Synectic (Greek synechein for to bring something together, to link) is a creativity method that stimulates the unconsciously running thought processes. This method, which is rather unknown to the general public, was developed by William Gordon starting in 1944 and became known worldwide through his book “Synectics: The development of creative capacity” from 1961. Synectics divides the creative process into several phases.
With the help of analogies, a step-by-step alienation of the problem to be worked on takes place. Through this new factual and mental distance from the problem and from known solutions, synectics leads to a new perspective and new approaches to solutions.
The essential principle of the method is: “Make the foreign familiar and alienate the familiar.” From this, new and surprising approaches and ideas can be developed.
Synektik is particularly suitable for the detailed analysis of complex tasks, new and further product developments as well as for overcoming ingrained thought structures. We always start with a thorough analysis of the problem. This is followed by the alienation of the original problem through the formation of analogies. Attempts are made to find new and surprising solutions by analogy.
In detail, a synectic session is divided into the following traditional phases:
– Problem definition: clear definition of the problem
– Spontaneous solutions: Ideas that occur spontaneously are captured.
– Reformulation: The spontaneous solutions are used to reformulate the problem.
– Direct analogies 1: Analogies are formed, for example from nature (bionics).
– Personal analogies: personal analogies are formed to achieve personal identification of the participants with the problem.
– Symbolic analogies (contradictions): Symbolic analogies are formed.
– Direct analogies 2: Direct analogies to the found symbolic analogies are searched, for example from technology.
– Analogy analysis: analysis of the direct analogies from the last step.
– Force-Fit: The last analogies are associated with the original problem.
– Development of (concrete) solutions
