Chapter 4: Creativity and Problem Solving
What is creativity?
- Break away from traditional thinking
- Includes something that is artistic/craft oriented
- Creativity is a way of thinking
- Creative thinking is easy to apply to marketing, campaigns, product design, advertising
- Decision making, problem solving etc, requires us to think differently to traditional methods
- Highly competitive world – new ideas are essential in order to stay ahead
Routine thinking:
- Constraints us by limiting possibilities
- Your brain naturally wants to read from left to right
Critical thinking:
- Allows us to analyse – follow a more rational/defined process to solve problems
- Follows after the generation of a creative idea, will enable the solution to become viable
Conventional solutions:
- What is generally done/believed
- Not always the most practical
- Becoming more important to look for unconventional solutions
- Solutions that work in one company may not work in another – essential to look at all three environments (micro, market, macro)
Power of teamwork is very important in creative thinking/problem solving – multiple inputs invariably leads to better solutions
Analyse the way we think: This process is called Metacognition
Metacognition: Awareness/understanding of one’s own thought process
Creative-thinking exercise:
- Often called lateral thinking – correct name is Rebus
Tangram:
- A tangram is an ancient Chinese puzzle
- You have seven pieces of tans
- At its simplest it builds into a perfect square
Rules:
- You have to use all seven tans each time
- Must lie next to each other on a flat surface (not allowed to overlap)
Problem Solving:
- Solutions are not necessarily logical/ obvious at first glance
- Resultant problems arising/ possible solutions are becoming more varied by the day
The problem solving loop:
- Identify the problem
- Explore information/create ideas
- Select the best idea
- Build/test the idea
- Evaluate the results
Types of problems:
- Instinctive –we do not consciously choose a problem-solving technique to apply
- Problems becoming more complex, the choice of technique could be instrumental in determining – come up with the best possible solution
- Amount of time, effort, resources needed – shows how complicated it is/ impact on the business
- Problems cannot be solved before they are properly identified
- Only once the problem has been solved, can the process advance to exploring options, deciding on the best ideas, implementing and then evaluating
- This process/ ‘problem solving loop’ has to be repeated more than once – satisfactory result
A problem: Something with a defined solution
A dilemma: No satisfactory solution – any one of the choices will have a cost involved
Major problems arise in two ways:
Predictable problems:
- Slow run-up circumstances
- See a problem developing
Unexpected problems:
- Hit you out of the blue
- Need for serious crisis management
- Floods, fires, robberies
- Astute managers will plan ahead and have risk management procedures/contingency plans in place beforehand
Problem solving techniques:
Force field analysis:
- A tool that is used to identify/ analyse the positive factors of a situation that help and the negative factors that hinder the organisation
- Useful technique – looking at all the forces for and against a decision
- A specialised method of weighing pros and cons
This technique helps you decide whether your project is viable
Force field analysis:
- Describe your plan – middle of the page
- List all forces for change in one column – left
- List all forces against change in one column – right
- Assign a score to each force (1-weak) (5-strong)
Scamper:
- You have to have a base
- A technique used to spark creativity – help overcome challenges
- A general purpose checklist – idea spurring checklist
- Based on the notion that everything new is a modification of something that already exists
What does scamper stand for?
S – Substitute à what can you substitute? What or who can you use instead?
C – Combine à what can you combine or bring together?
A – Adapt à what can you adapt for use as a solution?
M – Modify à can you modify/change the item in some way
P – Put to other uses à what other/new ways could this be used?
E – Eliminate à what can you get rid of?
R – Rearrange à what could you rearrange or change around?
Delphi technique:
- Process of getting experts in – geographically separated to interact/work on a common project (internet, skype, email, electronic means)
- This technique has a variety of uses
- Primary advantage: a group of people with common interests/ expertise can meet/discuss an issue electronically
- Allows participants to stay anonymous – communicating only through text from protected email addresses
- Sessions are run by facilitators – organise the logistics of the process
- Facilitators will pose the questions and determine the formality
- Often used to avoid the problems of negative group dynamics (advantage)
- Open to manipulation (disadvantage) – facilitators who can filter information, send out only what they want participants to use in coming to a final decision
Indigenous Approach:
- Uses local knowledge, cultures, traditions, vocabulary to solve problems
- Understanding locals and their needs is imperative – custom made solutions
- Important to understand the local culture/ be aware of indigenous approaches
- Adhering to such traditions show respect for the locals/ a willingness to work within their context
Problem solving in teamwork:
- Teams are invariably established in order to solve problems
- When there is a complex problem, a team might choose to use a specific technique (Delphi / Force field analysis)
- Important to monitor progress an evaluate the success
- Project Management/ Conflict Management are formal structures of problem solving
- Problem solving is usually stressful/ causes conflict due to differing opinions/experience
Creative and problem-solving careers:
- Content Creator: Popular career using YouTube – make a living off of adverts featured in their videos
- Character Rigger: Makes the skeleton for character models – games/movies
- Character Designer: Takes concept art from artists – digitises it into 3D or 2D models
- Character Animator: Finished model from the character rigger – sets up
- pre-recorded actions (running, jumping, fighting movements)
- Special effects: Create anything you can imagine out of nothing – using software/ green screens
Sciences, business, language are following closely behind to keep up with changing trends and new challenges