Creative Problem Solving Pdf
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- What Is Creative Problem Solving
SOLVING devising ways to answer, to meet, or to resolve the problem. Therefore, CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING or CPS is a process, method, or system for approaching a problem in an imaginative way and resulting in effective action. The Creative Problem Solving process presented in this workbook is known as the Osborn-Parnes problem-solving model. The purpose of this chapter is to describe what we mean by “creative approaches to prob - lem solving.” As a result of reading this chapter, you will be able to do the following: 1. Describe the four basic elements of the system for understanding creativity. Explain what the terms creativity, problem solving, and creative problem solving. Creative Problem Solving & Critical Thinking What is a Problem?. Random House Unabridged Dictionary includes several definitions for the word “problem.” The definitions that we are most concerned with while learning about the creative problem solving process are: o “Any question or matter involving doubt. Six-Step Problem-Solving Process. Step One: Define the Problem: “What is the problem?”. How often does the problem occur?. When does it occur?. When doesn’t it occur?. Where does it occur most often?. Who tends to be involved with the problem most often?. Keep in mind the problem may change in scope as you examine it. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Creative Problem Solving 3 Creativity is a crucial factor in business today and any manager without creative insights into a business cannot handle the multiple requirements of an increasingly malleable customer base.
Creative problem solving know how; Keep the big picture in view; Climate – Trust and how it impacts on creative problem solving Field and climate, using your energy productively; Framing – how to think about the world to promote creative problem solving; A paradox – Structured creative problem solving.
Creative problem solving requires creative problem solving activities. Because even if you know all of the problem solving steps, it’s important to know exercises and techniques to actually execute each phase.
Listed below are 20 interactive exercises that will help you through each step of the problem solving process.
Problem Solving Activities
Note: For the sake of demonstration, we’re going to use the same example for each exercise, in this case, the difficult problem of opening a jar of peanut butter (to make a delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich of course).
Step 1: Define the Problem
Problem solving activities that help you phrase and understand the problem you are trying to solve:
#1. Newspaper Headline – Try writing your problem as if it were a headline in a newspaper. You can write it as if the problem still exists, or as if the problem were already solved. Try Tabloid headlines for even more creative ideas.
Example: “Local man attempts to provide joy to the world by opening a jar of peanut butter.”
#2. Future Party – Imagine it’s one year from today; what did you solve in the last year? How is the world different based on the solution? What were the steps you took to solve the problem?
Example: “I can’t believe it’s been a year since we ate all the peanut butter from that crazy tight jar.”
#3. 40-20-10-5 – Explain your problem in up to 40 words. Then cut it down to 20 words; then to 10, then finally to only 5 words. These 5 words are the root of your problem (and likely the root of your solution as well).
Example: (Starting at 10 words) “I want to open up this jar of peanut butter.” -> “Open this peanut butter jar.”
#4. Explain Life I’m Five – Explain your problem as if you were talking to a 5-year old kid. Use basic language and simple metaphors if necessary. Inspired by the subreddit ELI5.
When he returns from exile, Kenji comes across bandits raiding a peasant village. Most units have resistances to particular properties and weaknesses to others. Battle realms 2 download. For example, the Dragon Samurai has excellent resistance against cutting attacks, but has a poor resistance to explosive and magic damage.StoryIn single-player, the plot mainly revolves around Kenji, last heir to the Serpent's Throne. The property of a unit's missile attack may also differ from its melee attack. Units can dodge projectiles if they run fast enough, and projectiles have different speeds and fire at certain angles.A unit's attack has a property — either cutting, piercing, blunt, explosive, magic, or fire, as well as a bonus damage against buildings.
Example: “There’s yummy-ness in this jar that I want to get out.”
Creative Problem Solving Tools Pdf
Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas
Problem solving activities that help you generate a list of possible solutions that will solve your problem*:
#5. Ad Game – Have people mill about the room. When someone offers up an idea, everyone emphatically says “Yes!” and then the group continues to generate ideas, often building off the last idea that was just offered.
Example: “We should use a tool to open this jar.” “Yes!” “And it should not hurt our hands.” “Yes!” “And it’ll be nearly effortless.” “Yes!”
#6. Dumbest Idea First – Hold a contest to get the dumbest idea out first. Encourage everyone to think of the absolute dumbest possible solutions to the problem. After you have a long list, go back through and see which ones may not be all that dumb.
Example: “Let’s open it using C4 explosives.”
#7. What Would X Do – Pretend you’re someone famous (or someone you admire) and ask yourself how they would solve the problem, what options would they consider?
Example: (as Gandhi) “I will go on a hunger strike until the jar is ready to be open.”
#8. 10x10x10 Matrix – Generate a list of 10 ideas for solving the problem. Pick one of those ideas and generate 10 variations of that idea. Pick one idea from the new list and generate 10 more variations.
Example: (with just 5 ideas):
–Round 1 (based on tools)–Dynamite, Power Drill, Vise grip, Scissors, Hammer.
