Synectics & Pughsion™
As I’m finishing up with an online Financial Management class that is all numbers, I was just thinking how I’d rather be facilitating creative thinking right now. Then I started thinking back about a presentation my former classmate Rebecca Mahl and I did on the problem solving methodology synectics, as well as a new methodology she created called Pughsion™.
Synectics combines group interaction rules with a creative process centered around the use of metaphor, drawing analogies from diverse disciplines. For our presentation, Becca and I discussed the history and general principles of synectics, then led the class in a group exercise to try out the method. I created a spinner with different objects and ideas that people could use as metaphors, and we asked the class to think about how we can help make recycling a habitual part of everyday life. This was how we connected this assignment to my final project, and Becca also connected this to her project.
Becca found that our class seemed to be very engaged in the synectic class exercise, and they came up with some interesting connections between recycling and their randomly selected concept. However, the class had trouble converging back to finding a solution to the problem. The synectic exercise promoted divergent thinking and aided in changing perspectives and how we viewed, comprehended, and went about solving the problem, but a point that was raised was, “…ok now what?”
Enter: Pughsion™.
Pughsion Diffusion from Rebecca Mahl on Vimeo.
I found Becca’s new method to be very interesting and the results generated from the process were inspiring. Be sure to check out the Pughsion blog at http://pughsion.tumblr.com to see some of the undergraduate Industrial Design student concepts that came from using this method.
Related posts: