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Article • 10 min read

Creative Problem Solving

Finding innovative solutions to challenges.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Imagine that you're vacuuming your house in a hurry because you've got friends coming over. Frustratingly, you're working hard but you're not getting very far. You kneel down, open up the vacuum cleaner, and pull out the bag. In a cloud of dust, you realize that it's full... again. Coughing, you empty it and wonder why vacuum cleaners with bags still exist!

James Dyson, inventor and founder of Dyson® vacuum cleaners, had exactly the same problem, and he used creative problem solving to find the answer. While many companies focused on developing a better vacuum cleaner filter, he realized that he had to think differently and find a more creative solution. So, he devised a revolutionary way to separate the dirt from the air, and invented the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner. [1]

Creative problem solving (CPS) is a way of solving problems or identifying opportunities when conventional thinking has failed. It encourages you to find fresh perspectives and come up with innovative solutions, so that you can formulate a plan to overcome obstacles and reach your goals.

In this article, we'll explore what CPS is, and we'll look at its key principles. We'll also provide a model that you can use to generate creative solutions.

About Creative Problem Solving

Alex Osborn, founder of the Creative Education Foundation, first developed creative problem solving in the 1940s, along with the term "brainstorming." And, together with Sid Parnes, he developed the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process. Despite its age, this model remains a valuable approach to problem solving. [2]

The early Osborn-Parnes model inspired a number of other tools. One of these is the 2011 CPS Learner's Model, also from the Creative Education Foundation, developed by Dr Gerard J. Puccio, Marie Mance, and co-workers. In this article, we'll use this modern four-step model to explore how you can use CPS to generate innovative, effective solutions.

Why Use Creative Problem Solving?

Dealing with obstacles and challenges is a regular part of working life, and overcoming them isn't always easy. To improve your products, services, communications, and interpersonal skills, and for you and your organization to excel, you need to encourage creative thinking and find innovative solutions that work.

CPS asks you to separate your "divergent" and "convergent" thinking as a way to do this. Divergent thinking is the process of generating lots of potential solutions and possibilities, otherwise known as brainstorming. And convergent thinking involves evaluating those options and choosing the most promising one. Often, we use a combination of the two to develop new ideas or solutions. However, using them simultaneously can result in unbalanced or biased decisions, and can stifle idea generation.

For more on divergent and convergent thinking, and for a useful diagram, see the book "Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making." [3]

Core Principles of Creative Problem Solving

CPS has four core principles. Let's explore each one in more detail:

• Divergent and convergent thinking must be balanced. The key to creativity is learning how to identify and balance divergent and convergent thinking (done separately), and knowing when to practice each one.
• Ask problems as questions. When you rephrase problems and challenges as open-ended questions with multiple possibilities, it's easier to come up with solutions. Asking these types of questions generates lots of rich information, while asking closed questions tends to elicit short answers, such as confirmations or disagreements. Problem statements tend to generate limited responses, or none at all.
• Defer or suspend judgment. As Alex Osborn learned from his work on brainstorming, judging solutions early on tends to shut down idea generation. Instead, there's an appropriate and necessary time to judge ideas during the convergence stage.
• Focus on "Yes, and," rather than "No, but." Language matters when you're generating information and ideas. "Yes, and" encourages people to expand their thoughts, which is necessary during certain stages of CPS. Using the word "but" – preceded by "yes" or "no" – ends conversation, and often negates what's come before it.

How to Use the Tool

Let's explore how you can use each of the four steps of the CPS Learner's Model (shown in figure 1, below) to generate innovative ideas and solutions.

Figure 1 – CPS Learner's Model

Explore the Vision

Identify your goal, desire or challenge. This is a crucial first step because it's easy to assume, incorrectly, that you know what the problem is. However, you may have missed something or have failed to understand the issue fully, and defining your objective can provide clarity. Read our article, 5 Whys , for more on getting to the root of a problem quickly.

Gather Data

Once you've identified and understood the problem, you can collect information about it and develop a clear understanding of it. Make a note of details such as who and what is involved, all the relevant facts, and everyone's feelings and opinions.

Formulate Questions

When you've increased your awareness of the challenge or problem you've identified, ask questions that will generate solutions. Think about the obstacles you might face and the opportunities they could present.

Explore Ideas

Generate ideas that answer the challenge questions you identified in step 1. It can be tempting to consider solutions that you've tried before, as our minds tend to return to habitual thinking patterns that stop us from producing new ideas. However, this is a chance to use your creativity .

Brainstorming and Mind Maps are great ways to explore ideas during this divergent stage of CPS. And our articles, Encouraging Team Creativity , Problem Solving , Rolestorming , Hurson's Productive Thinking Model , and The Four-Step Innovation Process , can also help boost your creativity.

See our Brainstorming resources within our Creativity section for more on this.

Formulate Solutions

This is the convergent stage of CPS, where you begin to focus on evaluating all of your possible options and come up with solutions. Analyze whether potential solutions meet your needs and criteria, and decide whether you can implement them successfully. Next, consider how you can strengthen them and determine which ones are the best "fit." Our articles, Critical Thinking and ORAPAPA , are useful here.

4. Implement

Formulate a plan.

Once you've chosen the best solution, it's time to develop a plan of action. Start by identifying resources and actions that will allow you to implement your chosen solution. Next, communicate your plan and make sure that everyone involved understands and accepts it.

There have been many adaptations of CPS since its inception, because nobody owns the idea.

For example, Scott Isaksen and Donald Treffinger formed The Creative Problem Solving Group Inc . and the Center for Creative Learning , and their model has evolved over many versions. Blair Miller, Jonathan Vehar and Roger L. Firestien also created their own version, and Dr Gerard J. Puccio, Mary C. Murdock, and Marie Mance developed CPS: The Thinking Skills Model. [4] Tim Hurson created The Productive Thinking Model , and Paul Reali developed CPS: Competencies Model. [5]

Sid Parnes continued to adapt the CPS model by adding concepts such as imagery and visualization , and he founded the Creative Studies Project to teach CPS. For more information on the evolution and development of the CPS process, see Creative Problem Solving Version 6.1 by Donald J. Treffinger, Scott G. Isaksen, and K. Brian Dorval. [6]

Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Infographic

See our infographic on Creative Problem Solving .

Creative problem solving (CPS) is a way of using your creativity to develop new ideas and solutions to problems. The process is based on separating divergent and convergent thinking styles, so that you can focus your mind on creating at the first stage, and then evaluating at the second stage.

