Random Input Technique
topic
The random input technique is the divergent thinking method of introducing an entirely random, unrelated word, image, or concept into a creative problem-solving session and requiring the connection of this random input to the problem — forcing the creative mind to find a connection between the unrelated and the relevant, thereby discovering novel solution paths that the constrained search within the problem's conceptual neighborhood would never have revealed.
Role
The random input technique exploits the mind's remarkable capacity to find meaning in apparently arbitrary juxtapositions — the same capacity that produces the unexpected connections of dreams, poetry, and scientific analogy — to deliberately engineer the productive surprise that constrained thinking cannot generate from within the familiar conceptual neighborhood of the current problem. The creative practitioner who uses random inputs regularly develops the habit of looking for unexpected connections rather than the habit of searching for obvious ones — gradually extending the associative range that their creative thinking characteristically explores.