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The optional-skills copy was still the v1.0.0 constraint-dispatch skill (SKILL.md + full-prompt-library.md only). This brings it up to the current tool: a situation-routed library of 22 named ideation methods drawn from working artists, scientists, designers, and writers. SKILL.md becomes a 4-step router (extract PHASE/DOMAIN/SPECIFICITY signals → apply overrides → route phase-then-domain → resolve ambiguity), with anti-slop operating rules and an anti-default check. Adds: - 22 method files under references/methods/ — oblique-strategies (Eno/Schmidt), oulipo, scamper, lateral-provocations (de Bono), triz (Altshuller), leverage-points (Meadows), pattern-languages (Alexander), compression-progress (Schmidhuber), analogy-and-blending, pataphysics, first-principles, polya, biomimicry, volume-generation, creative-discipline, premortem-and-inversion, defamiliarization, derive-and-mapping, affinity-diagrams, jobs-to-be-done, story-skeletons, chance-and-remix. Each: when/when-not, the actual cards/principles/operators, a procedure, a worked example, anti-slop notes. - references/method-catalog.md (index + when-to-use), heuristics.md (extended decision tree), anti-slop.md (rules applied to every output), exercises.md (time-boxed exercises). - full-prompt-library.md restructured into domain-affinity sections (general / software / physical / social / lists) so the no-direction default isn't developer-biased. Frontmatter: name aligned to directory slug (creative-ideation, folding in the fix from #18084); version 2.0.0→2.1.0; platforms field preserved. Original wttdotm-derived constraint dispatch is kept as the default path. Supersedes #19295 (which targeted the pre-move skills/ path). Co-authored-by: SHL0MS <SHL0MS@users.noreply.github.com>
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Lateral Provocations
Edward de Bono, 1967–. The PO operator and five provocation moves for breaking pattern lock-in. PO is a linguistic marker that flags a statement as a deliberate provocation, not a claim — to be taken seriously even when implausible.
When to use
- Idea is too safe / too obvious
- Variations are all minor rephrasings of the same core
- Suspect a hidden assumption is constraining the search
- Group with low psychological safety needs permission to say wrong things
Don't use when
- Disciplined development of an existing idea (provocations interrupt)
- Engineering safety / legal / medical (provocations are exploratory)
- Group will dismiss the provocation rather than engage
The five operators
1. Escape (negation). Take something normally true of the system; negate it.
- Po: restaurants do not serve food.
- Po: code review does not happen before merge.
- Po: the meeting has no agenda.
2. Reversal. Reverse a relationship.
- Po: the patient operates on the surgeon.
- Po: the listener composes the song.
- Po: the readers write the book.
3. Exaggeration. Push a parameter to extreme.
- Po: the meeting has 1000 attendees.
- Po: the novel has one sentence.
- Po: the company has one customer.
4. Distortion. Change order, location, or relationship of components.
- Po: customers pay before they're born.
- Po: the recipe lists ingredients after the cooking instructions.
- Po: revenue arrives the year before expenses.
5. Wishful thinking. State an impossible outcome.
- Po: the medication cures before the patient is sick.
- Po: the software ships without bugs.
- Po: the painting paints itself.
Random-word technique
- Pick a random noun (dictionary at random page; or list of 1000 nouns + random index).
- List 5 connections between the random word and your problem, however tenuous.
- Use the strongest.
Example. Problem: my CLI is hard to discover. Random word: "lighthouse".
- Lighthouses are visible from far; my CLI's affordances are not visible at all.
- Lighthouses are lit at the right time; my CLI's help is always on, never contextual.
- Lighthouses signal danger; my CLI doesn't signal when an action is irreversible. ← strongest
- Lighthouse keepers signal back; mine has no two-way contact.
- Lighthouses are passive; the ship approaches them.
Result: the CLI should signal danger when about to do something irreversible. Concrete, useful, not obvious from inside the original frame.
Procedure
Single-PO session
- State the problem.
- Pick an operator.
- Generate a PO statement.
- List 5 consequences if the PO statement were true.
- Pick the strongest consequence.
- Translate into a real proposal.
Stacked operators
Two operators on the same problem. Intersection often more interesting than either alone. Example: Escape ("po: meetings don't have agendas") + Reversal ("po: attendees set the agenda after the meeting") → an asynchronous "what we ended up discussing" doc, written collectively after the fact.
Anti-slop notes
- Generic provocations ("po: things are different") are placeholders, not provocations. Specify what's changed and how.
- Don't fake "random" word selection. "Innovation" or "synergy" defeats the operator. Use actual random.
- Don't end at the provocation. The PO statement is means; an actionable proposal is the end.
- Take the provocation seriously for at least 5 minutes. Dismissing it defeats the operation.
- Pick the operator deliberately. Different operators surface different things: Escape → purpose; Reversal → relationship; Exaggeration → parameter; Distortion → sequencing; Wishful Thinking → constraint.
Source: de Bono, Lateral Thinking (Harper, 1970); Po: Beyond Yes and No (Penguin, 1972).