Creative problem-solving techniques for breaking through stuck points - includes collision-zone thinking, inversion, pattern recognition, and simplification

Problem Solving Skills A collection of techniques for breaking through stuck points and finding elegant solutions. Available Sub Skills When Stuck (Dispatch) Location: when stuck/SKILL.md Start here when stuck. Matches your stuck type to the right technique. Quick dispatch table for routing to the appropriate sub skill. Collision Zone Thinking Location: collision zone thinking/SKILL.md Force unrelated concepts together to discover emergent properties. "What if we treated X like Y?" Revolutionary insights come from deliberate metaphor mixing. Inversion Exercise Location: inversion exercise/SKILL.md Flip every assumption and see what still works. "What if the opposite were true?" Exposes hidden constraints and alternative approaches. Meta Pattern Recognition Location: meta pattern recognition/SKILL.md Spot patterns appearing in 3+ domains to find universal principles. Extract abstract forms that apply across domains. Scale Game Location: scale game/SKILL.md Test at extremes (1000x bigger/smaller) to expose fundamental truths. What breaks? What survives? Extremes reveal what normal scales hide. Simplification Cascades Location: simplification cascades/SKILL.md Find one insight that eliminates multiple components. "If this is true, we don't need X, Y, or Z." Look for unifying principles. When to Use How You're Stuck Use This Don't know which technique when stuck Need breakthrough innovation collision zone thinking Forced by assumptions inversion exercise Same issue in different places meta pattern recognition Unsure about production scale scale game Complexity spiraling simplification cascades Quick Reference Core Philosophy "One powerful abstraction ten clever hacks" These techniques help you find the elegant solution that makes complexity unnecessary, rather than managing complexity through brute force.