Lateral thinking is an aid to creativity when one needs to have diverse ideas.

It is a
function of knowledge and imagination that may bring out discovery, innovation, imagination,
and exploration. Lateral thinking consists of seeking as many alternative options as possible
to the extent of one’s adventurousness. In other words, it is a mental activity involving
making connections between knowledge and ideas that were previously unrelated. The
basis of lateral thinking is that since many problems require a different perspective to be
solved successfully, individuals should suspend their judgment about what is relevant to a
course of action
• It essentially means being able to think creatively or "outside the box" in order to
solve a problem.Lateral thinking is solving problems by an indirect and creative
approach, typically through viewing the problem in a new and unusual light. Lateral
thinking is the ability to use your imagination to look at a problem in a fresh way and
come up with a new solution.
• First of all, lateral thinking questions are not exact puzzles, i.e. there is no one exact
answer for these questions. Though there are so many possible answers, only one
answer truly satisfies the given puzzle. Here, lateral thinking questions and answers
along with clues are provided to let you test your lateral thinking capability. These are
a combination of storytelling and puzzling questions. You may not be able to solve
these puzzles directly without clues because the information in the puzzle is not
complete. Clues are designed in such a way that there are only three possible
answers to clues i.e. “yes”, “no”, “Irrelevant”. After using clues, your thinking will
move to new direction i.e. lateral direction. That’s why these are called as lateral
thinking puzzles. If you can be able to solve 50% of the questions, your lateral
thinking capability is unquestionably awesome. So, let’s stop the crap and get started
with lateral thinking questions and answers.

• Lateral thinking is the ability to use your imagination to look at a problem in a fresh
way and come up with a new solution. Without lateral thinking, companies can’t
innovate and create new products – they’re just stuck with doing the same old thing,
perhaps more efficiently than before, but they won’t be able to lead the way.
This skill is highly prized in creative industries such as the media and publishing, and
is valued across a range of different industries and professions, including retail, law,
management consultancy and IT.

Thinking out of the box - Lateral Thinking

Pretend that you’re trapped in a magical room with only two exits.
Through the first exit is a room made from a giant magnifying glass,
and the blazing hot sun will fry you to death. Through the second door
is a room with a fire-breathing dragon. Which do you go through?

The first door, of course.

Simply wait until the sun goes down 😊

The answer to this puzzle is an example of what psychologists call

“lateral thinking.” The most elegant solution presents itself when you
approach the problem sideways, rather than answering it head-on.
Though the question is presented as a binary choice—one option or the
other—when you disregard the assumption that you must act
immediately, the “best” answer becomes obvious. The term “lateral
thinking” describes a problem-solving methodology in which users
employ reasoning that may not be immediately obvious. The
most prominent lateral thinking technique is his "Six thinking hats".
Without lateral thinking, companies can’t innovate and create new
products – they’re just stuck with doing the same old thing, perhaps
more efficiently than before, but they won’t be able to lead the way.
This skill is highly prized in creative industries such as the media and
publishing, and is valued across a range of different industries
and professions, including retail, law, management consultancy and IT.
Breakthroughs, by very definition, only occur when assumptions are
broken. In creative fields, this often happens when people break rules
that aren’t actually rules at all, but rather simply conventions. Pablo
Picasso changed art forever by smashing the “rules” of perspective,
color and proportion. When we look at great inventions and solutions
to problems throughout history—the kinds that make what came
before instantly obsolete—we see this pattern again and again.

“We assume certain perceptions, certain concepts and certain

boundaries,” explains Edward de Bono, who coined the term in 1967.
“Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces
but with seeking to change those very pieces.” It’s the art of reframing
questions, attacking problems sideways. They way a computer hacker
would think.

The trouble for most of us is that even if we’re “creative,” our default
setting is “linear thinking.” But that default can be overridden. Here are
five steps to train yourself to think a little more laterally with any
challenge:

1) List the assumptions

When confronted with a question (problem, challenge, etc.), write out

the assumptions inherent to the question. In the case of the puzzle
above, the list might include the following:

 You want to get out of the room

 You have to choose one of the two options
 You have to do something now
 Room One will kill you no matter what (or so we think!)
 Room Two will kill you no matter what

2) Verbalize the convention

Next, ask yourself the question, “How would a typical person

approach this problem?” Map out the obvious, straightforward
solutions. Then ask yourself, “What if I couldn’t go this route?”

