Crush Your Challenges Using the SCAMPER Brainstorming Technique

Jump-start your thinking in new directions with these diverse perspectives

Are you stuck in a mental rut? Has your creative muse deserted you? Perhaps you need to be whacked upside the head — figuratively and creatively speaking, of course.

One if the most powerful ways to jump-start your thinking in fresh, creative directions is to look at your problem or challenge from different perspectives. And the best way to do that, hands down, is a creative problem-solving technique with the whimsical name of SCAMPER. It’s a mnemonic for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify/Minify, Put to other uses, Eliminate and Reverse/Rearrange.

SCAMPER is powerful because it gives you an easy-to-remember framework that can whack you out of your usual, rutted mode of thinking and empowers you with an entire toolbox of new ways to develop unique solutions. You can use it for solo ideation tool and as a catalyst to enhance team brainstorming sessions.

SCAMPER is popular because it’s easy and fun — and, most importantly, it frequently delivers excellent results!

How to use the SCAMPER brainstorming technique

Start by clearly defining your challenge or problem to be solved. If you’re conducting a group brainstorming session, make sure you and your colleagues have a clear, shared conception of the problem. You should be able to summarize it in a few words.

Once you’ve completed this step, you can start working with SCAMPER. Feel free to pick any letter in the mnemonic for your brainstorm, and to move freely between them.

There is only one rule to use SCAMPER effectively, and it’s the same one that applies to every other brainstorming technique you can imagine: Don’t self-censor. Record EVERY idea, no matter how crazy, far-fetched or off base it seems.

You never know — a ridiculous idea may become a stepping stone to an innovative idea that’s just right to solve your current challenge.