A term is stuck. Both sides have said the same six things three times, and every compromise on the table is a point on the line between two positions. Excursion runs a Synectics session on the stuck term: restate it as wishes, purge the obvious, leave the problem for an analogy in another field, and force the analogy to fit. You get structures nobody at the table has proposed — each with a Veteran's Note on whether anything like it has ever closed.
Pick the term type. Then describe the shape of the deadlock from the lists — positions are what people say; fears are what a structure has to answer. Nothing here is free text, and only the choices you make are sent to the force-fit engine.
Synectics is the creative-problem-solving method William J. J. Gordon described in 1961 and George M. Prince developed at Synectics, Inc. through the 1970s. It built products at Arthur D. Little for thirty years and is still taught in design and engineering programs. Its claim is that invention is a process, not a gift: make the familiar strange by leaving the problem for an analogy in another field, then bring back what you found and force it to fit.
A session has six steps — problem as given, problem as understood, purge, excursion, force fit, viewpoint — and this tool runs them in that order. Fisher and Ury's "invent options for mutual gain" names the goal. Synectics supplies the steps. As far as we know, nobody had pointed it at a contract term before.
Excursion is a drafting aid and a thinking discipline, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is formed by using it. The force-fit step sends only the option ids you selected — term type, positions, fears, constraint bands, springboards, mechanisms, purged items — to Settingstone's service, which is rate-limited and stores nothing. There is no free-text field on that path. The Viewpoint worksheet at the end is free text and never leaves your browser.
Prince's springboards: the deadlock restated as wishes, slightly unreasonable on purpose. They are ordered by how well each answers the fear pair you chose. Pick the two you most want answered — everything downstream is scored against those two.
Every structure below is a point on the line. Tick the ones already proposed at your table — it tells the engine where the argument has been. But the whole list is excluded from the output whether you tick it or not. The tool's first promise is that it will not sell you the obvious.
Now leave the deal. Three mechanisms from other fields, drawn at random and shown without reference to your problem. Read each one on its own terms — what it does at home, and the principle underneath it. Resist being useful for a minute; the distance is the method.
Up to three. Click a drawn card's × to free a slot.
The analogies are dragged back onto the term and made to fit whether they want to or not. Each card is a structure off the line: what it does, which fear it answers, what it costs you, what kills it, and the Veteran's Note. One card is always the tempting bad idea, named so you can say why not. Pick the one you want to take to the table.
Prince's itemized response: what is good about it first, then each concern phrased as a new "how to." A concern phrased as a wish is a problem the next excursion can work on; a concern phrased as an objection is the end of the conversation. This worksheet is free text and stays in your browser.
Every term type so far was written because someone asked. One email when the next one lands — nothing else.
The structures and Veteran's Notes are generated from your structural selections only and are a drafting aid, not legal advice or a recommendation for any actual transaction. No attorney-client relationship is formed. Every structure needs your own analysis against the actual agreement, the actual credit policy on the other side, and your own financing documents before it goes on a table. Built and maintained by Settingstone Legal — the operational tool chest for energy attorneys.