Conceptual Blockbusting

Perceptual blocks:

1. Difficulty in isolating the problem.
2. Tendency to delimit the problem area too closely.
3. Inability to see the problem from various viewpoints.
4. Seeing what you expect to see--stereotyping.
5. Saturation.
6. Failure to utilize all sensory inputs.

Cultural blocks:

1. Fantasy and reflection are a waste of time, lazy, and even crazy.
2. Playfulness is for children only.
3. Problem solving is a serious business and humor is out of place.
4. Reason, logic, numbers, utility, and practicality are good; feelings, intuition, qualitative judgments, and pleasure are bad.
5. Tradition is preferable to change.
6. Any problem can be solved by scientific thinking and lots of money.
7. Taboos.

Environmental blocks:

1. Lack of cooperation and trust among colleagues.
2. Autocratic boss who values only his own ideas; does not reward others.
3. Distraction--phone, easy intrusions.
4. Lack of support to bring ideas into actions.

Emotional blocks:

1. Fear to make mistakes, to fail, and to risk.
2. Inability to tolerate ambiguity; overriding desire for security, order; "no appetite for chaos."
3. Preference for judging ideas, rather than generating them.
4. Inability to relax, incubate, and "sleep on it."
5. Lack of challenges; problem fails to engage interest.
6. Excessive zeal; overmotivation to succeed quickly.
7. Lack of access to areas of imagination.
8. Lack of imaginative control.
9. Inability to distinguish reality for fantasy.

Intellectual blocks:

1. Solving the problem using an incorrect language (verbal, mathematical, visual)--as in trying to solve a problem mathematically when it can more easily be accomplished visually.
2. Inflexible or inadequate use of intellectual problem-solving strategies.
3. Lack of, or incorrect, information.
4. Inadequate language skills to express and record ideas (verbally, musically, visually, etc.)  

Techniques for conscious block busting:

1. Have a questioning attitude.
2. Use fluency and flexibility of thinking.
3. Used thinking aids.
1. Morphological forced connections.
1. List the attributes of the situation. 
2. Below each attribute, place as many alternates as you can think of.
3. When completed; make many random runs through the alternates, picking up a different one from each column and assembling the combinations into entirely new forms of your original subject.
2. Use other people's ideas.
3. Crossing disciplines.
4. Crossing cultures and changing environments.
4. Understanding the problem.
5. Devising a plan.
6. Carrying out the plan.
7. Examining the solution obtained.

Technique for unconscious block busting:

1. Brainstorming.
2. Synectics.
1. Steps:
1. Problem as given.
2. Making the strange familiar.
3. Problem as understood.
4. Operational mechanisms.
• Personal analogy.
• Direct analogy.
• Symbolic analogy.
• Fantasy analogy.
5. The familiar made strange.
6. Psychological states.
7. States integrated with problem.
8. Viewpoint.
9. Solution.

Source: Conceptual Blockbusting. A Guide to Better Ideas (2004) by James L. Adams.