It is a further refinement of brainstorming and has been developed by William J.J. Gordon. It believes that the creative process is not logical. It is more of an accident. Inventions occur when a person has applied his mind to the problem, but no solution is in sight. The solution emerges all of a sudden. It is seemingly an unrelated situation. Archimedes Principle, gravity and penicillin all emerged as sudden solutions to long thought-about problems.

Synectics encouraged participants to discuss seemingly unrelated topics, and then comeback to the initial problem. An attempt is then made to find original solutions through  ‘force-fit’ discussions. A competent leader with six to eight intelligent participants provide execellent results. A synectic session with un-creative people will , however, be useless.