The component detailing technique (Watkin, 1985) has associations
with Attribute Listing and Brain
Sketching. Components are drawn in much the same way as the old
children’s game combining pictures of heads, bodies and legs taken
from different people to make a bizarre composite person.
The method works best when the ‘problem’
is the design of a physical object, but it can also work with problems
whose components have a clear logical, rather than physical, relation
to one another.
It has strong elements of ‘problem exploration’
as well as ‘idea-generation’, because it often helps comprehensive
understanding and the development of new viewpoint.
- Assemble a group of participants to break a problem down into
as many major components (sub-systems or sub-assemblies) as there
are group members. The group lists the features of each component
(c.f. Attribute Listing).
- Each group member is allotted one component and should try unearthing
a way to produce a sketch of a way of ‘solving’ it,
making their sketch as detailed as is achievable in the time available
(c.f. Brain Sketching).
- Reconstruct all the component drawings into one large collage
that is organised to represent a (probably rather bizarre!) composite
‘solution’ of the whole problem – i.e. all fit
crudely together (either physically or logically) as a ‘complete’
product or solution (like the artificial person created in the ‘heads,
bodies and legs’ game).
- The composite collage is then looked at and discussed for new
ideas and perspective on the original problem, or indeed for ideas
for completely new products.
[Source:
www.mycoted.com
]