Generating Solutions

1. Generating Solutions Chapter 8

2. Chapter Objectives • Learn: • The common causes of mental blocks. • To identify and define 6 types of mental blocks. • How to break through mental roadblocks. • How to use brainstorming as a tool. • The 4 methods to break mental blocks while brainstorming. • How to create a fishbone diagram from brainstorming information.

3. Common Causes of Mental Blocks • Some common causes of mental blocks include: • Defining problem too narrowly. • Attacking symptoms, not real problems, assuming there is one right answer. • Getting “hooked” on the first solution that comes to mind. • Becoming “hooked” on a solution that almost works, but really does not. • Being distracted by irrelevant information, called “mental dazzle”. • Getting frustrated by lack of success. • Being too anxious to finish. • Defining the problem ambiguously.

4. Types of Mental Blocks • There are 6 types of mental blocks: • Perceptual • Emotional • Cultural • Environmental • Intellectual • Expressive

5. Perceptual Blocks • Definition: • Obstacles that prevent the problem solver from clearly perceiving either the problem or the information needed to solve it. • Types of perceptual blocks: • Stereotyping • Limiting the problem unnecessarily • Saturation or information overload

6. Emotional Blocks • An emotional block decreases the amount of freedom with which you explore and manipulate ideas, and interferes with your ability to conceptualize fluently and flexibly. • Types of emotional blocks: • Fear of risk taking • Lack of appetite for chaos • Judging rather than generating ideas • Lack of challenge • Inability to incubate

7. Cultural Blocks • Cultural blocks are acquired by exposure to a given set of cultural patterns. • These blocks can arise when activities do not fall into the norm of certain members in a specific society.

8. Environmental Blocks • Blocks imposed by our immediate social and physical environment. • Examples include: • Distractions by phones, pagers, etc. can break an individuals concentration. • Working in conditions absent of emotional, physical, economical, or organizational support can have a negative impact on the problem solver.

9. Intellectual Blocks • Intellectual blocks can be caused by: • Inflexible or inadequate problem solving strategies. • Lack of intellectual skills. • Lack of information to solve the problem. • To break these blocks • Obtain additional training, background or resources. • Ask for help!

10. Expressive Blocks • Expressive blocks can occur when you have difficulty communicating your ideas to others, either verbally or written. • Examples include: • Playing charades. • Playing a group game to identify a drawn picture.

11. Blockbusting • There are several methods to break mental blocks. Consider the following problems and solutions: • Negative attitude, correct with attitude adjustment • Fear of failure, correct with risk taking • Following the rules, correct with breaking the rules • Over-reliance on logic, correct with an internal creative climate • “You aren’t creative”, correct with creative beliefs

12. Improve Your Creativeness The ways to improve your creative abilities include, but are not limited to: • Tracking your ideas at all times. • Posing new questions to yourself every day. • Learning about things outside your specialty. • Avoiding rigid, set patterns for doing things. • Being open and receptive to ideas. • Being alert. • Adopting a risk taking attitude. • Keeping your sense of humor. • Having courage and self-confidence.

13. Brainstorming • Brainstorming creates an environment: • Where unstructured free association can occur to generate ideas. • Individuals can build ideas upon other individual ideas. • Where a positive attitude reigns. • The greater number of ideas generated, the better chance an innovative, workable solution will be identified.

14. Brain-Drizzling • Inappropriate comments during brainstorming can lead to brain-drizzling. These comments may include: • “That won’t work” • “It’s not our job” • “That’s too much hassle” • “We haven’t done it that way before” • “We can’t solve this problem” • “That’s too expensive”

15. Osborn’s Checklist • Osborn’s checklist helps groups build on ideas by asking: • Adapt? … How else could this be adapted? • Modify? … Can anything be modified with meaning, color, etc.? • Minify? … Can this be split, reduced, made lighter, etc.? • Substitute? … Who else, where else, what else? • Rearrange? … Can parts be interchanged, use other layouts, etc.? • Combine? … Combine parts, units, ideas?

16. Random Stimulation • Random stimulation makes use of a random word or piece of information to act as a trigger to stimulate thought patterns in the event of a roadblock. • The goal of the pattern change is to allow the problem to be viewed from new perspectives not previously considered.

17. Other People’s Views • This process allows individuals to understand the problem while using another person’s perspective of the situation.

18. Futuring • Futuring focuses on identifying solution that may not be currently technically feasible but could be in the future. • The rules of futuring: • Try to imaging the ideal solution without regard to whether or not it is technically feasible. • Make statements such as: “If (this) _______ happened, it would completely change the way I do business.”

19. Fishbone Diagram • A fishbone diagram is an organized graphical representation of ideas generated from brainstorming. • To use a fishbone diagram: • Write the real problem at the head of the fish. • Brainstorm potential solutions to the problem. • Categorize the solutions into larger groups. • Place the grouped solutions on the bones of the fish.

20. Brainwriting • When you need to brainstorm, but don’t have at least one more person available, consider brainwriting. • It uses the same principles of brainstorming, but you do it alone. • Use free association • Walk through Osborn’s checklist • Use random stimulation • Perform futuring

21. Cross-Fertilization and Analogy • Cross-fertilization is used to transfer ideas and analogies from other disciplines to the discipline of your problem. • The idea is to draw on the experiences from other areas to determine how those situations may lead to a possible solutions.

22. Incubation • Incubation provides a period of time when you can move from actively analyzing your ideas to allowing your subconscious to continue the work. • If your problem does not require an immediate solution, take some time away from it and use incubation to help you through the solution process.

23. Summary • Mental blocks can impair our ability to generate solutions. • There are several types of mental blocks. • Mental blocks can be broken with various techniques. • Individuals can increase their creative abilities through several activities. • Brainstorming is a group activity to free associate ideas into solutions. • Brainwriting is brainstorming for one individual. • Using ideas from unrelated disciplines can cross-fertilize ideas and identify analogies.