Maybe it's a whiteboard problem, but I would just call it a puzzle. Puzzle solving requires creativity. Picking up new technologies doesn't require creativity.

Maybe it's a whiteboard problem, but I would just call it a puzzle. Puzzle solving requires creativity. Picking up new technologies doesn't require creativity. Being a good developer (these days) also doesn't require much creativity, especially if you're just implementing spec and not designing systems. The best way to get better at puzzles is to practice puzzles! The reason I don't want to call these problems whiteboard problems is because it implies that they're only used in that context. These types of puzzles can be done for fun, too! Perhaps you start with simpler puzzles and try some simple solutions. You might solve a few. You'll try some harder puzzles and you'll get frustrated because the solution doesn't come immediately. Sometimes you'll combine two solutions you've used previously to solve something more complex. It's an amazing feeling! If you want a book of math puzzles, I recommend "Measurement" by Paul Lockhart. He explains and helps you explore math in the way he thinks it should be taught in schools, and I agree with him. If you want something more programming focused, take a look at "Programming Pearls" by Jon Bentley. It's a very old book, so the constraints he has to work with are quaint by today's standards (do something without using more than a megabyte of RAM. Hah!), but they're good puzzles as far as I remember. Good luck! Edit to add: The most useful thing you'll get from spending time with puzzles from a certain field is the intuition about which tools to reach for and which to forget about. You'll still likely have to try for a bunch of tools before you find the ones that work the best (or at all), but you'll get better at choosing ones that are more likely to work sooner, so you'll be able to progress faster on harder puzzles. As Greg LeMond said about cycling: ‘[It] never gets any easier, you just go faster’ :)