Mark Burnett's 'consulting toolkit' Creativity

Mark Burnett (BearingPoint) is developing a general purpose consulting toolkit based on Southbeach Modeller. The kit is a set of Southbeach models and templates, designed for various different types of consulting work. As part of this kit, Mark has developed a simple MyCreativity rule set that helps to bring such models to life by guiding improvement, problem solving and innovation. He has kindly shared this Southbeach application here. See below for a screen shot image of this working in practice.

Copy the following rules into a .txt file, place it in your creativity folder and try it out on your own models. (Like all rule sets on this blog this requires you to have upgraded your free Modeller to Southbeach|MyCreativity)

#Mark Burnett.Elaboration
produces(*, useful) "What (additional) resources does the {source} need in order to produce the {destination}?"
produces(*,useful) "What qualities should the {source} exhibit in producing the {destination}?"
consumes(&a=*,&r=resource) produces(&a,&o=useful) "Where is the resource of {&r} used by the {&a} to produce the {&o} obtained from?"
specifies(quality,*) "What is the {source} quality related to?"
produces(,useful) "What is the {destination} used for?"
produces(&a=useful,&o=useful) produces(&o,&r=useful) "What other than the {&a} and {&o} is necessary to produce the {&r}?"

#Mark Burnett.Improve.IncreaseUseful
increases(useful,useful) "Intensify or get more of the {source} so you can have more of the {destination}."
increases(*,useful) "How can you get more of {destination} from {source}?"
increases(*,useful) "How can you increase the ability of {source} to create {destination}?"
increases(*,useful) "How can you intensify the {destination} without relying on the {source}?"
increases(harmful,useful) "Try and work out what part of the {source} is producing the {destination} and minimise the unnecessary parts that are producing the harm"
decreases(*,useful) "Prevent the {source} from impacting the {destination}."
decreases(*,useful) "Isolate the part of the {source} that is impacting the {destination} and remove it."
decreases(harmful,useful) "Convert the {source} into something useful before it has a chance to impact the {destination}"
decreases(*,useful) "Protect the {destination} from the {source}."
increases(useful,useful+potential) "How can you ensure that the {destination} will be an outcome of the {source}?"
increases(&a=*,&c=useful+potential) increases(&b=*,&a) "How can you create the {&c} without the {&b}?"
increases(&a=*,&c=useful+!potential) increases(&b=*,&a) "How can you intensify the {&c} without the {&b}?"
useful+goal "What else is needed to achieve {this}? What are the pre-requisites or necessary pre-steps?"
harmful "What's the root cause of {this}? How can we avoid that?"
useful+potential "How can we realise the {this} more quickly?"
harmful+potential "How can we avoid, prevent, or delay the {this}?"
replaces(&a=*,&b=*) increases(&b,&c=useful) "Ensure the {&a} also leads to {&c} before the {&b} is replaced"
increases(&a=*,&b=useful) "Find ways for {&b} to make more use of {&a}"

#Mark Burnett.Improve.ReduceHarmful
increases(*,harmful) "How can you prevent the {source} from producing the {destination}."
increases(*,harmful) "Put measures in place to deal with the {destination}."
increases(*,harmful) "Isolate the part of the {source} that is producing the {destination} and remove it."
increases(useful,harmful) "How else could the {source} be accomplished that would not result in the {destination}?"
increases(useful,harmful) "What else could give the benefits of the {source} that would not result in the {destination}?"
decreases+potential(&a=*,&b=useful) "How can the proportion of the {&a} impacting the {&b} be reduced?"

#Mark Burnett.Improve.Simplify
increases(&a=*,&b=useful) increases(&a,&c=harmful) "How can you get the {&a} to intensify the {&b} without causing the {&c}?"