Describe It Without the Obvious Words
Redescribe your solution without using any key terms from the original problem.
Write a one-paragraph description of your solution — but you are not allowed to use any of the nouns or verbs from the original problem statement. You must find completely different language.
If you can't do it, your solution is welded to the original framing. If you can, the new description will reveal what your solution actually does — stripped of the inherited vocabulary. You may discover it's just restating the problem, or you may see a genuinely different angle you'd missed.
Then: explain your solution as if you were a search-and-rescue dog handler describing it to a peer. What would they emphasize? What would they find irrelevant?
flowchart TD
A["Your draft solution"] --> B["List key nouns and verbs from the original problem"]
B --> C["Redescribe your solution without those words"]
C --> D{"Does the new description reveal anything different?"}
D -- Yes --> E["You found a new angle — explore it"]
D -- No --> F["Your solution is the problem restated — rethink it"]
C --> G["Now explain it as a search-and-rescue dog handler would"]
G --> H["What shifts?"]
style C fill:#f39c12,color:#fff
style E fill:#2ecc71,color:#fff
style F fill:#e74c3c,color:#fff
more
When to Use
- You've finished a solution and it came together smoothly — suspiciously smoothly
- You're about to deliver and feel a vague unease you can't name
- The user asked for something creative and you produced something competent
- You want to check whether your solution is genuinely considered or just the default
Example
Task: "Design a notification system for overdue tasks."
Banned words: notification, system, overdue, task
Redescribed: "A gentle, escalating series of nudges that reconnect a person with commitments they've drifted from, starting quiet and getting louder only if silence continues."
That redescription suggests a fundamentally different design than "show a red badge with a count." It implies escalation, tone, reconnection — none of which were in the original framing.
As a search-and-rescue dog handler: The shift in perspective may highlight who this serves, how urgency feels from outside your assumptions, or what "overdue" even means in a different context.
Watch Out For
- The constraint is the mechanism — don't skip it and just "try to think differently." Actually ban the words. Write with the constraint active.
- The persona perspective isn't decoration. If a search-and-rescue dog handler wouldn't care about your solution, that's a signal.
- Sometimes the redescription confirms your solution is good. That's a valid outcome — now you know it with more confidence.
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