CIRCEPT (for circular and concept), it is a tool proposed by Michel Fustier, sociologist, to organize the production of ideas. Its purpose is to structure the result of creative work by building a circular reading grid.
Additional brainstorming, this method allows working on different topics when the creativity of a group is required to solve a problem, find new development paths, etc..
The steps of the method CIRCEPT
Once the group consisting, each participant has a number of words evoked by the subject in question. To stimulate their creativity, they proceed by association, analogy, opposition. Brainstorming as other creative methods are all set for this phase of idea generation.
The working group then shares the results of their brainstorming, putting them together. They can use post-it practices to move within a table.
The next step is to form groups of words sorted by proximity to create general topics. A title is given to each group formed. Comparing these subjects together, participants will define 2 axis within a circle. 2 axes summarizing the different subjects on opposite dimensions. The ends of each axis are conflicting notions eg individual public vs / vs cheap cheap / low-end vs high-end ..
It only remains to position each topic and words associated to this circle as a function of the proximity of terms with each axis.
Once finalized, the interpretation is conducted across the concepts and arranged circularly
PRINCIPLE
From creativity techniques, the CIRCEPT (for circular and concept) is a tool developed by the sociologist Michel Fustier to represent on the same diagram, associations of ideas or judgements made spontaneously facing a concept.
In "The Inventive" (collective work of Modern Enterprise Edition - 1970), Michel Fustier tells how did the idea of "circept" as he analysed fifty associations of ideas and analogies around the term "entrepreneur":
"The pictures were given bulk, opposing or calling each other. But under this apparent disorder, was hiding a structure. In fact, on the one hand each image or each group of images, was close to a picture or other image group, and, secondly, could be found in the list provided images absolutely contrary to each other. under these two characteristics, it was possible storing these images around a circular form, each point of the figure having thus neighborhoods and oppositions. "
This led him to develop a form of graphical representation and circular (rather than literary and linear) to account for the different voltages or "images" contained in a term (here, the word "entrepreneur") knowing that these tensions are not necessarily opposites (white / black), but can match complementaries, shades along each axis.
SCOPE OF CIRCEPT
The circept can be used to present the semantic territory in which fits a word or concept. It allows to account for the variety of perceptions and associations of ideas, structuring them along the corresponding axes.
By extension, it can also be used to give a synthetic representation and dynamics of a project (economic or otherwise) that highlights the different dimensions in which it falls (any project simultaneously several goals, sometimes contradictory often complementary). The circept then forms a "conceptual compass" that guides the discussion and facilitate decision (each new decision can be sifted from circept, to check that it fits well in the original project).
EXAMPLES OF USE
A) Research associations linked to the word "cane":
The word "rod" is defined as follows in a dictionary: "Stem straight certain plants // // Leg pop Shaped member on which the hand is pressed in walking.".
This objective definition (centered on the object) covers only partially associations of ideas that may come to mind when one is subjected to the stimulus "cane". So if you ask a group of people to note the 5 or 6 first ideas that appear they hear the word cane, we get a very varied list of terms "wood", "punishment", "disability", " knob "," duck "," Festival "," Dominique Strauss "," wandering "," old "," stick "," light "," hiking "," umbrella ", ...
By classifying terms as mentioned, we get several sets of families, which may be opposed or complementary. For example, the concept of disability is opposed to that motion, sugar cane and wood, have two plants statements; the duck or the city of Cannes belong to a family of homonyms, etc.
The circept then can account for the variety of perceptions and associations of ideas in structuring the corresponding axes:
