ideation-sit

name	ideation-sit
description	Generate innovative ideas using Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) within your Closed World. Applies the Closed World Principle and Function Follows Form to discover non-obvious innovations by manipulating existing components. Use after solution-definition as an alternative or complement to SCAMPER. Third phase of systematic innovation.

Ideation: Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT)

Purpose

Generate breakthrough innovations by systematically manipulating existing product/service components rather than searching for new external resources. SIT reverses the traditional innovation process: instead of starting with a need and designing a solution, you start by creating "virtual products" through structured manipulation of what already exists, then discover the value those configurations unlock.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• You've completed solution-definition (PRFAQ + Closed World mapping)
• You want to discover non-obvious innovations that surveys and brainstorming miss
• You need innovations grounded in what's actually available (not wishful thinking)
• You want a complementary approach to SCAMPER
• You're working with a well-defined product/service with clear components
• You want to challenge "function drives form" thinking

Two Core Principles

Principle 1: The Closed World

Innovative solutions tend to emerge from components that already exist within the product and its immediate environment.

This is counterintuitive. Most people assume innovation requires adding something new from outside. SIT shows the opposite: the most elegant and feasible innovations reconfigure what's already there.

The Closed World includes:

• Internal components: Everything the maker controls (features, materials, processes, algorithms, data, interfaces, channels)
• External components: Everything in the immediate environment the maker doesn't control (users, their devices, their behaviors, environmental conditions, time, location, social networks, existing infrastructure)

Why it works:

• Constrains the search space, making innovation tractable rather than overwhelming
• Produces innovations that are inherently feasible (built from what exists)
• Reveals hidden potential in overlooked components
• Forces creative recombination instead of lazy addition

Example: Domino's Pizza didn't add a new ingredient or a new oven. They took two existing variables (delivery time and price) and created a new relationship between them: "30 minutes or it's free." Pure Closed World innovation.

Principle 2: Function Follows Form

Instead of starting with what customers need and designing a product to match, start by manipulating existing components into new configurations ("virtual products") and THEN ask what value they could provide.

Traditional innovation: Function → Form (identify need, then design solution) SIT innovation: Form → Function (create new configuration, then discover its value)

Why this works:

• Discovers innovations that no customer could have asked for (because they can't imagine them)
• Breaks fixedness—the cognitive bias that locks us into seeing components in their current roles
• Generates genuinely novel ideas rather than incremental improvements
• Many breakthrough products were discovered this way, not designed for a pre-existing need

The process:

1. Take an existing product/service and its Closed World
2. Apply a SIT technique to create a new configuration (a "virtual product")
3. Ask: "What benefits could this configuration provide? To whom? In what context?"
4. Evaluate whether the virtual product solves a real problem or creates genuine value

Example: Bifocal lenses were not designed because someone asked for them. Someone created a lens where focus varied by viewing angle (form), then realized this solves the problem of switching between reading and distance glasses (function discovered after form).

SIT Techniques Overview

SIT provides structured techniques for manipulating Closed World components. Each technique is a different "operator" that transforms existing configurations into virtual products:

1. Variable Dependency (Attribute Dependency)

Create new relationships between previously independent variables. Map internal variables (controlled) and external variables (uncontrolled), then link pairs that were never connected before.

Use the standalone variable-dependency skill for deep exploration of this technique.

2. Subtraction

Remove a seemingly essential component and ask: "How could the product still deliver value without it?" This forces discovery of alternative paths and often reveals that the "essential" component was masking a simpler solution.

Examples:

• Removing the receptionist from a hotel → self-check-in kiosks (Formula 1 hotels)
• Removing the physical store → e-commerce
• Removing the driver → autonomous vehicles

3. Multiplication

Copy an existing component but modify the copy in some way. The copy isn't identical—it varies on at least one attribute. This creates new interactions between original and copy.

Examples:

• Multiple camera lenses on a phone (each with different focal length)
• Multiple pricing tiers (same product, different access levels)
• Multiple blade edges on a razor (each at slightly different angle)

4. Division

Break a component or the product itself into parts, then reorganize those parts in space or time. What was unified becomes modular; what happened all at once becomes sequenced.

