Creativity:

Challenging Assumptions

Tips for Challenging Assumptions

• Understand the Problem: recognize that you and everyone else have ingrained assumptions about every situation

• Play a Child: Ask plenty of basic 'Why?' and 'Why Not?' questions in order to discover and challenge those assumptions

• Play an External Observer: pretend you are a complete outsider and ask questions like 'Why do you do it this way at all?'

• Unpackage the Problem: reduce a situation to its simplest components in order to take it out of your environment

• Reframe: consider an issue from many different angles; restate a problem in different terms

• Imagine the Opposite: consider what the experts and professionals advise and then consider doing the opposite.