliness behind the guise of teamwork or communication.

Making Creatives' Practices Replicable

Currently, it appears that only a few creatives possess creative thinking.

Engineers, managers, and business leaders seemingly apply this in merely 1% of cases. This is because these people simply follow orders from higher ups or trends around them. It's not creation but merely work. There's just a difference in execution capabilities, performance, and interpretation. They are merely high-performers or smart individuals, not creators.

When I think of creators, I envision Japan's manga, novels, or illustrations. Japan is at the forefront, home to prodigious talents engaged in over twelve hours of creative work for years. Having grown up in this samurai nation, I aim to transform exploration from a genius-level activity to a method with reproducibility.

The Three Elements of Creative Thinking

I've organized the concepts and methods of creative thinking into three elements.

1: Spreadication

Neither communication nor documentation, it's Spreadication. Spreadication is the activity of organizing ideas through divergence, convergence, and distillation.

Let's compare.

Communication happens in a one-on-one exchange:

A <---> B

While N-to-M is possible, as with computer multitasking actually being a rapid switch between single tasks, communication at its smallest unit is one-on-one. It merely becomes complex and compounded.

Next, documentation is about creating a document as a medium of exchange:

           C
           |
           v
A ---> Document <--- B

This enables asynchronous interaction, not immediate listening and speaking, but writing and reading, allowing complex information to be fully communicated.

Finally, in spreadication, you create a workspace for individual exploration:

                         c
                         |
        +----------------|---+
     A----->             |   |
        |                v   |
        |     Workspace      |
        |                    |
        |                 <------B
        +--------------------+

Within the workspace resides a wealth of ideas and information. Each individual freely expands upon them and actively utilizes others' contributions.

2: Solo Work

Solo Work is the antithesis of teamwork, involving individual activity.

During solo work, you do not:

• Engage in synchronous communication, including meetings or small talk
• Follow plans, create them, manage budgets and actuals, track progress, etc.
• Execute tasks, persist until deadlines or quantitative assurances are secured
• Conform to specific ways of working

Without communication with others, without plans or deadlines, you dictate your way of working. However, solo work is lonely. It's meaningless if you slack off, so exploration must be pursued. You must continuously explore an Open-Ended Situation on your own without clear answers, visible conclusions, or guidance from anyone.

There are exceptions:

• The timeframe (scope) for exploration is given
  • For instance, "Let's do this for just two weeks"
• Reading others' writings and expanding or commenting on them is permissible

That's it. It's essentially solitary, hence the name solo.

Why choose solo? Because it eliminates all distractions. Only by reducing interruptions to zero and deeply immersing oneself can one reach creation. There is no escaping solitude.

3: Shield and Purge

Shield and Purge refers to protecting solo work (shielding) and removing obstacles to solo work (purging).

As you can easily imagine, maintaining solo work while continuing spreadication is not easy. You must be meticulously committed, akin to the levels of strict security or governance that come to mind.

There is a term, CPPF—children, partners, pets, and friends—suggesting creators should diligently eliminate these distractions. Whether this is right depends on personal and situational factors, but for creators, such measures aren't unreasonable. In creative thinking, you must not stray from this essence. Instead, to sustain it, both shielding and purging are emphasized.

Conclusion

We have introduced the concepts and three essential elements of creative thinking.

To contend with Open-Ended Situations, we must engage in the rigorous activities that creators undertake. This is not the realm of geniuses, but a method that can be made reproducible. I believe this and am developing methods and concepts as a Soft Skills Engineer.

Engineers, in particular, because you are engineers, I urge you to put this into practice!