–Round 2 (based on vise grip)–Metal clamp, Pliers, Glue, Cement, Sticky Glove.
–Round 3 (based on sticky glove)–Lots of tapping, Rubbing the seal, Punching, Soft caresses, Really strong hand.
*Note: Some of the exercises may not produce the perfect solution, but they can get you thinking differently.
Step 3: Decide on a Solution
Problem solving activities that help you narrow your list of possible solutions down to the best solution.
#9. Futures Wheel – Pick a possible solution and write it in the center of a piece of paper. List possible direct results/consequences of the solution around the center idea. List possible indirect results/consequences based on the direct results/consequences. Find more info here.
Example: Really strong hand leads to: ability to open other types of jars as well, big forearms, possible blisters, …
#10. Thiagi’s 35– Use a point system to determine the preferred solution among your team, turning a possibly subjective discussion into an objective group decision. You can find a more detailed explanation on Thiagi’s site.
Example: Really strong hand – 7pts. Punching the jar – 3pts. A soft caress – 1pts.
#11. Idea Trial – When you can’t get agreement on which solution to choose, have the proponents of each idea represent them in “court.” Go through opening arguments, call witnesses and allow closing statements. Have the project board choose the winner.
Example: “Really strong hand, is it true you could also be used for terrible things, such as opening a can of sardines?”
#12. Coin-Flip – When deciding between two equally good solutions, flip a coin. When the coin is in the air, take note of what you secretly hope the result is and go with that (if you really can’t decide between the two, then go with the actual result of the coin-flip). Inspired by this poster.
Example: Heads is strong hands, tails is a soft cares. *Toss.* (I really don’t want to have to caress this jar of peanut butter…) Strong hands it is!
Step 4: Implement the Solution
Problem solving activities that help you implement the solution you have chosen:
#13. End in Mind – To create your plan, start with the end in mind and work backwards. Establish key milestones and dates in reverse order, starting with the end-of-project celebration and ending with today.
Example: Eat delicious PB&J sandwich (5pm), Make delicious PB&J sandwich (4:58pm), Open Peanut Butter Jar (4:57pm), Build up grip strength (4:47), …
#14. Idea Mock-ups– Create a mock-up of the solution. You can a create physical mock-up using the various supplies in your office or a virtual mock-up using images from around the web.
Example: Tell me you wouldn’t buy this incredible product.
#15. Gamification – Turn the completion of your project into a game. Establish rules for how you earn points, create badges to celebrate milestones and track game progress. Learn more about gamification.
Example: For each squeeze of the PB Gripper, you get 1 point. 100 points earns you the Gripper Badge, 500 points earns you a pudding cup. After 1,000 points you should be able to open the Peanut Butter jar.
#16. Be a Character – Add some fun to your work by executing your plan as if you were a fictional character. Think about how they would operate and get into character.
Example: (as the Incredible Hulk): HULK SMASH!
Step 5: Review the Results
Problem solving activities that help you review the results you achieved and the way you achieved them:
#17. Apply McLuhan – Answer McLuhan’s tetrad of questions in context of your solution: 1) What does your solution enhance? 2) What does it make obsolete? 3) What does it bring back that was once obsolete and 4) What does it flip into when taken to the extreme?
Example: Using a strong grip to open the jar: 1) The ability to get peanut butter, 2) Other tools for opening jars, 3) The joy of cooking my own food, 4) Only eating peanut butter and nothing else.
#18. Word on the Street– Conduct “word-on-the-street” type interviews with members of your team, asking them how they felt about the project and the solution.
Example: “Sir, what’s your opinion on this new development on the ability to consume delicious peanut butter?”
#19. Stop-Start-Continue – Review the way you completed your project and pick activities you should stop (things you did on this project that you don’t think are necessary for future projects), start (things you didn’t do on this project but that you should do on future projects) and continue (things you did on the project that you should do on future projects).
Example: STOP doing every single exercise for one solution. START finding snacks to eat while waiting to get to the solution. CONTINUE eating peanut butter.
#20. Find the Funny – Write a monologue or stand-up set that covers some of the funny moments or ideas from the project. Share it with your team.
Example: What’s the deal with airline peanut butter?
Creative Problem Solving
The purpose of the above problem solving activities is to get you to think about the problem in a different way and have some fun while solving it–both of which will enhance your creativity in finding and implementing a solution. And as Einstein (probably) said:”The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
Note: The example used may be a bit facetious but these exercises do work for tougher problems. I wanted to include an example to facilitate understanding and it happened to be around snack time.
This is a suite of 9 creative problem solving tools from Erik op ten Berg. He’s an expert in creative thinking or applying creativity from the Netherlands.
He’s been working in this field for 25 years and has a Master of Science from Buffalo State University in New York.
His creative problem solving process takes a challenge and finds ideas that are new, useful and meaningful. I guarantee you this process will help you mobilise your group’s creative thinking skills.
You and your group will find original ideas which are always there. This helps you get to the holy grail of breakthrough thinking and quite possibly the ‘next big thing’.
