A powerful technique for open ended, creative problem solving involves representing your goal as an object. Surround it with questions. Attach actions to the questions. You can also put a “delta” symbol in front of the questions, to stimulate change actions.

I recommend using the Brain Organizer notebook for this type of creative problem solving. There is no other framework like it for chunking down problems into their essential elements: questions, actions and visualizations. Chunking down the problem is more than half the battle. The solution is usually hiding on the back of the elements, and becomes obvious when you flip them over.