There have been many adaptations of the original Osborn-Parnes model, but they all involve a clear structure of identifying the problem, generating new ideas, evaluating the options, and then formulating a plan for successful implementation.

[1] Entrepreneur (2012). James Dyson on Using Failure to Drive Success [online]. Available here . [Accessed May 27, 2022.]

[2] Creative Education Foundation (2015). The CPS Process [online]. Available here . [Accessed May 26, 2022.]

[3] Kaner, S. et al. (2014). 'Facilitator′s Guide to Participatory Decision–Making,' San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

[4] Puccio, G., Mance, M., and Murdock, M. (2011). 'Creative Leadership: Skils That Drive Change' (2nd Ed.), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[5] OmniSkills (2013). Creative Problem Solving [online]. Available here . [Accessed May 26, 2022].

[6] Treffinger, G., Isaksen, S., and Dorval, B. (2010). Creative Problem Solving (CPS Version 6.1). Center for Creative Learning, Inc. & Creative Problem Solving Group, Inc. Available here .

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How to Be a More Creative Problem-Solver at Work: 8 Tips

• 01 Mar 2022

The importance of creativity in the workplace—particularly when problem-solving—is undeniable. Business leaders can’t approach new problems with old solutions and expect the same result.

This is where innovation-based processes need to guide problem-solving. Here’s an overview of what creative problem-solving is, along with tips on how to use it in conjunction with design thinking.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Creative Problem-Solving?

Encountering problems with no clear cause can be frustrating. This occurs when there’s disagreement around a defined problem or research yields unclear results. In such situations, creative problem-solving helps develop solutions, despite a lack of clarity.

While creative problem-solving is less structured than other forms of innovation, it encourages exploring open-ended ideas and shifting perspectives—thereby fostering innovation and easier adaptation in the workplace. It also works best when paired with other innovation-based processes, such as design thinking .

Creative Problem-Solving and Design Thinking

Design thinking is a solutions-based mentality that encourages innovation and problem-solving. It’s guided by an iterative process that Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar outlines in four stages in the online course Design Thinking and Innovation :

• Clarify: This stage involves researching a problem through empathic observation and insights.
• Ideate: This stage focuses on generating ideas and asking open-ended questions based on observations made during the clarification stage.
• Develop: The development stage involves exploring possible solutions based on the ideas you generate. Experimentation and prototyping are both encouraged.
• Implement: The final stage is a culmination of the previous three. It involves finalizing a solution’s development and communicating its value to stakeholders.

Although user research is an essential first step in the design thinking process, there are times when it can’t identify a problem’s root cause. Creative problem-solving addresses this challenge by promoting the development of new perspectives.

Leveraging tools like design thinking and creativity at work can further your problem-solving abilities. Here are eight tips for doing so.

8 Creative Problem-Solving Tips

1. empathize with your audience.

A fundamental practice of design thinking’s clarify stage is empathy. Understanding your target audience can help you find creative and relevant solutions for their pain points through observing them and asking questions.

Practice empathy by paying attention to others’ needs and avoiding personal comparisons. The more you understand your audience, the more effective your solutions will be.

2. Reframe Problems as Questions

If a problem is difficult to define, reframe it as a question rather than a statement. For example, instead of saying, "The problem is," try framing around a question like, "How might we?" Think creatively by shifting your focus from the problem to potential solutions.

Consider this hypothetical case study: You’re the owner of a local coffee shop trying to fill your tip jar. Approaching the situation with a problem-focused mindset frames this as: "We need to find a way to get customers to tip more." If you reframe this as a question, however, you can explore: "How might we make it easier for customers to tip?" When you shift your focus from the shop to the customer, you empathize with your audience. You can take this train of thought one step further and consider questions such as: "How might we provide a tipping method for customers who don't carry cash?"

Whether you work at a coffee shop, a startup, or a Fortune 500 company, reframing can help surface creative solutions to problems that are difficult to define.

3. Defer Judgment of Ideas

If you encounter an idea that seems outlandish or unreasonable, a natural response would be to reject it. This instant judgment impedes creativity. Even if ideas seem implausible, they can play a huge part in ideation. It's important to permit the exploration of original ideas.

While judgment can be perceived as negative, it’s crucial to avoid accepting ideas too quickly. If you love an idea, don’t immediately pursue it. Give equal consideration to each proposal and build on different concepts instead of acting on them immediately.

4. Overcome Cognitive Fixedness

Cognitive fixedness is a state of mind that prevents you from recognizing a situation’s alternative solutions or interpretations instead of considering every situation through the lens of past experiences.

Although it's efficient in the short-term, cognitive fixedness interferes with creative thinking because it prevents you from approaching situations unbiased. It's important to be aware of this tendency so you can avoid it.

5. Balance Divergent and Convergent Thinking

One of the key principles of creative problem-solving is the balance of divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking is the process of brainstorming multiple ideas without limitation; open-ended creativity is encouraged. It’s an effective tool for generating ideas, but not every idea can be explored. Divergent thinking eventually needs to be grounded in reality.

Convergent thinking, on the other hand, is the process of narrowing ideas down into a few options. While converging ideas too quickly stifles creativity, it’s an important step that bridges the gap between ideation and development. It's important to strike a healthy balance between both to allow for the ideation and exploration of creative ideas.

6. Use Creative Tools

Using creative tools is another way to foster innovation. Without a clear cause for a problem, such tools can help you avoid cognitive fixedness and abrupt decision-making. Here are several examples:

Problem Stories

Creating a problem story requires identifying undesired phenomena (UDP) and taking note of events that precede and result from them. The goal is to reframe the situations to visualize their cause and effect.

To start, identify a UDP. Then, discover what events led to it. Observe and ask questions of your consumer base to determine the UDP’s cause.

Next, identify why the UDP is a problem. What effect does the UDP have that necessitates changing the status quo? It's helpful to visualize each event in boxes adjacent to one another when answering such questions.

The problem story can be extended in either direction, as long as there are additional cause-and-effect relationships. Once complete, focus on breaking the chains connecting two subsequent events by disrupting the cause-and-effect relationship between them.

Alternate Worlds

The alternate worlds tool encourages you to consider how people from different backgrounds would approach similar situations. For instance, how would someone in hospitality versus manufacturing approach the same problem? This tool isn't intended to instantly solve problems but, rather, to encourage idea generation and creativity.

