Creativity&Innovation

Creativity&Innovation
Part 1 ? Skills & Application
Group Creative Problem Solving Project – Having grasped a holistic understanding of C&I from part 1. This is an opportunity to apply the skills of C&I (especially divergent thinking) and then reflect on your learning (appraisal). The emphasis is to apply creative problem solving techniques to an ?open ended problem?. The key here is to identify a problem/challenge/issue and then examine it from multiple perspectives, prior to coming up with potential solutions. Do not frame the problem too narrowly this goes against the grain of divergent thinking and will show that you have not grasped a full understanding of C&I from part 1. We are looking for clear evidence of how you have applied C&I so please include in your appendices the tools that you used and the results. If you go to the ?web links? section of BB the first three links are excellent resources for C&I tools. In addition the chapter from Burns (2011) also on BB is very good.
If you are stuck for ideas for which challenge use C&I techniques firstly individually and then in groups to generate ideas e.g. you could do a brainstorm individually and then share your ideas with your group. For example think of a challenge or problem you are aware of, or under-utilised resources.
For the above go to the OpenIDEO site for more details. There are also three other sites listed in the Challenges section on BB. Other ideas include:
Consider what products and services will be needed in ten years time i.e. 2022. Another way to think of this is that you are in the year 2022. In which world do you live? Where do people work? What are the needs and goals of people? What is their daily routine? You could link this to a particular location, so for example what will Bradford look like in ten years time and what will people?s needs be.
Some of you are thinking in terms of products and services, which is fine but BEFORE you get into convergent thinking, you need to use divergent thinking and use multiple perspectives. For example one group is looking at obesity and energy (I am deliberately being vague) instead of focusing on products immediately REPHRASE the problem. What is the real issue (zoom out) and having EXPLORED the problem look for C&I solutions (ARTIST) before making decisions about possible solutions. The key is to demonstrate that you have applied divergent (Explorer and Artist) thinking.

Burn?s (2011) highlights a variety of techniques you could use e.g. Brainstorming, Analogy, Attribute Analysis, Gap Analysis. In addition the ?mind tools? website is an excellent source of tools. As is the presentation by Kevin Byron ?Creative Problem Solving? and the material from Creativity Trainer II.

NOTE 1? The purpose of working in teams is to enhance creativity, the appraisal is of your learning from the activity which is individual. Description of what you did as a group can be the same for the group and of course the results of your divergent (and convergent thinking) can be the same.
Having identified a problem to work on as a group you then spend three to six hours as a group working on this. Your approach should be that you want to go through the Creative Process in these meetings.
– Generating Knowledge and Awareness ? EXPLORER
– Incubation Process & Generating Ideas ? ARTIST
– Evaluating Ideas – JUDGE
– Discussing Implementation Challenges – WARRIOR
As a group you can appoint different individuals to lead different sessions. There job would be to facilitate the session and decide which tools to use. A possible format deploying five meetings could be (some of this work can be done online).
Meeting 1 ? Explorer
Meeting 2 ? Explorer
Meeting 3 ? Artist
Meeting 4 – Artist
Meeting 5 ? Judge & Warrior

At the end of the sessions you will have a record of the results and tools used, it is this that you need to APPRAISE, i.e. what you learnt through the process and viability of proposed options/solution(s). In groups you are using the tools and recording results and as individuals you evaluate and reflect i.e. APPRAISE. The sessions should be whacky and fun, remember humour plays a very important part in being creative.

***Important: I chose the project about west of talent and the spider map Inside the annex.

Part 2 ? Learning & Reflection

Problem, Challenge, Activities (PCA?s) ? This is where you reflect on your overall experience of what you have learnt. This includes the essay, the group problem solving project and other challenges and relevant classroom activities. The Log & Personal Progress Diary will be a record of all activities you did as part of the module, in class, in your ?team? or individually. Here you will make your overall observations and recommendations of what you have learnt about being creative and innovative over the course of the module, including recommendations for developing your capabilities.
A better example…
?During the first 3 week of the module “Exploring Enterprise and Self Employment” I found it very useful to explore my own abilities and get new experience especially in group activities.
So far I have been a good team member – respecting and supporting others, agreeing and finding the connection with every one, listening to the group members about their opinions and ideas.
… I am very helpful, I volunteered to do some charts for report and I think that it is important if you care about group progression and results. Also I found it easy to communicate with every team member both face to face during the lecture sessions, group meetings and electronically by emails.
Also I am good at idea generation and one of mine ideas was chosen as the group three best ideas for feasibility study.?
4 levels of reflection
Level 1 – Descriptive writing
Documenting an experience
?We held a meeting to discuss the project. I made a presentation on the staffing structure.?
Level 2 – Descriptive reflection
Reflecting on an experience from a personal perspective
?We held a meeting to discuss the project. I made a presentation on the staffing structure . I felt well prepared and think I delivered it confidently.?
Level 3 – Dialogic reflection
Reflecting on an experience from a number of possible perspectives
?We held a meeting to discuss the project. I made a presentation on the marketing plan. I felt well prepared and think I delivered it confidently. When I asked for feedback, there were some great comments, but it also suggested that the people at the back of the room couldn?t hear me and I went through my Powerpoint so fast they struggled to keep up. I then watched the recording and agree with what they say. Perhaps I was overconfident and rushed. What I plan to do is … ?
Level 4 – Critical reflection
Reflecting on experiences from a number of perspectives and noticing patterns in thinking, feelings and behaving then exploring possible assumptions, beliefs, prejudices and values that may underpin such patterns
?… Some people disagreed with my proposed structure. This has made me think about my previous experience of working for a commercial company with a hierarchical structure and how this influenced my proposal today. However, I realise that alternative structures may be more appropriate for a business functioning in a charitable sector and with a very different culture (Mullins, 2007). Many of the audience members come from that background. What I propose to do