ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a creative and open mind in engineering and to show how it can be achieved in practice. Creativity plays a crucial role in engineering and in particular in the planning and design of engineering projects. One of the main problems in developing novel or creative solutions is the tendency to apply one of the brain's shortcut heuristics and go with the first viable solution that comes to mind. Creative individuals are not necessarily those that are highly intelligent and so many will not stand out in an academic sense. The purpose of thinking creatively is not to be right, but to be effective. In general thinking there is a tendency to judge each and every aspect of new ideas and to try and discard them on any particular or perceived flaw. One of the issues with problem-solving is the tendency to impose limits on the solution due to assumptions which are made even without realising it.
