Creative Problem Solving Process Research Articles

Utilizing Creative Problem Solving to Formulate Blue Ocean Strategies

Blue Ocean Strategy enables managers and entrepreneurs to develop value innovations through the Four Actions Framework. Blue Ocean Strategy formulation focuses on eliminating, reducing, raising, or creating features to an existing product or service in order to make the product attractive to non-customers. After years of teaching and facilitating Blue Ocean Strategy formulation sessions, we have observed that participants often have difficulty in the create new features action. We assert that applying the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process is a more effective and reliable means of developing new product features as part of the Four Actions Framework. We describe how educators and practitioners can facilitate CPS sessions as part of formulating new Blue Ocean Strategies.

The effects of the creative problem solving process using children’s safety picture-books on the safety problem solving abilities of kindergarten children

The effects of the creative problem solving process using children’s safety picture-books on the safety problem solving abilities of kindergarten children

Transforming the first year learning experience through research based media practice

This paper reports on a case study in which the course coordinator attempted to introduce research into the first year media arts curriculum in an effort to engage students through an enquiry learning approach. The findings from student evaluations conducted over a five year period reveal the challenges as well as the benefits to learners. The increase in student mean scores for evaluation criteria together with student qualitative comments in response to evaluations conducted following redesign of the curriculum, suggest that practice-based research, particularly when connected to “real world” issues, can be an effective strategy for re-engaging the first-year learner through the creative problem-solving process. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings from these trials as well as suggestions for further research.

Creativity and Ethics: The Relationship of Creative and Ethical Problem-Solving

Students of creativity have long been interested in the relationship between creativity and deviant behaviors such as criminality, mental disease, and unethical behavior. In this study we wished to examine the relationship between creative thinking skills and ethical decision-making among scientists. Accordingly, 258 doctoral students in the health, biological, and social sciences were asked to complete a measure of creative processing skills (e.g., problem definition, conceptual combination, idea generation) and a measure of ethical decision-making examining four domains: data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. It was found that ethical decision-making in all four of these areas was related to creative problem-solving processes with late-cycle processes (e.g., idea generation and solution monitoring) proving particularly important. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between creative and deviant thought are discussed.

Elementary School Students' Creative Problem Solving Process and the Change by Teacher's Guidance

Elementary School Students' Creative Problem Solving Process and the Change by Teacher's Guidance

Effects of Time Frame on Creative Thought: Process Versus Problem-Solving Effects

Time and people's perceptions of it have commonly been held to influence creative thought. One critical concern is the effect of temporal orientation, a focus on the past, present, or future, on creative thought. To address this issue, 197 undergraduates were asked to produce a solution to an educational creative problem-solving task. Solutions to this problem were scored for quality, originality, and elegance; preparatory activities were scored for effective execution of requisite creative problem-solving processes. Temporal orientation, time pressure, and framing were manipulated. It was found that temporal orientation, time pressure, and framing did not exert strong effects on solution quality, originality, and elegance. However, temporal orientation, time pressure, and framing exerted stronger, albeit different, effects on the effectiveness of process execution with time pressure contributing to effective execution of some processes, but not others. The implications of these findings for understanding the ways in which time influences creative thought are discussed.

Musical Relationship Metaphors: Using A Musical Chronology and the Emerging Life Song With Couples

The authors use the metaphor of music for helping couples identify and describe formulative events in their relationship. A seven-step process for creating a couple's musical chronology is suggested. Couples link their relational history to specific music, a process that encourages them to deepen their connection and rekindle feelings that once brought them together. Other relationship metaphors are identified. Applications of musical metaphors as a creative problem-solving process conclude the article.

Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea

In a wide variety of organizational settings, teams generate a number of possible solutions to a problem, and then select a few for further investigation. We examine the effectiveness of two creative problem solving processes for such tasks - one, where the group works together as a team (the team process), and the other where individuals first work alone and then work together (the hybrid process). We define effectiveness as the quality of the best ideas identified by the group. We build theory that relates previously observed group behaviour to four different variables that characterize the creative problem solving process: (1) the average quality of ideas generated, (2) the number of ideas generated, (3) the variance in the quality of ideas generated, and (4) the ability of the group to discern the quality of the ideas. Prior research defines effectiveness as the quality of the average idea, ignoring any differences in variance and in the ability to discern the best ideas. In our experimental set-up, we find that groups employing the hybrid process are able to generate more ideas, to generate better ideas, and to better discern their best ideas compared to teams that rely purely on group work. Moreover, we find that the frequently recommended brainstorming technique of building on each other’s ideas is counter-productive: teams exhibiting such build-up neither create more ideas nor are the ideas that build on previous ideas better.

