Faste's Review of Creative Strategies

Back in 1989, Rolfe Faste drew up a one page document he called Review of Creative Strategies which was used as a handout in one of the design classes at Stanford. His son recently posted it in one of the online design discussion groups and it was so good I wanted to talk about it here.

Faste made major contributions in the fields of human centered design and design education. He was a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Stanford Joint Program in Design from 1984 to 2003. 

I'll be working on this for a while...

1) Hard Work - Usually comes first.

2) Create a Supportive Environment - Invest in yourself.

3) RELAX - Even Dream - Tap your subconscious.

4) Brainstorming - Express/Test/Cycle

5) Lists

6) Metalists - Lists of Lists to make lists of!

7) Metaphorical Analysis - Atribute matching

8) Idea Logs + Drawings

9) Humor - The pleasure of making new connections.

10) Conversation - You have to talk to people.

11) Forced Transformations - "Checklist Solitare"

12) Synectics - Analogies and Conflict

13) Diagram Physical Process - Time/Activity/Flow

14) "What if?" - Have an enabling attitude.

15) Design Making Matrix - 

16) Working Backwards

17) Storyboards

18) How-Why Diagram

19) Nasal Thinking (Jim Adams)

20) Mind Maps

21) Meta Summary - Visual Thinking

22) Diagram Yourself