7. Use Positive Language

It's vital to maintain a positive mindset when problem-solving and avoid negative words that interfere with creativity. Positive language prevents quick judgments and overcomes cognitive fixedness. Instead of "no, but," use words like "yes, and."

Positive language makes others feel heard and valued rather than shut down. This practice doesn’t necessitate agreeing with every idea but instead approaching each from a positive perspective.

Using “yes, and” as a tool for further idea exploration is also effective. If someone presents an idea, build upon it using “yes, and.” What additional features could improve it? How could it benefit consumers beyond its intended purpose?

While it may not seem essential, this small adjustment can make a big difference in encouraging creativity.

8. Practice Design Thinking

Practicing design thinking can make you a more creative problem-solver. While commonly associated with the workplace, adopting a design thinking mentality can also improve your everyday life. Here are several ways you can practice design thinking:

• Learn from others: There are many examples of design thinking in business . Review case studies to learn from others’ successes, research problems companies haven't addressed, and consider alternative solutions using the design thinking process.
• Approach everyday problems with a design thinking mentality: One of the best ways to practice design thinking is to apply it to your daily life. Approach everyday problems using design thinking’s four-stage framework to uncover what solutions it yields.
• Study design thinking: While learning design thinking independently is a great place to start, taking an online course can offer more insight and practical experience. The right course can teach you important skills , increase your marketability, and provide valuable networking opportunities.

Ready to Become a Creative Problem-Solver?

Though creativity comes naturally to some, it's an acquired skill for many. Regardless of which category you're in, improving your ability to innovate is a valuable endeavor. Whether you want to bolster your creativity or expand your professional skill set, taking an innovation-based course can enhance your problem-solving.

If you're ready to become a more creative problem-solver, explore Design Thinking and Innovation , one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses . If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

About the Author

How to Use Creativity in Problem-Solving

Using creativity in problem-solving is a dynamic process that involves seeing challenges from unique perspectives, generating novel solutions, and redefining the status quo. It requires going beyond traditional methodologies and employing inventive thinking.

Table of Contents

Techniques such as brainstorming, lateral thinking, and mind mapping can help ignite your creative sparks. By cultivating a culture of creativity, you empower yourself and others to tackle issues innovatively, ensuring that the problem-solving process is effective but also exciting and rewarding.

Understanding the Role of Creativity in Problem-Solving

Creative problem-solving is an approach that combines imagination, innovation, and a broad sense of flexibility to find solutions to problems. It’s about shunning the traditional mindset that restricts our thoughts to only known and accepted techniques and methods. Instead, it encourages thinking outside the box, leveraging all cognitive resources, and pushing beyond the boundaries of standard methodologies to arrive at unique and often more effective solutions.

At the heart of creative problem-solving is the understanding that problems are often not what they initially appear to be. An issue may seem like a stumbling block. Still, with creative problem-solving, it can be transformed into an opportunity for innovation and growth. It’s about not accepting the immediate, apparent problem at face value but delving deeper into uncovering the root cause and addressing that, often leading to a more comprehensive and long-lasting solution.

Stages of Creative Problem-Solving

To appreciate what is creative problem-solving, it is crucial to recognize its critical stages. First is problem identification, which involves understanding the problem from different angles and perspectives. This stage lays the groundwork for the creative process by opening up many possibilities.

Next comes idea generation. This stage is the crux of the creative process, where traditional thinking is left behind, and innovative ideas can flourish. Techniques like brainstorming, free writing, and mind mapping are commonly used to spur creativity and encourage various possible solutions.

Finally, there’s the evaluation and implementation of the solution. This stage involves critically assessing the proposed solutions, selecting the best one, and implementing them. It’s important to remember that the solution’s effectiveness should be evaluated and adjustments made, if necessary, to ensure the problem is resolved.

In essence, creative problem-solving is a process that welcomes innovation, embraces change, and turns problems into opportunities for creative growth. It’s not about finding a solution but about using creativity to discover the best solution. The beauty of creative problem-solving is that honing this skill is possible and can be developed, ultimately leading to better decision-making and problem-solving abilities in all areas of life.

Harnessing Creativity: The First Step in Innovative Problem-Solving

Harnessing creativity is the cornerstone of innovative problem-solving. This involves challenging our usual thought patterns and opening ourselves to new ways of thinking. But how do we activate this creative engine within us? The answer lies in asking the right creative problem-solving questions.

Creative Problem-Solving Questions

Questions are the fuel that ignites the engine of creativity. They challenge our assumptions, expand our perspectives, and drive us to think outside the box. In problem-solving, creative questions can illuminate unseen possibilities and pathways toward innovative solutions.

The first step in harnessing creativity for problem-solving is understanding the problem in-depth. Questions such as “What is the core issue?” or “Why is this a problem?” can help identify the root cause rather than just dealing with symptoms. Understanding the problem at a granular level often reveals unique angles and opportunities for innovative solutions.

Once we deeply understand the problem, it’s time to generate ideas. Here, creative problem-solving questions are designed to push our thinking beyond usual boundaries. Questions like “What if the impossible were possible?” or “How would this problem be solved in a completely different context?” can spark unconventional ideas and unlock creative potential.

The next stage is about evaluating the solutions. Questions such as “What could be the potential impacts of this solution?” or “How can we improve this idea?” ensure we critically assess the proposed solutions from various angles. It’s vital to constructively challenge each idea’s viability, promoting further creativity and refinement.

Finally, we come to the implementation of the chosen solution. Questions like “What resources are needed to execute this solution?” and “What could be potential roadblocks, and how can we overcome them?” enable us to foresee any practical issues and address them proactively, thus ensuring a smooth execution of the solution.

Asking creative problem-solving questions can help unlock our inherent creative capabilities. By harnessing our creativity, we can drive innovative problem-solving and find solutions that are not just effective but also genuinely novel and groundbreaking. These questions are more than just tools; they are the catalysts that transform problems into opportunities for creative innovation.

The Connection between Creativity and Effective Problem-Solving

Creativity is an invaluable tool in the problem-solving process. It empowers us to develop unique solutions that resolve the issue and provide opportunities for growth and innovation. But how is creativity used in problem-solving? Let’s dive into the nuances of this connection.

