The document describes techniques for lateral thinking proposed by Edward De Bono including: generating alternatives, challenging assumptions, considering why things are done in a certain way, suspending judgment of ideas, considering different design perspectives, identifying crucial factors, breaking problems into pieces, reversing perspectives, brainstorming, using analogies, choosing entry points and focus areas, random stimulation, using provocative ideas, and describing problems in different ways. It provides examples of applying these techniques to puzzles and problems.

1. By Edward De Bono

2. Principal
The merchant and his daughter.
A merchant who owes money to a money lender agrees to settle the
debt based upon the choice of two stones (one black, one white) from
a moneybag. If his daughter chooses the white stone, the debt is
canceled; if she picks the black stone, the moneylender gets the
merchant's daughter. However, the moneylender "fixes" the outcome
by putting two black stones in the bag. The daughter sees this and
when she picks a stone out of the bag, immediately drops it onto the
path full of other stones. She then points out that the stone she picked
must have been the opposite color of the one remaining in the bag.
Unwilling to be unveiled as dishonest, the moneylender must agree
and cancel the debt.

3. Techniques of lateral thinking
1. The generation of alternatives-restructuring a
pattern into a new pattern.

4. Techniques of lateral thinking
2. Challenging assumptions
Reassessing challenging set efficient methods as
being the best solution to a problem

5. Techniques of lateral thinking
3. Innovations-why do we do things the way?

6. Techniques of lateral thinking
4. Suspended Judgment-not discarding an idea
immediately when we think it will not work.
 The idea will survive longer and foster more ideas
 Other people might offer more ideas that their own judgment would have rejected
 Ideas that are judged to be wrong in the current frame of reference may survive long
enough to show that the frame of reference needs altering

7. Techniques of lateral thinking
5. Design-purpose view solutions from different angles
 Rather than to be critical of ways that you don’t think will work, try to look from the
angle that the new ideas approach the problem

8. Techniques of lateral thinking
6. Dominant ideas and crucial factors-standard
approaches to problems solving are identified in
order to highlight these could be vertical approaches
to problem solving
 Crucial factor is the one point that tethers or controls a solution, De Bono highlights
the point that often crucial factors are assumptions rather than actual obstacles

9. Techniques of lateral thinking
7. Fractionalization-breaking down a problem into
different pieces that you would not normally use in
order to generate alternative ways of looking at a
situation

10. Techniques of lateral thinking
8. The reversal method-method of creating new
approaches
 e.g. Going on a holiday, reversed- holiday coming to one

11. Techniques of lateral thinking
9. Brainstorming
 Being in a group and going through the above processes together

12. Techniques of lateral thinking
10. Analogies
 Analogies are used to jumpstart inspiration when peoples creativity is low, promotes
thinking in what seems an odd way, but gets the creative juices flowing.

13. Techniques of lateral thinking
11. Choice of entry point and attention area
 Entry point refers to the part of the problem where we approach it, while attention area
is the part of the problem that we focus our main efforts upon

14. Techniques of lateral thinking
12. Random stimulation
 Random stimulation is the addition of unrelated information in order to shakeup the
original thought pattern that was being used in order to approach the problem. It is
useful in creating a slightly different angle of viewing the problem.

15. Techniques of lateral thinking
13. The new word “po” provocative operation
 A new word coined by De Bono to fit between the words yes and no so that one can
hold off judgment of an idea for a short time longer while formulating possible ideas
around the possibilities of this new idea. It’s an idea that can lead to an answer but
not excatly could be the answer.

16. Techniques of lateral thinking
14. Description/Problem solving and Design
 Description, two people describe a problem in two different ways, same problem just
seems like two different problems.

17. Examples of lateral thinking
 There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Every day he gets
the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon
returning from work though, he can only travel half of the distance up riding in the
elevator and has to walk the rest of the way up unless it's raining! How can this be?
 Mel Colly stared through the dirty soot-smeared window on the 26th floor of the
office tower. Overcome with depression he slid the window open and jumped
through it. After he landed he was completely unhurt. Since there was nothing to
cushion his fall or slow his descent, how could he have survived?
 There was a hotel where the visitors complained about the slow moving elevator
and how long they had to wait for it to come. It became so severe that the
manager was asked to do something about it. If you were the manager what would
you suggest? (Picked up from the book Mediocre but Arrogant MBA)

18. Examples of lateral thinking
 The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons (assuming the
levels of the buttons designating floors increases from bottom to top). However, if it is raining
then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons using it.
Alternatively, the man's daily job finishes in this very building halfway up, except when it's
raining. Perhaps he's a security guard who makes rounds floor by floor in the morning and
watches a security monitor in the afternoon, except when it's raining. It never said he takes
the elevator before walking, just that he does both.
 Mel Colly was so sick and tired of window washing, he opened the window and jumped inside.
Alternatively, Mel's office was in another building, on the first floor, and he was looking at the
26th-floor window of another tower; "the window" in the second sentence then refers to that
of Mel's office, not the 26th-floor one. Mel could also have had a balcony.
 Most of us would come up with ideal answers like - call the elevator service center and ask
them to send someone to fix it. Warn the visitors about it. Change the system. Lateral
thinking applied, a consultant advised the hotel to fix mirrors next to the elevators. This
would cause people to be busy looking at themselves in the mirror and adjusting their dress,
hair and may be watching someone else on the sly... They would not feel the wait. This
actually worked for the hotel. And they did not receive complaints anymore!!