Examples:

• Separating a remote control into modular buttons (customizable)
• Breaking a course into micro-lessons (Duolingo)
• Dividing payment into installments (buy-now-pay-later)

5. Task Unification

Assign an additional task to an existing component—a job it wasn't originally designed for. The component keeps its original function AND gains a new one, using what's already there.

Examples:

• Car antenna that also serves as a radio antenna (already there, new job)
• User reviews that serve as marketing content (users already writing, now also selling)
• Transaction data that serves as credit scoring (data already collected, new purpose)

Orchestrated Workflow

Step 1: Review Closed World

Start with the Closed World map from your solution-definition. This is your innovation playground.

List explicitly:

• Internal components (8-15 items you control)
• External components (5-10 items in the environment)
• Current relationships between components

Step 2: Choose Technique(s)

For comprehensive session (recommended first time): Apply all 5 techniques sequentially. Budget 15-20 minutes per technique. Target: 25-40+ ideas total.

For focused session:

• To discover new product behaviors: Variable Dependency
• To simplify radically: Subtraction
• To create product variants: Multiplication
• To create modularity or sequencing: Division
• To leverage existing assets: Task Unification

Step 3: Apply Function Follows Form

For each technique, follow this cycle:

1. Manipulate: Apply the technique to create a virtual product
2. Imagine: What would this configuration look like? How would it behave?
3. Discover value: Who would benefit? What problem does it solve? What new capability does it provide?
4. Capture: Record the idea with its potential value proposition

Critical: Don't reject virtual products because they seem strange. The strangeness is the point—you're discovering innovations no one has imagined yet.

Step 4: Capture All Ideas

Don't judge yet—just generate. Aim for 5-8 ideas per technique. Target: 25-40+ total ideas.

Step 5: Quick Filtering

After all techniques, do a quick pass to remove duplicates and obviously infeasible ideas.

Step 6: Ready for Evaluation

Move to idea-evaluation skill to rate and select top ideas.

Using Individual SIT Technique Skills

You can use individual SIT techniques as standalone skills for deeper exploration:

• variable-dependency - Deep dive on creating new relationships between variables

When to use individual skills:

• You want deeper exploration of one technique
• Time-constrained (choose 1-2 most relevant techniques)
• Targeting a specific innovation type

When to use this orchestrator:

• First time using SIT on a solution
• Want comprehensive coverage across all techniques
• Need a large quantity of diverse ideas

Complete Examples

For inspiration and patterns: Read references/example-outputs.md for complete SIT sessions applied to case studies:

• FairCredit (Nigeria mobile micro-lending)
• AsyncFlow (Southeast Asia remote collaboration)
• SolarSeva (Rural India home solar)
• Unbroken (Sweden disaster logistics)

Each example shows multiple SIT techniques applied with Function Follows Form reasoning.

Output Format

Structure your SIT ideation session as follows:

# SIT Ideation: [Product/Service Name]

## Closed World Reference
**Internal Components:**
- [List from solution-definition]

**External Components:**
- [List from solution-definition]

**Current Key Relationships:**
- [Component A] → [Component B]: [nature of relationship]

---

## VARIABLE DEPENDENCY Ideas
[5-8 ideas creating new relationships between variables]

1. **Virtual Product:** [describe the new configuration]
   **Variables linked:** [Variable A] ↔ [Variable B]
   **Type:** [Internal-Internal / Internal-External / External-External]
   **Value discovered:** [what benefit this creates and for whom]

---

## SUBTRACTION Ideas
[5-8 ideas removing seemingly essential components]

1. **Virtual Product:** [describe what the product looks like without the component]
   **What's removed:** [component]
   **How value is preserved:** [what compensates or what new value emerges]
   **Value discovered:** [benefit and target user]

---

## MULTIPLICATION Ideas
[5-8 ideas copying and modifying components]

1. **Virtual Product:** [describe the configuration with the modified copy]
   **What's copied:** [component]
   **How the copy differs:** [what attribute changes]
   **Value discovered:** [benefit and target user]