At its core, problem-solving is about finding solutions to obstacles or challenges. Traditional problem-solving techniques often focus on logical reasoning and proven methodologies. However, these techniques may only sometimes be sufficient, especially when dealing with complex or unprecedented problems. This is where creativity steps in.

How is Creativity Used in Problem-Solving

Creativity in problem-solving starts with reframing the problem. It prompts us to see beyond the apparent and understand the problem from different perspectives. This is particularly helpful when dealing with intricate issues, as it helps identify underlying patterns and relationships that might not be immediately apparent.

Once the problem is reframed, the next step is idea generation. This is where the power of creativity truly shines. Creative thinking encourages us to break free from conventional thinking patterns and explore a broader spectrum of possibilities. Brainstorming, mind mapping, or even daydreaming can help stimulate creative thoughts and generate innovative ideas.

Creativity also plays a critical role in evaluating and selecting the best solution. It allows us to envision how each potential solution might play out, assess the risks and benefits, and choose the most effective and innovative option.

Finally, creativity is instrumental in the implementation of the solution. It encourages us to think on our feet, adapt to unexpected challenges, and continuously refine the solution until the problem is fully resolved.

Creativity fuels each stage of the problem-solving process, transforming it from a mundane task into an exciting journey of discovery and innovation. So, whether you’re dealing with a minor hiccup or a major hurdle, remember to tap into your creative side. You might be surprised at the great solutions that emerge.

Exploring Techniques for Fostering Creativity in Problem-Solving

In the dynamic and competitive business world, a creative approach to problem-solving can be a significant differentiator. Now businesses require innovative solutions to keep up with rapidly changing environments and customer expectations. Here, we’ll explore techniques for fostering creative problem-solving in business.

How to Use Creative Problem-Solving in Business

Firstly, it’s crucial to cultivate an environment that encourages creativity. An open-minded culture supporting risk-taking and diverse perspectives can significantly enhance creative thinking. This includes welcoming all ideas during brainstorming sessions, regardless of how unconventional they seem, and celebrating successes and learning opportunities from failures.

Secondly, divergent thinking is a powerful tool for creative problem-solving. It involves generating multiple possible solutions to a problem rather than following a linear, logical path. Techniques like brainstorming or lateral thinking can stimulate divergent thinking, leading to more innovative problem-solving.

Another technique uses creative problem-solving frameworks, like the SCAMPER model (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse). These frameworks provide structured methods for thinking creatively and can be particularly useful in a business setting.

Also, fostering creativity requires constant learning and development. Encouraging continuous learning, such as attending seminars, workshops, or online courses on creativity and innovation, can significantly enhance creative problem-solving skills. Also, exposure to different industries, cultures, and ways of thinking can provide new perspectives and ideas.

Creativity can also be enhanced by embracing technology. AI and machine learning, for example, can provide insights and patterns that would be hard to spot otherwise, opening new avenues for creative solutions.

Lastly, it’s essential to recognize the power of rest in fostering creativity. Downtime, hobbies, or simple walks in nature can rejuvenate the mind and often lead to ‘Eureka’ moments when least expected.

Fostering creative problem-solving in business is not a one-size-fits-all process. It requires a blend of culture, techniques, learning, technology, and well-being that suits your team’s unique needs and dynamics. However, the rewards – innovative solutions, competitive advantage, and team satisfaction – make it an investment worth making.

Case Studies: Successful Implementations of Creativity in Problem-Solving

Applying creativity in problem-solving has led to groundbreaking solutions in various fields. In this context, we will explore several instances of creative problem-solving that resulted in successful and innovative outcomes.

Examples of Creative Problem-Solving

Example 1: accommodation.

Firstly, let’s look at a classic example from the business world: Airbnb. In its early days, the company needed help to gain traction. The founders identified a key issue: the quality of listing photos could have been better, deterring potential renters. In a creative problem-solving move, they hired professional photographers to take pictures of the rentals. This innovative approach significantly improved the appeal of the listings, and the rest is history. Airbnb’s success illustrates how a creative solution can transform a problem into an opportunity.

Example 2: Motor Industry

Next, consider the example of the automobile industry’s Tesla Motors . Confronted with the problem of fossil fuel dependency and its environmental impact, Tesla disrupted the conventional solution of tweaking existing fuel technologies. Instead, they creatively focused on developing high-performance electric vehicles, changing the industry’s perception and leading towards sustainable transportation.

Example 3: Healthcare

Another example can be found in healthcare, particularly in the fight against polio. In the 1950s, the ‘iron lung’ was the primary treatment for polio-induced respiratory failure. It was a cumbersome and expensive solution. Dr. Bjørn Aage Ibsen , confronted with a polio outbreak, creatively proposed a new method: positive pressure ventilation. This involved manually ventilating the patient with a tube inserted into their trachea. This became the precursor to modern mechanical ventilation, demonstrating the impact of creative problem-solving in healthcare.

Example 4: Education Lastly, consider the example from education: the Khan Academy . Recognizing that traditional classroom education could not cater to each student’s pace and learning style, Salman Khan saw an opportunity to teach differently. He used technology creatively to provide free online educational videos, fundamentally transforming the access and delivery of education on a global scale.

In these cases, the key to successful problem-solving was applying creative thinking. These examples of creative problem-solving underscore the power of innovative thinking in transforming challenges into opportunities for growth and advancement. The ability to think creatively in problem-solving is a valuable skill and, in many cases, a game-changer.

Overcoming Obstacles: Dealing with Challenges in Creative Problem-Solving

While creative problem-solving offers incredible potential for innovative solutions, it’s not without its challenges. However, these obstacles can often be overcome with a structured approach, such as the creative problem-solving model (CPS).

Creative Problem-Solving Model

The CPS model, initially developed by Alex Osborn and Sidney Parnes, provides a clear framework for navigating challenges that can arise during creative problem-solving. This model consists of four main steps: Clarify, Ideate, Develop, and Implement.

The first step, ‘Clarify,’ involves identifying the problem accurately and comprehensively. It’s easy to rush into solving a problem based on initial perceptions, which often results in treating symptoms rather than addressing the underlying issue. The CPS model emphasizes the importance of dedicating time to deeply understand the problem before jumping to solutions.

The second step, ‘Ideate,’ is generating various possible solutions. It’s common to experience blocks during this stage, such as sticking to familiar ideas or fearing judgment for unconventional thoughts. This step encourages divergent thinking, pushing past the initial, most apparent ideas to reach more unique and creative solutions.

