optional-skills/creative/creative-ideation/references/method-catalog.md
One-line summary + when-to-use for every method. Cross-reference with heuristics.md and the routing table in SKILL.md.
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/oblique-strategies.md | Stuck mid-project; have material, need to disrupt the loop. Native domain: music; works for anything. |
methods/lateral-provocations.md | Idea too safe; need to break frame with PO operator or random word. |
methods/chance-and-remix.md | Existing material feels exhausted; have media to remix (Cage chance ops, Burroughs cut-up, Surrealist exquisite corpse, Situationist détournement). |
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/oulipo.md | Writing, especially poetry/fiction. Lipograms, S+7, snowballs, palindromes. |
methods/scamper.md | Have a base idea, want 7 systematic variations cheaply. |
full-prompt-library.md | Blank-page default. wttdotm-style project constraints. Sectioned by domain (General / Software / Physical / Social / Lists) — pick from the matching section, not the whole library. |
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/compression-progress.md | Picking research questions or selecting between projects. Schmidhuber: a worthwhile project compresses your model of the world. |
methods/analogy-and-blending.md | Stuck inside one frame; need to import structure from a remote domain (Synectics, bisociation, conceptual blending). |
methods/pataphysics.md | Push past plausibility; specify the impossible thing in detail. |
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/triz-principles.md | Technical contradiction (improving X degrades Y). Altshuller's 40 principles + contradiction matrix. |
methods/leverage-points.md | Civic / org / institutional change. Meadows' 12 places to intervene. |
methods/pattern-languages.md | Design with established practice (architecture, UX, product). Christopher Alexander. |
methods/first-principles.md | Suspect accumulated practice carries forward assumptions that no longer apply. |
methods/polya.md | Math, physics, algorithms, debugging, formal problems. |
methods/biomimicry.md | Physical design problem with likely natural-system analog. |
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/volume-generation.md | Need many ideas fast (Crazy 8s, brainwriting, James Webb Young). |
methods/creative-discipline.md | Long-term practice (Tharp, LeWitt, Cleese, Cameron). Not single-session. |
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/premortem-and-inversion.md | Pressure-test a plan; choose between candidates (Klein + Munger). |
methods/defamiliarization.md | Subject is so familiar you've stopped seeing it (Shklovsky, Brecht). |
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/derive-and-mapping.md | Entering unfamiliar territory; life decision; site-specific work (Debord, Lynch, Bachelard). |
methods/affinity-diagrams.md | Pile of qualitative items needs structure (Kawakita KJ method). |
| Method | Use when |
|---|---|
methods/story-skeletons.md | Narrative writing. Coats's Pixar 22, Saunders's escalation, Le Guin's carrier bag. Deliberately not Hero's Journey. |
methods/jobs-to-be-done.md | Product / service / business design. Christensen. |
| Tempted to use | Consider also | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Oblique Strategies | Lateral provocations | Strategies = poetic random; provocations = procedural |
| OuLiPo | Chance and remix | OuLiPo = rule-based; chance = rule-free |
| TRIZ | First principles | TRIZ uses pattern library; first principles refuses pattern |
| Leverage points | Pattern languages | Meadows = where to intervene; Alexander = what to design |
| Compression progress | Pólya | Schmidhuber = which question; Pólya = how to attack it |
| Defamiliarization | Synectics | Defamiliarization destroys the familiar; Synectics constructs from it |
| Premortem | Pataphysics | Premortem mitigates extremes; pataphysics celebrates them |
| Crazy 8s | SCAMPER | Crazy 8s = from blank page; SCAMPER = from existing base |
| Dérive | Affinity diagrams | Dérive explores; KJ synthesizes after exploration |
methods/story-skeletons.md includes alternatives.