Download free slides.. enter your email address at the bottom to get this team building activity in your inboxDownload free slides.. enter your email address at the bottom to get this team building activity in your inboxInterview with Erik op ten Berg
Watch this video to see Erik describe in detail how each tool / activity works with examples.
Please note that the video and audio quality is a little shaky in places. Sorry about that! We had some technical issues with Skype that were difficult to overcome.
Four Stages of Creative Problem Solving
The first two stages help you and your group ‘explore ideas’. The third stage helps you select the best ideas and the fourth tests the feasibility of your best ideas.
These are the four stages you need to go through (no skipping a stage please):
Always start with the ABC Avalanche and then use 1 or 2 of the next 5 tools to expand the list of possible solutions.
1. ABC Avalanche (3:55sec on video)
A very basic brainstorming technique but extremely powerful.
This tool asks people to generate at least 26 ideas for a specific challenge sorting them by their first letters. It takes about 10-15 minutes.
Process
Because participants focus on generating a specific number of ideas they postpone their judgments.
These attitudes are core to creative problem solving:
Creative Thinking And Problem Solving Pdf
Depending on the number of people in the session you can split into sub-groups. Feel free to build in a little competition between the groups if you like.
From this stage you have at least 26 starting ideas and people won’t have jumped into judging whether they are good ideas or not.
2. Breaking Assumptions (7:38min on video)
This is a second stage to an ABC Avalanche.
One of the very classical thinking techniques because to be truly creative you need to break patterns.
Once you’re aware of a pattern or an assumption in your idea generation so far you can deliberately break this assumption and new ideas will come forward and present themselves.
Process
You ask the group to identify any patterns or assumptions that are built into either the challenge or list of ideas they’ve generated so far.
Then you ask them to take the opposite view (i.e. break that assumption) and come up with any new solutions and add them to your list of ideas.
3. Association Flower (11:13min on video)
Also a second stage technique after ABC Avalanche giving you and your group extra ‘access points’ from which to consider the challenge and generate more ideas.
This technique will generate a long list of associated keywords that can be used to generate even more ideas related to the original challenge.
Process
Creativity Problem Solving Pdf
4. Visual Connections (15:33min on video)
Another way to create new ‘access points’ from which to generate new ideas.
Process
You could bring a deck of pictures with you, or a set of magazines, or even ask the participants to bring their own magazines so they’re an integral part of the process.
5. SCAMPER (18:31min on video)
Use the 8 words from the acronym to approach the challenge from a different angle and generate a larger list of creative ideas.
SCAMPER is the summary of 72 questions used by Alex Osborn who is the man that founded the concept of brainstorming in the early 40s.
Process
There’s no need to do all these words. Let them go wherever they want to go to create more productive access points to tackle the original challenge.
6. Analogy with nature (22:32min on video)
Sometimes people are using this technique as biomimicry.
Your question to the group: what kind of animals are you thinking about when you use your imagination?
Get them to list lots of animals quickly and ask them to select one. What is it that makes this an extraordinary animal?
Once you have that list of characteristics about the animal use those words as access points to generate more ideas about the challenge. What you’re doing here is using the beauty of nature and bringing that connection back to the challenge.
Process
Next step is to select ideas through a process of prioritization that you want to go deeper into and do further work on to develop them further.
7. Selecting ideas & COCD Box (24:37min on video)
Using a combination of dots (or hits as Erik calls them) and his COCD box you’re looking to boil down your grand list of ideas down to about 15 really good ones (5 in each color – blue, red and yellow).
Process
Creative Problem Solving Process Pdf
Once you have 5 good ideas in each of the coloured boxes look for themes across them to try and boil everything down to a Top 5 by making some smart combinations.
If you’re looking for breakthrough ideas (and most often you will be) the ideas in the red box will be the ones you want to focus on in the next stage.
8. Concepting (30:07min on video)
What you’re looking to do now is enrich your ideas into concepts. You do this by combining your headline ideas with other ideas that are closely related from your overall list.
Take each red idea in turn and see if you can bundle in other ideas from the grand list.
Process
Then give the enriched ideas a more attractive title.
9. PPCO (33:38min on video)
This is one of Erik’s little gems he got out of his Master of Science in Buffalo.
At this stage you’re looking to expand and test your best ideas or concepts for feasibility.
Creative Problem Solving Techniques
Process
Strategies Creative Problem Solving Pdf
PPCO is like a SWOT analysis but in a more positive end. A moving towards approach instead of getting away approach. Facing truth and reality in a way of opportunities.
You end with a triple positive state with very realistic backgrounds. That’s the kind of creativity you need when you have a good idea and you want to move it further whilst trying to taste a bit of the potential of it.
Conclusion
Creative problem solving is a process that, if you have the right tools and activities at hand, you can consistently achieve fantastic results from.
For your session to be a success you need to make sure you move past the first few obvious ideas, you generate tonnes of alternatives and that you postpone judgment on the quality of each idea until the appropriate moment.
How does your experience stack up? Do you have any secrets you’d like to share in the comments below?