Next, the ‘Develop’ stage involves converging on the most promising ideas and fleshing them into actionable solutions. Sometimes, the most creative ideas can seem risky or unrealistic. This stage, however, reminds us that these ideas often hold the most potential for innovative solutions and should be explored and developed rather than dismissed.

Finally, ‘Implement’ is about turning the solution into reality. Implementation can face many obstacles, from resistance to change, lack of resources, or unforeseen challenges. But the CPS model treats these not as dead ends but as parts of the problem-solving journey to be creatively overcome.

The creative problem-solving model provides a powerful tool to deal with the challenges of creative thinking. It offers a structured approach that fosters creativity, keeps the problem-solving process on track, and ultimately leads to innovative and effective solutions.

Tools and Strategies for Enhancing Creativity in Problem-Solving

Creative problem-solving is a critical skill in today’s dynamic and complex world. It helps us navigate challenges with innovative and effective solutions. Various tools and strategies can enhance this process. Here, we delve into some of these creative problem-solving tools.

Creative Problem-Solving Tools

Brainstorming.

Brainstorming is the most familiar tool. It’s a freewheeling method to generate many ideas without immediate judgment or criticism. It invites and encourages wild and divergent thoughts, which are later sifted and refined. This tool is particularly effective in groups where diverse perspectives can spark unique ideas.

Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping, another powerful tool, visually represents thoughts and their interconnections. You can reveal unexpected connections by mapping the problem and related ideas and fostering innovative solutions. It’s an excellent tool for complex problems that involve multiple dimensions or for situations where a holistic view is needed.

The SCAMPER Method

The SCAMPER method (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse) prompts users to ask specific questions about the problem. Each word in the acronym poses a different way to manipulate and think about the problem, leading to fresh insights and solutions.

Six Thinking Hats Technique

Then there’s the Six Thinking Hats technique by Edward de Bono. This tool urges users to assume different ‘hats’ or roles (like the optimist, devil’s advocate, creative, etc.) during problem-solving. This strategy ensures a comprehensive approach, capturing different perspectives and reducing bias in decision-making.

Alongside these tools, specific strategies can cultivate creativity in problem-solving. Encouraging a culture of openness, where diverse thoughts are valued, can lead to more prosperous, more creative problem-solving. Creating a safe space where risks are welcomed is beneficial, and failures are seen as learning opportunities rather than setbacks.

Moreover, taking regular breaks and engaging in different activities can stimulate creativity. Often, stepping away from a problem allows our subconscious minds to work on it, leading to unexpected insights.

Regularly practicing and using these tools and strategies can dramatically improve creative problem-solving abilities. They stimulate innovative thinking and help structure the process, making it more effective and efficient. By leveraging these creative problem-solving tools, we can transform how we approach problems, turning challenges into opportunities for innovation.

The Future of Creativity in Problem-Solving: Trends and Predictions

As we navigate through a world that is becoming progressively more complex and unpredictable, the importance of creativity in problem-solving cannot be overstated. While still valuable, traditional problem-solving methods often must catch up when dealing with unprecedented challenges. Creativity injects flexibility, innovation, and adaptability into problem-solving, making it a vital skill for the future. Here, we explore some trends and predictions of creativity in problem-solving.

Growing Creative Problem-Solving

Firstly, we will likely see greater recognition of the role of creativity in problem-solving across various sectors. From businesses to education systems, there’s a growing understanding that generating and implementing innovative solutions to problems for survival and growth is crucial. We can see more emphasis on fostering creativity in leadership roles and at all levels.

Tech-Enhanced Creative Solutions

Secondly, technology will continue to play a significant role in enhancing creativity in problem-solving. Advanced technologies like AI and machine learning can provide us with more data and insights, enabling us to understand problems better and develop more creative solutions. At the same time, technology can facilitate the creative problem-solving process through tools that stimulate creative thinking and collaboration.

However, as we increasingly rely on technology, there’s also a danger that we might limit our creativity by depending too much on algorithms and predefined solutions. Therefore, balancing technology and human creativity will be essential to future problem-solving.

Additionally, we expect to see more integration of diverse perspectives in problem-solving. As we face global problems across various fields and cultures, it’s becoming clear that the most creative and effective solutions often come from interdisciplinary and diverse teams.

Dynamic Problem Adaptation

Finally, resilience and adaptability in problem-solving will be emphasized as we move toward a more uncertain future. Creative problem-solving will be less about finding the correct answer and more about continuous learning and adapting to evolving situations.

The future of creativity in problem-solving looks bright, promising, and exciting. By recognizing the importance of creativity and harnessing it effectively, we can equip ourselves to navigate future challenges with innovative and effective solutions.

What is the role of creativity in problem-solving?

Creativity in problem-solving allows for the generation of unique, practical solutions. It involves thinking outside the box, challenging traditional assumptions, and viewing the problem from various perspectives. Creativity is crucial in problem-solving as it fosters innovation and adaptability.

How can creativity be harnessed in problem-solving?

Creativity can be harnessed in problem-solving by promoting a culture that supports risk-taking and values diverse perspectives, employing techniques like divergent thinking and creative problem-solving frameworks, engaging in continuous learning and development, embracing technology, and prioritizing well-being and rest.

What is the connection between creativity and effective problem-solving?

Creativity contributes to effective problem-solving by enabling the generation of numerous possible solutions, encouraging novel perspectives, and fostering flexibility and adaptability. These aspects, in turn, lead to more comprehensive and innovative solutions.

What challenges might one encounter in creative problem-solving?

Challenges in creative problem-solving include rushing to solve the problem without fully understanding it, experiencing blocks during the ideation stage, dismissing seemingly unrealistic or risky ideas, and encountering resistance or unforeseen challenges during the implementation stage.

How might the future of creativity in problem-solving look like?

The future will likely see greater recognition of the role of creativity in problem-solving across various sectors. Technology will play a significant role in enhancing creativity, but maintaining a balance with human creativity will be necessary. Integrating diverse perspectives and emphasis on resilience and adaptability will also characterize future problem-solving.

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What is creative problem-solving?

Table of Contents

An introduction to creative problem-solving.

Creative problem-solving is an essential skill that goes beyond basic brainstorming . It entails a holistic approach to challenges, melding logical processes with imaginative techniques to conceive innovative solutions. As our world becomes increasingly complex and interconnected, the ability to think creatively and solve problems with fresh perspectives becomes invaluable for individuals, businesses, and communities alike.

