This idea has stayed with me for 20 years and when I encounter a book with seven good ideas, I feel I hit the jackpot. The book is Breathrough Thinking by Gerald Nadler and Shozo Hibino. It clarified some good habits I already had, showed me some to work on, and helped me recognize certain skills in others. There are Seven Principles of Creative Problem Solving. I'd like to use this space to tell you what has changed for me as a result of learning about the first three principles.
Every problem is unique.
In fact, I'm usually working with people who have problems. This starts me closer to the requestor and to a solution that breakthroughs my assumptions. The problems we work on exist in a hierarchy of purposes. Unless we explicitly discuss the purposes and pick the level to work on, our solution may only address a surface symptom. I now realize that a single problem statement is a point solution.