Coup

Coup is a well-known method of creating ideas that helps in situations that at first glance seem to be dead ends. Coup offers to use our own assumptions as a foothold from which to push off to start moving.

Instruction

1. Formulate a task.
2. Write down all the assumptions and assumptions that you explicitly or implicitly accept, thinking about its decision. These can be assumptions laid down in the formulation of the problem, generally accepted approaches to solving such problems, assumptions relating to some parts of the problem, etc.
3. In turn, turn all these assumptions in any way - for example, replacing the words with the opposite ones, rearranging the words in the sentence, adding and removing the “not” particle.
4. Take each inverted assumption and ask the question under what conditions it could be a possible solution to your problem. Record emerging ideas.
5. After a break, select the best ideas and refine them.

Examples

One of the classic examples of this method can be found in Aesop's fable: a bird that could not reach the bottom of the jug with its beak (“the bird receives water”) threw stones there until the water rose (“water comes to the bird”).

The simplest modern example is the work shop. The assumption that the seller serves customers, previously seemed unshakable. Options for a coup:

• the buyer serves the seller (supermarket)
• buyers are not served by the seller (machines)
• the customer serves himself (online store)
• sells the buyer himself (MLM network) and so on.