3) Question the question

Ask yourself, “What if I could rewrite the question?” Rearrange the

pieces, as de Bono suggests, to form a new scenario. In the trapped
room scenario, instead of, “Which do you go through?” you might
rewrite the question to ask, “Will you go through one of them?” or “Will
these really kill you?” or “Do you even need to go through one of
them?”

4) Start backwards

Often the route to solving a problem is revealed when you start with
the solution first, and try to work backward. For example, asking the
question, “How would I get into a trapped room if it were adjoined by a
room made out of a magnifying glass?” By reframing the challenge in
this way, you’ll notice that I stripped away the details that cause you to
overthink the answer to the trapped room example. But in a real-life
scenario, this question might sound more like, “How could we
renewably generate 10 gigajoules of electricity?” rather than “How
could we make the city more energy efficient?”—a vague question
that often results in straightforward, but ineffective answers like, “Get
people to turn off their lights more.”

5) Change perspective

Finally, one of the reasons innovation often happens when outsiders

enter a new industry, is because fresh perspective are convention-
ignorant. To kickstart lateral thinking, you might do well to pretend you
were someone else trying to solve the problem. Say, if you were a
magician, or a scientist, or a track and field star—how would they
escape from the fire room? Or how would the fire-breathing dragon
answer this question?

Let’s try a few puzzles

Lateral thinking puzzles are strange situations in which you are given a
little information and then have to find the explanation. To solve the
below puzzle one needed to apply common sense more than logic or
math. They will test your common sense, creativity and your ability to
think out-of-the-box.

It is possible to construct various answers which fit the initial statement

of the puzzle. However, for a good lateral thinking puzzle, the proper
answer will be the best in the sense of the most apt and satisfying.
When you hear the right answer to a good puzzle of this type you should
want to kick yourself for not working it out!

 A man is lying dead in a field. Next to him there is an unopened

package. There is no other creature in the field. How did he die?
 A man rode into town on Friday. He stayed for three nights and
then left on Friday. How come?

 A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the
same day of the same month of the same year. But they were not
twins. How could this be so?

 A man pushed his car. He stopped when he reached a hotel at

which point he knew he was bankrupt. Why?
  Anthony and Cleopatra are lying dead on the floor of a villa in
Egypt. Nearby is a broken bowl. There is no mark on either of their
bodies and they were not poisoned. How did they die?

 The blind beggar A blind beggar had a brother who died. What
relation was the blind beggar to the brother who died? (Brother is
not the answer).

 A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left
early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch
subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?

But how is this important to Software Testing?

By definition, software quality assurance is a highly analytical discipline.

As you test and debug different products, you rely more on the left
hemisphere of your brain – the side that handles logic

The very act of finding problems requires an outside-the-box perspective

that defies common sense. One must approach each task with a child's
mind that is open to new possibilities – both obvious and
counterintuitive. The act of resolving problems requires even greater
flexibility since, by its very nature, software testing is all about exploring
new ground. We often find ourselves answering questions that have
never been asked. This explains why we’re such strong advocates of
continuous training. The goal of lateral thinking is to expose your mind to
new ways of doing things : to visit unfamiliar territory that classical
analysis would never (and could never) explore. You won’t strike gold
each time. But every now and then, you will discover something new.
And with that insight, you can begin pulling the thread and developing
innovative solutions to problems you never knew existed – or making
improvements you never thought could be made.

It as a contrast to traditional problem-solving. Instead of following rigidly

defined logical steps, one should think outside the box. By relying on
intuition and creativity, teams could stumble upon solutions that might
otherwise remain hidden. Lateral thinking, however, isn’t a switch you
can turn on or off at will. Eureka moments typically come out of nowhere
– they can’t be forced into existence. But lateral thinking offers a formula
that makes it easier to coax out brilliant insights. By adopting it you can
consciously structure the development cycle to make rigid thinking less
tenable – and lateral thinking more achievable 😊

Sources:

The 6 Thinking Hats of Software Testing

Eduard de Bono – Lateral thinking

SMARTCUTS: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate

Success

Infuriating Lateral Thinking Puzzles -Paul Sloane