Importance of divergent and convergent thinking

At the heart of creative problem-solving lies the balance between divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking encourages free-flowing, unrestricted ideation, leading to a plethora of potential solutions. Convergent thinking, on the other hand, is about narrowing down those options to find the most viable solution. This dual approach ensures both breadth and depth in the problem-solving process.

Emphasis on collaboration and diverse perspectives

No single perspective has a monopoly on insight. Collaborating with individuals from different backgrounds, experiences, and areas of expertise offers a richer tapestry of ideas. Embracing diverse perspectives not only broadens the pool of solutions but also ensures more holistic and well-rounded outcomes.

Nurturing a risk-taking and experimental mindset

The fear of failure can be the most significant barrier to any undertaking. It's essential to foster an environment where risk-taking and experimentation are celebrated. This involves viewing failures not as setbacks but as invaluable learning experiences that pave the way for eventual success.

The role of intuition and lateral thinking

Sometimes, the path to a solution is not linear. Lateral thinking and intuition allow for making connections between seemingly unrelated elements. These 'eureka' moments often lead to breakthrough solutions that conventional methods might overlook.

Stages of the creative problem-solving process

The creative problem-solving process is typically broken down into several stages. Each stage plays a crucial role in understanding, addressing, and resolving challenges in innovative ways.

Clarifying: Understanding the real problem or challenge

Before diving into solutions, one must first understand the problem at its core. This involves asking probing questions, gathering data, and viewing the challenge from various angles. A clear comprehension of the problem ensures that effort and resources are channeled correctly.

Ideating: Generating diverse and multiple solutions

Once the problem is clarified, the focus shifts to generating as many solutions as possible. This stage champions quantity over quality, as the aim is to explore the breadth of possibilities without immediately passing judgment.

Developing: Refining and honing promising solutions

With a list of potential solutions in hand, it's time to refine and develop the most promising ones. This involves evaluating each idea's feasibility, potential impact, and any associated risks, then enhancing or combining solutions to maximize effectiveness.

Implementing: Acting on the best solutions

Once a solution has been honed, it's time to put it into action. This involves planning, allocating resources, and monitoring the results to ensure the solution is effectively addressing the problem.

Techniques for creative problem-solving

Solving complex problems in a fresh way can be a daunting task to start on. Here are a few techniques that can help kickstart the process:

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a widely-used technique that involves generating as many ideas as possible within a set timeframe. Variants like brainwriting (where ideas are written down rather than spoken) and reverse brainstorming (thinking of ways to cause the problem) can offer fresh perspectives and ensure broader participation.

Mind mapping

Mind mapping is a visual tool that helps structure information, making connections between disparate pieces of data. It is particularly useful in organizing thoughts, visualizing relationships, and ensuring a comprehensive approach to a problem.

SCAMPER technique

SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. This technique prompts individuals to look at existing products, services, or processes in new ways, leading to innovative solutions.

Benefits of creative problem-solving

Creative problem-solving offers numerous benefits, both at the individual and organizational levels. Some of the most prominent advantages include:

Finding novel solutions to old problems

Traditional problems that have resisted conventional solutions often succumb to creative approaches. By looking at challenges from fresh angles and blending different techniques, we can unlock novel solutions previously deemed impossible.

Enhanced adaptability in changing environments

In our rapidly evolving world, the ability to adapt is critical. Creative problem-solving equips individuals and organizations with the agility to pivot and adapt to changing circumstances, ensuring resilience and longevity.

Building collaborative and innovative teams

Teams that embrace creative problem-solving tend to be more collaborative and innovative. They value diversity of thought, are open to experimentation, and are more likely to challenge the status quo, leading to groundbreaking results.

Fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement

Creative problem-solving is not just about finding solutions; it's also about continuous learning and improvement. By encouraging an environment of curiosity and exploration, organizations can ensure that they are always at the cutting edge, ready to tackle future challenges head-on.

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Creative Thinking: Innovative Solutions to Complex Challenges

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May 28, 2024

October 8, 2024

Learn how to grow a culture of creativity to innovate competitive solutions.

Overview: creative thinking skills course.

The tech breakthrough that makes smartphones irrelevant, a new viral ad campaign, your company’s next big revenue generator — ideas like these could be sitting in your brain; all you need are the creative thinking skills and strategies to pull them out.

This interactive program focuses explicitly on the creative thinking skills you need to solve complex problems and design innovative solutions. Learn how to transform your thinking from the standard “why can’t we” to the powerful “how might we.” Crack the code on how to consistently leverage your team’s creative potential in order to drive innovation within your organization. Explore how to build a climate for innovation, remove barriers to creativity, cultivate courage, and create more agile, proactive, and inspired teams.

You will leave this program with new ideas about how to think more productively and how to introduce creative thinking skills into your organization. You can apply key takeaways immediately to implement a new leadership vision, inspire renewed enthusiasm, and enjoy the skills and tools to tackle challenges and seize opportunities.

Innovation experts Anne Manning and Susan Robertson bring to this highly-interactive and powerful program their decades of experience promoting corporate innovation, teaching the art of creative problem solving, and applying the principles of brain science to solve complex challenges.

Who Should Take Creative Thinking Skills Training?

This program is ideal for leaders with at least 3 years of management experience. It is designed for leaders who want to develop new strategies, frameworks, and tools for creative problem solving. Whether you are a team lead, project manager, sales director, or executive, you’ll learn powerful tools to lead your team and your organization to create innovative solutions to complex challenges.

All participants will earn a Certificate of Participation from the Harvard Division of Continuing Education.

Benefits of Creative Thinking Skills Training

The goal of this creative thinking program is to help you develop the strategic concepts and tactical skills to lead creative problem solving for your team and your organization. You will learn to:

• Retrain your brain to avoid negative cognitive biases and long-held beliefs and myths that sabotage creative problem solving and innovation
• Become a more nimble, proactive, and inspired thinker and leader
• Create the type of organizational culture that supports collaboration and nurtures rather than kills ideas
• Gain a practical toolkit for solving the “unsolvable” by incorporating creative thinking into day-to-day processes
• Understand cognitive preferences (yours and others’) to adapt the creative thinking process and drive your team’s success
• Develop techniques that promote effective brainstorming and enable you to reframe problems in a way that inspires innovative solutions

The curriculum in this highly interactive program utilizes research-based methodologies and techniques to build creative thinking skills and stimulate creative problem solving.

