1. Creative Problem Solving

2. Creating a Climate for Creativity
Challenge and involvement
Freedom
Trust and openness
Idea time
Playfulness and humor
Constructive conflict
Idea support
Discussion
Risk-taking
CHALLENGE AND INVOLVEMENT: Team members are involved in operations, long-term goals and in sharing a common vision.
FREEDOM: Team members have the opportunity for independence in their behavior.
TRUST AND OPENNESS: Team members feel there is emotional safety in their relationship with each other and the team manager.
IDEA TIME: Team members can use for exploration identification and elaborating new ideas.
PLAYFULNESS AND HUMOR: Team managers provide a setting for spontaneity and comfort or ease of behavior.
CONFLICTS (LOW): The absence of personal and emotional tensions; absence of fighting, aggression, or hostile behavior among team members.
IDEA SUPPORT: New ideas are treated with interest and respect.
DISCUSS: Team members feel comfortable encountering and disputing differences of viewpoints, ideas, experiences, and knowledge.
RISK-TAKING: Team members feel there is openness for new and creative ideas.

3. Problem Solving Styles
Three dimensions of problem-solving styles:
Orientation to Change
Manner of Processing
Ways of Deciding
Source: Creative Approaches to Problem Solving
(Isaksen, Dorval, & Treffinger, 2011)

4. Orientation to Change Explorer Developer Prefers abstract tasks
Prefers defined tasks
Generates lots of new and unusual ideas; likes to create something new
Generates practical, realistic, and useful ideas, improves existing solutions
Tends to wing-it
Tends to plan
Easily adopts and abandons ideas
Prefers to complete a task before jumping to something else

5. Manner of Processing External Internal
Engages others to help with decision
Thinks independently before making a decision
Takes quick action and involves many people
Takes action after planning an approach
Wants to start building or solving building before a plan is in place
Needs time for reflection and planning before starting a task

6. Ways of Deciding Person Focus Task Focus
Is concerned about how the team feels and how the decision will affect everyone
Looks for the most promising and logical solutions when generating ideas
Ensures that everyone is heard and provides input
Uses though and reasoning to make decisions
Will seek consensus before finalizing decision
Focused on results

7. Rules for Creative Problem Solving
No idea is too crazy or far out
Don’t linger – keep ideas flowing
Write everything down
Defer Judgment - There are no wrong answers and no right answers
Quantity (not quality) counts
Piggyback on other ideas
Combine ideas
Ignore limitations
Listen

8. Six steps to Creative Problem Solving!
Explore the Challenge
Objective Finding (identify the goal, wish or challenge)
Fact Finding (gather the relevant data)
Problem Finding (clarify the problems that need to be solved in order to achieve the goal)
Generate Ideas
Idea Finding (generate ideas to solve the identified problem)
Solution Finding (move from idea to implementable solution)
Prepare for Action
Acceptance Finding (plan for action)

9. Systems Engineering Process
Generate Requirements
Brainstorm solutions
Evaluate Ideas
Design/Plan – check against requirements
Build a model /Test
Create the actual solution
Test and evaluate final solution

10. Problem Definition & Requirements!
Most Important Step!
Problem Definition & Requirements!
What are you trying to solve?
This will need to be completed several times throughout the year
the overall problem, each requirement of the challenge, side-trips and the team added elements will each need to go through the problem definition process…

11. What IS the Problem? Goals and vision of the team
Overall requirements of the challenge
Specific requirements for each element of the challenge
Requirements for components within each element
Requirements for characters, costumes, side-trips, songs, script, etc…

12. Goals and Vision of the Team
This is the first item to explore
What is their definition of success?
Have them imagine walking into the tournament site:
What do they see?
What are people saying?
What kinds of props etc. are they bringing in with them?
Now have them imagine themselves on the stage:
What is surrounding them?
What theme have they used?
What kind of story do they present?

