Mind Performance Hacks

Hack #22. Scamper for Ideas

SCAMPER is a mnemonic acronym for a set of basic operations that you can apply to old ideas to extend them in new directions.

The SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse) technique is a highly portable creativity toolbox. It was developed by Bob Eberle as a unified set of brainstorming tools with a simple mnemonic and was first published by Michael Michalko in his book Thinkertoys.¹

You can't get data off a computer with a blank hard drive, and you can't get creative ideas out of your brain without having put something into it first. SCAMPER is a structured way of seeding your brain's random-number generator [Hack #19] to produce creative output when you feel uninspired.

In Action

Use SCAMPER as a checklist. Choose an object to think about creatively, such as a drinking cup, and then run down the items in the mnemonic checklist (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, and so on), asking yourself the question associated with each one in Table 3-2, which explains the basic structured brainstorming techniques of SCAMPER. The word target refers to the object you're thinking about, such as the drinking cup in the previous example.

Table 3-2. SCAMPER mnemonic checklist

Mnemonic	Key	Questions to ask
S	Substitute	How can you substitute something else for the target or within the target?
C	Combine	How can you combine something else with the target to produce something new?
A	Adapt	What techniques, mechanisms, or components can you adapt to ...