Impact of CAD tools on creative problem solving in engineering design

This paper presents the results of a survey of CAD users that examined the ways in which their computational environment may influence their ability to design creatively. This extensive online survey builds upon the findings of an earlier observational case study of the use of computer tools by a small engineering team. The case study was conducted during the conceptual and detailed stages of the design of a first-to-world product. Four mechanisms by which CAD tools may influence the creative problem solving process were investigated: enhanced visualisation and communication, circumscribed thinking, premature design fixation and bounded ideation. The prevalence of these mechanisms was examined via a series of questions that probed the user’s mode of working, attitudes, and responses to hypothetical situations. The survey showed good support for the first three mechanisms and moderate support for the fourth. The results have important implications for both the users and designers of CAD tools.

Besigheidsprosesbestuur in mensetaaltegnologiehulpbronontwikkeling: ’n gevallestudie

Business process management in human language technology resource development: a case study Resources play a crucial role in human language technology (HLT), since research and development are largely dependent on its availability. It follows that effective management of these resources is essential to this domain and there are a number of international initiatives that contribute towards such management, e.g. through setting standards for development. Against this backdrop, the objective of this particular article is to investigate the potential of business process management (BPM) to facilitate effective management and standardisation of HLT resource development. BPM systems and principles are commonly applied in production, revenue cycles, process documentation, risk and project management, and a variety of other administrative areas, to improve efficiency. However, its application in the context of HLT resource development has not been thoroughly investigated in the literature. This article presents a theoretical BPM framework for standardisation which takes cognisance not only of routine processes, but also of the unique nature of HLT when it entails software development, which is marked by creative problem-solving processes that are difficult to control. The framework is composed of philosophy and culture definition, standardisation along a selected framework, protocols and tools, and deployment. The validity of this framework is tested in a case study of an HLT research and development centre. Preliminary findings suggest that the framework has the potential to standardise HLT resource development and management processes.

The Creative Problem Solving Process in Graphic Design Classrooms

The Creative Problem Solving Process in Graphic Design Classrooms

Understanding individual problem-solving style: A key to learning and applying creative problem solving

More than five decades of research and development have focused on making the Creative Problem Solving process and tools accessible across a wide range of ages and contexts. Recent evidence indicates that when individuals, in both school and corporate settings, understand their own style of problem solving, they are able to learn and apply process tools more effectively, and when teams appreciate the styles of their individual members, their problem solving efforts are enhanced. We summarize recent studies and report new data supporting the conclusion that individual style differences provide an important key to understanding the interaction of person, process, product, and press when managing change.

Clustering: An Essential Step from Diverging to Converging

Within the context of new product development processes and the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process, the authors have come to the view that clustering is to be seen as a separate step in the process of diverging and converging. Clustering is generally presented as part of the converging stages, and as such categorized as a selection technique, which in the authors' view does not do justice to this activity. It is about expanding knowledge, about connecting ideas, and connecting ideas to problem statements, functionalities, and values and consequences. It is about building a shared understanding, in other words about ‘making sense’, an essential creative activity in the development of concepts and, although different from a more freewheeling divergent phase, can be as creative and maybe even more so. Four kinds of clusterings are distinguished: object clustering, morphological clustering, functional clustering and gestalt clustering. Object clustering is mainly aimed at categorizing ideas into an overviewable set of groups of ideas. No special connections are being made, other then looking for similarities. Morphological clustering is used to split up a problem into subproblems after which the ideas generated are considered as subsolutions which can then be combined into concepts. Functional clustering is interesting when different approaches can be chosen to answer some question. It permits a more strategic choice to be made. Gestalt clustering is a more synthesis like approach, often with a more metaphoric and artistic stance. Collage is a good example of such clustering. General guidelines for clustering are: use a bottom‐up process of emergence; postpone early rationalisations and verbalisations; start grouping ideas on the basis of feeling and intuition; and use metaphoric names to identify clusters.

Beyond cognitive processes: Antecedents and influences on team cognition

In this reply, we offer responses to two commentaries on our work on individual and team cognition and team creative problem-solving processes. We first acknowledge the contributions and depth of expansions to our work by Sacramento, Dawson, and West and by Shalley. We next clarify our views on some issues they raise. Finally, we offer additional multi-level extensions on these processes by incorporating ideas on leadership and organizational context.