13. Solving the Challenge…
Points of interest - overall requirements
Central Challenge – outlines elements and components of challenge
Within each element are components to solve.
- The challenge is full of problems to solve
some requirements are outlined in the challenge, but most are not… the team has to determine their requirements
Looking at last year’s Find Arts challenge
- overall requirements

14. Indentify Problems… What Flips? What is the first point of view?
What is the second point of view?
Who experiences the flip?
What/who is the puppet?
What is the story?
Where is the story?
Who is the non-puppet character?
What type of art?
How will the art depict the flip?
What other characters are there?
What will the set look like?
What theatrical method will we use?
How will we present the flip?
After reading the challenge with them ask – what do we need to solve? Your team needs to generate the list of the challenge elements. Hopefully they will create a list like this!

15. Determining Requirements
Team sets requirements for each “problem” they defined
For example – Puppet
Requirements in Challenge
Team determined requirements
Artificial figure controlled by team member
Needs to be taller than our tallest team member
Must be controlled live
Must have moving arms, legs and mouths
No preset behavior or speech
The puppet experiences the flip
The movement is controlled remotely by team member

16. NOW you can Generate Ideas
Generating Tools
Brainstorming
No judgment
List/hear all ideas
Get as many ideas as possible
Use ideas to generate more ideas
Methods
Speak ideas out loud and make list
Work individually writing on sticky notes

17. More Generating Tools Roll the Dice (dice)
Use the roll of a dice to determine which direction to look at your challenge.
Enlarge or reduce the challenge.
Substitute elements in the challenge.
Combine elements of the challenge.
Modify the challenge.
Find another use or purpose.
Adapt or change the challenge.

18. Generating… Attribute Listing is a good tool when…
The team has a good idea, but doesn’t quite meet the requirements
A task/idea can be broken into several parts or steps where any part can change
The team wants to take an idea further or stretch the boundaries but maintain the essence of the idea

19. Generating… Attribute Listing: Define the task or topic
List all the possible attributes of the topic or parts of the task
Select one of the attributes and ask “How might you change, modify, or improve this attribute?” “How might it work differently?”

20. Task or topic description: Crane Machine Puppet
Attributes
Possible Changes or Modifications
Coin slot
Side, front, large, actual size
Crane
Claw, hand, fingers, really moves, stationary
Sign
Prizes inside
Appearance

21. Generating…
ABCs
Take each letter of the alphabet in sequence to look for new connections suggested by words beginning with that letter.
Force-Fitting
Take two ideas from a list and ask the team to brainstorm ways for the ideas to work together:
Frog and a measuring tape becomes a frog that measures things with his tongue

22. Generating… SCAMPER Substitute Combine Adapt Modify / Magnify / Minify
Put to new use
Eliminate
Reverse

23. Evaluation/Choosing Tools
Hits and Hot Spots
(sticky notes, colored sticky dots, pencils, large paper to write out the challenge, colored markers)
Using a brainstormed or generated list
Have the group review the list
Give each team member dots to mark their favorite ideas (HITS)
Group like ideas together. The groups with the most dots are HOT SPOTS.

24. Evaluating/Choosing tools
For large lists – allow team members to eliminate 1 or 2 ideas that they won’t do
ALOU
Advantages
Limitations and how to overcome them
Unique features or potentials

25. Choosing…
Mix and Match (also can be used to generate more ideas after lists have been brainstormed)
Hero
Villain
Conflict
Setting
Twist
Hair
Eyes
Job
Clothing
Looks
Mannerisms
Can write lists onto 3x5 cards and then pull categories out of a sack and then have the team figure out how to put them together. (Another version of force fit)
Element 1
Element 2
Element 3
Element 4
Element 5

26. Things to Remember.…
Everything ties back to the requirements… Does this solution meet the defined requirements?
Generate multiple possibilities and then narrow them down. Think of it as a funnel. You throw in a bunch of ideas and the very best drops out of the bottom.
Don’t become attached to the first idea you throw out – chances are very good it’s the very same idea every other team came up with. In fact the first ten ideas are likely to be the same ten ideas that every other team came up with. Dare to be different!
If you can’t be different – At least make it original. Take that same idea and give it a creative twist.
Begin brainstorming statements with: What if…. Wouldn’t it be nice if….. Can we….. When brainstorming begins with “I” statements it then becomes possessive.