Through intensive group discussions and small-group exercises, you will focus on topics such as:

• The Creative Problem Solving process: a researched, learnable, repeatable process for uncovering new and useful ideas. This process includes a “how to” on clarifying, ideating, developing, and implementing new solutions to intractable problems
• The cognitive preferences that drive how we approach problems, and how to leverage those cognitive preferences for individual and team success
• How to develop—and implement— a methodology that overcomes barriers to innovative thinking and fosters the generation of new ideas, strategies, and techniques
• The role of language, including asking the right questions, in reframing problems, challenging assumptions, and driving successful creative problem solving
• Fostering a culture that values, nurtures, and rewards creative solutions

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The Certificates of Leadership Excellence (CLE) are designed for leaders with the desire to enhance their business acumen, challenge current thinking, and expand their leadership skills.

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What It Takes to Think Deeply About Complex Problems

• Tony Schwartz

Three ways to embrace a more nuanced, spacious perspective.

The problems we’re facing often seem as intractable as they do complex. But as Albert Einstein famously observed, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” So what does it take to increase the complexity of our thinking? To cultivate a more nuanced, spacious perspective, start by challenging your convictions. Ask yourself, “What am I not seeing here?” and “What else might be true?” Second, do your most challenging task first every day, when your mind is fresh and before distractions arise. And third, pay attention to how you’re feeling. Embracing complexity means learning to better manage tough emotions like fear and anger.

The problems we’re facing often seem as complex as they do intractable. And as Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” So what does it take to increase the complexity of our thinking?

• Tony Schwartz is the CEO of The Energy Project and the author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working . Become a fan of The Energy Project on Facebook .

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Creative Problem Solving Explained

Creative problem solving is based on the belief that everyone is creative and can enhance their creative abilities with discipline.

Creative problem solving is a deliberate approach to solving complex problems. While creativity is an innate part of creative problem solving, the process uses a variety of steps and strategies designed to bring to the table solutions that are actionable and effective.

It’s a proven approach to use innovative ideas and views of a problem to develop viable options that can be brought to bear on the challenge. It can also redefine the problem, coming at it from a new perspective that results in an effective solution.

It also has powerful applications for addressing your greatest workflow challenges. Using creative problem solving lets you identify, refine, iterate, and select the best options to improve workflows using new technologies like automation.

Fundamentals of Creative Problem Solving

Many people hear “creative problem solving” and think it’s about brainstorming answers. However, creative problem solving is about much more. Creative answers to problems do not just appear magically but are the result of deliberate processes.

To work well, creative problem solving is rooted in two assumptions:

• Everyone is creative in some manner
• You can learn and enhance someone’s creative abilities

Those are powerful assumptions. They help to dispel the idea that there are “creative types” and “noncreative types.” All participants can be empowered to engage in the process by supporting and reinforcing the innate presence of creativity.

Alex Osborn helped define and formalize the idea of creative problem solving. He believed that two types of thinking are critical to creative problem solving.

Convergent Thinking focuses on the norms of problem solving and focuses on finding a singular solution that's well defined. Divergent Thinking is the opposite, with multiple options being considered after fostering creativity as part of the problem solving process.

Both play a role and have value in problem solving. Typically, both are used as part of the process.

For example, divergent thinking can create multiple ideas for possible solutions. Convergent thinking can whittle those down to a few or one idea to implement.

Principles of Creative Problem Solving

Here is a closer look at some key tenets of creative problem solving.

Reframe the Problem as a Question

Begin by restating the problem as a question or series of open-ended questions. The problem becomes more approachable with multiple possibilities available, and participants can be invited into the process.

By contrast, problems presented as declarative statements are often met by silence. These statements often lead to a limited response or no response at all.

There's a shift when asked as a question rather than a statement. The challenge is not an obstacle but rather an opportunity to solve. It opens the door to brainstorming and ideation.

Suspend Judgment

All too often, ideas that are generated in problem solving spaces are quickly dismissed. This instantaneous judgment has short- and long-term impacts.

First, it immediately dismisses the presented idea and the presenter. What’s more, the dismissal can have a chilling effect on others, stymieing the idea generation process.

There’s a time when judging presented ideas – when convergent thinking is at play. In the beginning, immediate judgment should be suspended.

Even the most implausible ideas presented at the beginning of the process may play a role later as long as they are still considered viable. If poisoned early in the process, they will unlikely be given any value later.

‘Yes, And’ Instead of ‘No, But’

The word “no” can have a similarly stifling effect on the creative problem solving work. "But," whether preceded by "yes” or "no," can close the conversation. It acts to negate everything that has come before.

You can create and maintain a more positive, encouraging tone using "yes, and" language instead of "no, but" language.

More positive language helps build on previously generated ideas. It creates an additive approach to the process instead of a dismissive one.

One Approach to Creative Problem Solving

Having a clearly defined approach to solving problems helps participants understand the scope and scale of the work. While multiple approaches can be used, here is one way to frame the engagement.

1. Clarify the Problem

The most critical step to creative problem solving is identifying and articulating the problem or goal. While it may appear to be easy to do so, often, what people think the problem is is not the true problem.

The critical step is to break down the problem, analyze it and understand the core issue.

One approach is to use the "five whys." Start by asking yourself, "Why is this a problem?" Once you have the answer, ask, "Why else?" four more times.

This iterative process can often refine and revise to unearth the true issue that needs to be addressed. You can ask other questions to further refine, such as:

• Why is this problem important to us?
• What is stopping us from solving this problem?
• Where will we be differently 6-12 months after solving the problem?

2. Define Evaluation Criteria

The creative problem solving process is likely to generate many potential ideas. It’s important to establish the process by which the ideas will be evaluated and, if selected, deployed.

These processes may have important factors, such as budget, staffing and time. The process needs to address what you seek to accomplish, avoid and act on. The process should be articulated to the participants in the problem solving and those affected by the outcomes.

3. Research the Problem

You want a clear understanding of the problem, which may require lots or a little research. Understand the common problem, how others may deal with it, and potential solutions.

4. Develop Creative Challenges

Once the problem is articulated and researched, it’s time to frame them. “Creative challenges” are simple and brief, question-based concepts. For example, "How can we …" or “What would it mean if …" These challenges will form the basis of your problem solving. They should be broadly focused and not include any evaluation criteria.