Kūrybiško sprendimo ieška algoritminiais metodais

Straipsnyje apžvelgiama galimybė kūrybiškai spręsti problemas, neatsižvelgiant į individualias asmenybės savybes, aptariama kūryba problemos sprendimo aspektu, palyginami kai kurie problemų sprendimo metodai, trumpai pristatomas Lietuvoje dar beveik nežinomas R. Horowitz išradybinio mąstymo metodas ir aprašomas tyrimas, kuriame buvo siekiama patikrinti algoritminio problemų sprendimo metodo efektyvumą ir galimybę suaugusiems išmokti taikyti šį metodą.

A Comparison of Individual and Group Efforts to Creatively Solve Contrasting Types of Problems

ABSTRACT: Until recently, most empirical research about the creative problem-solving (CPS) process has focused on its divergent thinking aspects, but some broader conceptions of CPS inspired a trilevel matching theory that views CPS tasks as varying in needed thought styles, processing steps, and knowledge domains; views problem solvers as varying in parallel ways, and therefore predicts that different persons, groups, and organizations most effectively and efficiently may solve different kinds of problems. To begin testing these proposed matches, several cognitive traits of 326 students were measured, and these measurements were used to form 102 diverse nominal and interactive groups that solved actual problems facing a small college. All 6 tested hypotheses about matches between problem and solver attributes were confirmed when solution quantity, originality, and utility were measured. As in many other studies, nominal groups performed better than interactive groups when working a single-part task, and the effect sizes were large. Conversely, when working a multipart task, a CPS activity that has been the focus of much less empirical research, the same 51 interactive groups did better than the same 51 nominal groups; and the effect sizes were large. Implications of these new findings for future CPS research and practice are discussed.

Enhancing Creative Thinking In A Case-Based MBA Course

Improving the critical thinking ability of students is a learning outcome of many undergraduate and graduate courses. While case-based courses encourage higher order critical thinking, students still often become rote in the application of concepts and theories to problem-solving situations. This paper presents an example of a graduate marketing MBA course that was revised by integrating the creative problem solving process with the traditional case analysis process in order to enhance student critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Leading others to think innovatively together: Creative leadership

Individuals, teams, and organizations differ in their creative problem solving styles. How leaders manage these styles can have a significant effect on performance. The most effective leaders of the 21st century will help individuals and teams to coordinate and integrate their differing styles to drive change through a process of applied creativity that includes continuously discovering and defining new problems, solving those problems, and implementing the new solutions. Leaders must appreciate individuals' differing preferences for various stages of this process. Leaders can use various tools—notably the Creative Problem Solving Process (CPSP) inventory—to encourage and enable people to think together in innovative ways.

Service Learning: Fostering a Cycle of Caring in Our Gifted Youth

Service learning, a method of instruction that combines learning with service to the community, can foster mutual respect and caring between gifted students and their communities. Using examples from various service learning experiences conducted by young gifted adolescents, the authors relate how service learning can be instrumental in infusing the qualities of caring in gifted youth. A K-12 best-practice model for service learning that incorporates the Creative Problem Solving process, the cognitive apprenticeship model, cooperative learning, reflection, and celebration is described.

Comparing the Attributes, Activities, and Performance of Divergent, Convergent, and Combination Thinkers

Studies about the nature of the creative problem solving (CPS) process and about the cognitive and personality attributes and performance of persons who do CPS have focused primarily on the divergent thinking aspects of CPS and the attributes of persons who are inclined to divergent thinking. However, a matching theory proposes that tasks vary widely in the degree to which they require differing kinds of thought and prior knowledge, and problem solvers vary widely in their inclinations and resources; hence, different persons, groups, and organizations can most effectively and efficiently solve different kinds of problems. To begin identifying good matches of tasks and workers, this study measured several cognitive and personality attributes and the CPS activities and performance of persons inclined to divergent or convergent thought. Most predicted differences in the attributes, activities, and performance of the 3 types of thinkers were found. A content analysis of group attempts to creatively solve a multifaceted problem demonstrated the need for frequent convergent thought as well as divergent thought by persons so engaged. Implications and needed extensions of this research are discussed with the aim of using the matching theory to enhance real-world CPS efforts.