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11.1.3. Challenging: PO

How To Invent (Almost) Anything > 11. Stimulating Ideas > 11.1. Challenging > 11.1.3. Challenging: PO

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PO is a word invented by Edward DeBono. It stands for ‘provocative operation’ and is used to prefix a statement that is deliberately intended to provoke different ideas, breaking out of the current pattern of thought. It can be a nonsense statement like ‘PO: The road to a solution is nowhere’ or a deliberate juxtaposition such as ‘PO: The subject learns the child’.

The prefix ‘PO’ acts as a warning ‘Look out, here comes a radical stimulus.’ It also legitimises the strangeness of what is being said, effectively saying ‘This is not the normal me–I am just saying this as a provocation.’
 

Parts in this section are:

• 11.1.1. Challenging: Challenge
• 11.1.2. Challenging: Assumption Busting
• 11.1.3. Challenging: PO

Sections in this chapter are:

• 11.1. Challenging
• 11.2. Creating Tension

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