Analogical Problem Solving
topic
Analogical problem solving is the deliberate strategy of searching for solved problems in other domains that are structurally analogous to one's current unsolved problem — systematically asking 'where has something like this been successfully addressed before, even if in a completely different field?' and then transferring the structural logic of those solutions to the current problem context.
Role
Analogical problem solving is the most powerful and most systematically underutilized creative problem-solving strategy available — because it transforms the universe of potentially applicable solutions from the small set developed within one's own domain to the vastly larger set developed across all human domains for all structurally similar problems. IDEO's design thinking methodology, NASA's open innovation challenges, and InnoCentive's crowdsourcing platform all operationalize this principle at organizational scale — finding that the people most likely to solve difficult technical problems in one domain are often people with expertise in a different domain where the analogous problem had already been addressed.