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Problems come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes you need to try a number of different methods before finding the right solution to a specific problem. The 'What if?' technique is a quick and easy creative thinking technique that will help generate solutions, and can be applied to almost any problem.
‘What If?’ is all about letting ideas flow without judgment, and sometimes what may at first glance appear absurd can, with continued thought, provide a surprising solution.
You begin with the question ‘What if it was …?’ and insert a random word from a list. ‘It’ is the problem you are trying to solve and could be more than one thing.
Example
Let’s use ‘There’s no room for these files’ as an example problem.
You might ask ‘What if the files were …’
- … imaginary? What would happen if the files didn’t exist? A record needs to be kept, but does this have to be a hard copy? This could help you to think about how it might be if the files were electronic. Even if a back up file was kept on a storage device, they would be smaller, and storage would be less of a problem.
- … missing? This might help you to think about renting storage externally.
- … newer? This might help you realize there are old records stored which could be cleared out to create room for the new files.