---

## DIVISION Ideas
[5-8 ideas breaking components into parts or resequencing]

1. **Virtual Product:** [describe the reorganized configuration]
   **What's divided:** [component or process]
   **How it's reorganized:** [spatial, temporal, functional division]
   **Value discovered:** [benefit and target user]

---

## TASK UNIFICATION Ideas
[5-8 ideas assigning new tasks to existing components]

1. **Virtual Product:** [describe the component with its new role]
   **Component:** [existing component]
   **Original task:** [what it already does]
   **New task assigned:** [additional function]
   **Value discovered:** [benefit and target user]

---

## Summary
**Total ideas generated:** [count]
**Ideas to explore further:** [quick list of most promising]
**Surprising discoveries:** [ideas that emerged from Function Follows Form that no one would have requested]
**Ready for:** idea-evaluation skill

Tips for Success

Before starting:

• Have your PRFAQ and Closed World map ready
• Set timer: 75-100 minutes for full SIT session
• Internalize Function Follows Form: you're creating configurations first, finding value second
• List all components explicitly—don't rely on memory

During ideation:

• Embrace the strange: Virtual products are supposed to feel unfamiliar. That's the signal you're discovering something new.
• Don't skip "value discovery": After creating each virtual product, spend 1-2 minutes genuinely asking "who could benefit from this?"
• Stay in the Closed World: If you catch yourself adding external resources, redirect to what's already there
• Quantity over quality: Defer judgment. Capture everything.
• If stuck on a technique, move to the next and come back later

After ideation:

• Let ideas sit for a few hours or overnight
• Quick pass to remove duplicates
• Group related ideas as variations
• Note which ideas surprised you most—these often have the highest breakthrough potential

Common Pitfalls

Avoid these mistakes:

• Adding external resources: The whole point is using what's already in the Closed World. If you're adding things, you're doing traditional brainstorming, not SIT.
• Skipping Function Follows Form: Creating virtual products without asking "what value could this have?" misses the discovery step entirely.
• Rejecting "impossible" configurations: The virtual product doesn't need to be immediately buildable. Ask what value it WOULD provide if it existed, then figure out feasibility later.
• Judging too early: Kills the discovery process. Generate first, evaluate later.
• Only thinking about current customers: Virtual products often serve customers you haven't considered. Ask "who would love this?" not "would our current users want this?"
• Confusing SIT with SCAMPER: SCAMPER asks "how can I change this component?" SIT asks "what happens when I create a new relationship/remove/copy/divide/unify components—and what unexpected value emerges?"

SIT vs SCAMPER: Complementary Approaches

Aspect	SCAMPER	SIT
Starting point	"How can I modify components?"	"What virtual product emerges from this manipulation?"
Direction	Function → Form (improve toward a goal)	Form → Function (discover value from configuration)
Constraint	Works within Closed World	Closed World is the foundational principle
Strength	Systematic modification across 7 lenses	Discovers genuinely non-obvious innovations
Best for	Improving and varying existing concepts	Finding breakthrough concepts no one asked for
Quantity target	30-50+ ideas	25-40+ ideas

Use both: SCAMPER first (familiar, productive), then SIT (deeper, more surprising). Or use SIT when SCAMPER yields only incremental ideas.

Integration with Previous Phases

SIT ideation builds directly on solution-definition:

From PRFAQ:

• Customer pains help evaluate virtual products ("would this address a real pain?")
• Vision guides which virtual products are worth exploring further

From Closed World:

• Internal components are your building blocks for manipulation
• External components provide variables for dependency creation
• Existing relationships reveal what's already connected (and what isn't)

Next Steps

After completing SIT ideation:

1. Quick review: Remove obvious duplicates and clearly infeasible ideas
2. Combine with SCAMPER: If you haven't already, run SCAMPER for complementary ideas
3. Evaluation: Use idea-evaluation skill to rate and rank all ideas
4. Validation: Use critical-validation skill (Six Hats) on top ideas

The goal is to discover innovations that traditional brainstorming would never surface. If your SIT session produced ideas that surprised you, it worked.

Individual Technique Resources

For deeper exploration of specific techniques, see:

• variable-dependency skill - Creating new relationships between variables

Each individual skill provides more detailed prompts, examples, and templates for that specific SIT technique.