This is a twist on the breaking rules technique. SCAMPER has so many variations that it takes longer to work through – but produces more ideas. It’s also an antidote to a pet hate of mine: being told to “think outside the box”! 

With SCAMPER, you focus on what’s inside the box (or nearby), because these are the things you can typically control. There are far more ways to play around with what’s inside the box than you realise. And it’s more likely to produce workable ideas compared to dreaming about stuff you can’t control.

• Take any project and list all the different components (people, processes and things) on separate Post-it notes.
• Go through the list and put all the separate components through SCAMPER.
• Decide if any of the ideas that come out are viable and worth investigating further.

Credit: this technique comes from SCAMPER: Games for Imagination Development by Bob Eberle, who combined several of the techniques devised by the father of brainstorming Alex Osborn.

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SCAMPER