Synectics

---
name: synectics
description: Synectics Campaign — systematic use of analogy and metaphor for breakthrough associations via Gordon's 4 analogy types and excursion method.
execution: campaign
used-by: creative-ideation
---

# Synectics

Systematic use of analogy and metaphor for breakthrough associations via Gordon's 4 analogy types and excursion method.

## Strategy Routing

| Strategy | Signal Keywords |
|----------|----------------|
| direct-analogy | analogy, parallel, similar system, nature, biomimicry, structural similarity |
| personal-analogy | empathy, become, identify with, first-person, feel like, embody |
| symbolic-analogy | oxymoron, compressed conflict, poetic image, paradox, essence |
| fantasy-analogy | wish, ideal, magic, ignore constraints, if only, perfect world |
| excursion-method | excursion, departure, unrelated domain, force-fit, full process |

## Manifest

### Strategies

| Strategy | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| direct-analogy | Find structurally similar systems in nature/technology/society |
| personal-analogy | Empathic identification — become the system/component |
| symbolic-analogy | Compress core contradiction into poetic imagery/oxymoron |
| fantasy-analogy | Wish-fulfillment thinking — ignore physical laws for ideal solution |
| excursion-method | Full 8-stage Gordon-Prince excursion process |

### Tactics

| Tactic | Description |
|--------|-------------|
| analogy-extraction | Extract structural analogies from cross-domain sources (shared) |
| excursion-orchestration | Orchestrate departure → force-fit → springboard sequence |
| compressed-conflict | Generate oxymorons from contradictions and extract idea directions |

### SOPs

| SOP | Description |
|-----|-------------|
| direct-analogy-generation | Find direct analogies from nature/tech/society |
| personal-identification | First-person empathic identification with system |
| symbolic-compression | Compress contradiction into 2-3 word oxymoron |
| fantasy-wish | Unconstrained wish-fulfillment ideation |
| excursion-departure | Leave problem, explore unrelated domain |
| force-fit | Force-fit excursion discoveries back to problem |
| analogy-chain | Chain analogies to deeper levels (3-5 layers) |
| springboard-launch | Convert analogy insights into concrete solutions |
| synectics-synthesis | Synthesize all synectics outputs |

## Budget Table

| Strategy | web-search | web-research | paper-overview | paper-search | paper-research |
|----------|-----------|-------------|---------------|-------------|---------------|
| direct-analogy | 25 | 8 | 25 | 15 | 5 |
| personal-analogy | 15 | 5 | 15 | 10 | 3 |
| symbolic-analogy | 15 | 5 | 15 | 10 | 3 |
| fantasy-analogy | 15 | 5 | 15 | 10 | 3 |
| excursion-method | 30 | 10 | 25 | 15 | 8 |

## MCP Tools

| Tool | Server | Purpose |
|------|--------|---------|
| brave_web_search | brave-search | General web search for analogies and examples |
| brave_llm_context | brave-search | Deep content extraction from web pages |
| apify/rag-web-browser | apify | Full page scraping for detailed content |
| get_paper_content | alphaxiv | Read academic paper content |
| discover_papers | alphaxiv | Find relevant research papers |
| relevanceSearch | semantic-scholar | Search academic literature |
| paper | semantic-scholar | Get paper details |
| citations | semantic-scholar | Trace citation networks |

## Context Management

- Each strategy tracks its own budget via State Ledger
- Strategies MUST NOT exceed allocated budget
- Campaign monitors cumulative spend across all strategies
- If a strategy exhausts budget before meeting yield, escalate to campaign level for reallocation
- Prefer paper-overview over paper-research for initial exploration (lower cost)

## Available Tactics

| Tactic | Role |
|--------|------|
| analogy-extraction | Extract structural analogies from cross-domain sources (shared) |
| excursion-orchestration | Orchestrate departure → force-fit → springboard |
| compressed-conflict | Generate oxymorons and extract idea directions |

## Available SOPs

| SOP | Role |
|-----|------|
| direct-analogy-generation | Find direct analogies |
| personal-identification | Empathic identification |
| symbolic-compression | Oxymoron compression |
| fantasy-wish | Wish-fulfillment ideation |
| excursion-departure | Domain departure |
| force-fit | Force-fit back to problem |
| analogy-chain | Deepen analogies in layers |
| springboard-launch | Convert insights to solutions |
| synectics-synthesis | Final synthesis |