While some of the approaches mentioned below do work to some extent (TRIZ, etc.), they won't really make you "inventive". Personally I think they're all gimmicks (although to be fair they are gimmicks that work). I think what you really want is to "become" an inventive person instead of trying to force invent stuff. Read this book for starters: http://www.amazon.com/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-From/dp/15944853...
He was mostly interested in how exactly to develop a creativity trait, and came up with something called a "Theory of a Creative Personality Development", a further generalisation of TRIZ.
There are some anecdotal confirmations from various schools across the former USSR that this approach is known to produce some stable results. So at least it worth looking into.
As i mentioned it does work. And it is a good guideline to look at when you're stuck. But it's not the fundamental solution. TRIZ teaches you to emulate creativity. The whole idea is "how can an even ordinary person come up with creative ideas?" My point was that's all fine and it's good to learn that skill, but it would be better if you shoot for actually "becoming a creative person" instead of "ordinary person coming up with creative ideas". I suggested that book above because I found it helpful from that point of view.
I suspect, there is no such a thing as an inherently "creative" person. I very closely followed the biographies of many of the greatest minds, and I'm yet to see a compelling evidence that creativity is some kind of a special trait which cannot be acquired.
There are just people who somehow know the creativity tricks (either deliberately learned or randomly discovered), and the "ordinary" people who happen to have a little gap in their education. Learning the formal approaches to creativity could help to close this gap.
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm basically agreeing with you that there is no inherently creative person and you can acquire it. I'm just making a distinction between becoming actually creative vs. emulating creativity. I would rather "become a creative person" than "use techniques to come up with creative solutions" if I were to pick one.
Firstly, as I said, all the post-TRIZ works by Altshuller were exactly about training the creativity as a personality trait, not about the formal invention methods.
Secondly, if simulating creativity is indistinguishable (by the outcome) from a "true" creativity, then the very existence of creativity is questionable, and it is likely that all forms of creativity can be explained by simply knowing (maybe subconsciously) a number of techniques of "simulating" the creativity.
I didn't say TRIZ is bad. I even said it's a good technique to learn. I just pointed out that anyone can be creative without "training". The concept of training is based on the assumption that people are not naturally creative. I think anyone has potential to come up with creative achievements in their lives but only small number of people get the opportunity or motivation to do so. I think in many cases it's just a matter of changing your mindset and putting yourself in the right environment. Anyway, if you haven't read that book I recommended above please take a look.