5. Create Ideas

Idea generation is what most people envision when they think of brainstorming or solving problems.

Start by taking just one of the creative challenges. Give yourself or the team some time to build at least 50 ideas. That may seem like a lot, but it can spark conversation and construction.

The ideas may or may not solve the presented challenge. By capturing them on paper or a computer (many programs support idea generation), you can have them readily available to organize, expand on, evaluate, and flesh out.

Be sure to use the following rules in this stage:

• Write down every idea
• Ensure no one critiques presented ideas
• Don’t stop until you’ve reached 50
• Present the full list of ideas and then ask if anyone has anything else to add
• If you have time, sleep on the ideas and return the next day. Try to add 25 more.

6. Sort and Assess Ideas

Take a break and reconvene to look at the ideas using the evaluation criteria. Combine ideas, then use the evaluation criteria to whittle down the list.

Some ideas may be implementable immediately. Others may need further analysis to prioritize.

7. Create a Plan

When you have your shortlist, create an action plan that outlines the steps necessary to implement the ideas. By breaking down the ideas into actionable steps, you’ll be better able to put them into play and see the results.

Problem Solving Your Workflows

When it comes to coming up with creative answers to your workflow problems, we have a variety of resources for you listed below. In addition, we're always interested in providing objective, experienced ideas through our Customer Success and Services teams.

• Reframe Your Business Processes
• Process Redesign Tips
• What is Business Process Re-Engineering?
• Process Improvement Examples
• https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-creative-problem-solving
• https://www.mindtools.com/a2j08rt/creative-problem-solving
• https://www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/what-is-cps/
• https://innovationmanagement.se/2010/06/02/the-basics-of-creative-problem-solving-cps/
• https://asana.com/resources/convergent-vs-divergent

Tags creativity   problem solving   process improvement  

Categories Business Ideas   Workflow Ideas   Project Management  

Marketing the world's best workflow automation software and drinking way too much coffee. Connect with me on LinkedIn at  https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelraia/

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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Complex problem solving: what it is and what it is not.

• 1 Department of Psychology, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany
• 2 Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

Computer-simulated scenarios have been part of psychological research on problem solving for more than 40 years. The shift in emphasis from simple toy problems to complex, more real-life oriented problems has been accompanied by discussions about the best ways to assess the process of solving complex problems. Psychometric issues such as reliable assessments and addressing correlations with other instruments have been in the foreground of these discussions and have left the content validity of complex problem solving in the background. In this paper, we return the focus to content issues and address the important features that define complex problems.

Succeeding in the 21st century requires many competencies, including creativity, life-long learning, and collaboration skills (e.g., National Research Council, 2011 ; Griffin and Care, 2015 ), to name only a few. One competence that seems to be of central importance is the ability to solve complex problems ( Mainzer, 2009 ). Mainzer quotes the Nobel prize winner Simon (1957) who wrote as early as 1957:

The capacity of the human mind for formulating and solving complex problems is very small compared with the size of the problem whose solution is required for objectively rational behavior in the real world or even for a reasonable approximation to such objective rationality. (p. 198)

The shift from well-defined to ill-defined problems came about as a result of a disillusion with the “general problem solver” ( Newell et al., 1959 ): The general problem solver was a computer software intended to solve all kind of problems that can be expressed through well-formed formulas. However, it soon became clear that this procedure was in fact a “special problem solver” that could only solve well-defined problems in a closed space. But real-world problems feature open boundaries and have no well-determined solution. In fact, the world is full of wicked problems and clumsy solutions ( Verweij and Thompson, 2006 ). As a result, solving well-defined problems and solving ill-defined problems requires different cognitive processes ( Schraw et al., 1995 ; but see Funke, 2010 ).

Well-defined problems have a clear set of means for reaching a precisely described goal state. For example: in a match-stick arithmetic problem, a person receives a false arithmetic expression constructed out of matchsticks (e.g., IV = III + III). According to the instructions, moving one of the matchsticks will make the equations true. Here, both the problem (find the appropriate stick to move) and the goal state (true arithmetic expression; solution is: VI = III + III) are defined clearly.

Ill-defined problems have no clear problem definition, their goal state is not defined clearly, and the means of moving towards the (diffusely described) goal state are not clear. For example: The goal state for solving the political conflict in the near-east conflict between Israel and Palestine is not clearly defined (living in peaceful harmony with each other?) and even if the conflict parties would agree on a two-state solution, this goal again leaves many issues unresolved. This type of problem is called a “complex problem” and is of central importance to this paper. All psychological processes that occur within individual persons and deal with the handling of such ill-defined complex problems will be subsumed under the umbrella term “complex problem solving” (CPS).

Systematic research on CPS started in the 1970s with observations of the behavior of participants who were confronted with computer simulated microworlds. For example, in one of those microworlds participants assumed the role of executives who were tasked to manage a company over a certain period of time (see Brehmer and Dörner, 1993 , for a discussion of this methodology). Today, CPS is an established concept and has even influenced large-scale assessments such as PISA (“Programme for International Student Assessment”), organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD, 2014 ). According to the World Economic Forum, CPS is one of the most important competencies required in the future ( World Economic Forum, 2015 ). Numerous articles on the subject have been published in recent years, documenting the increasing research activity relating to this field. In the following collection of papers we list only those published in 2010 and later: theoretical papers ( Blech and Funke, 2010 ; Funke, 2010 ; Knauff and Wolf, 2010 ; Leutner et al., 2012 ; Selten et al., 2012 ; Wüstenberg et al., 2012 ; Greiff et al., 2013b ; Fischer and Neubert, 2015 ; Schoppek and Fischer, 2015 ), papers about measurement issues ( Danner et al., 2011a ; Greiff et al., 2012 , 2015a ; Alison et al., 2013 ; Gobert et al., 2015 ; Greiff and Fischer, 2013 ; Herde et al., 2016 ; Stadler et al., 2016 ), papers about applications ( Fischer and Neubert, 2015 ; Ederer et al., 2016 ; Tremblay et al., 2017 ), papers about differential effects ( Barth and Funke, 2010 ; Danner et al., 2011b ; Beckmann and Goode, 2014 ; Greiff and Neubert, 2014 ; Scherer et al., 2015 ; Meißner et al., 2016 ; Wüstenberg et al., 2016 ), one paper about developmental effects ( Frischkorn et al., 2014 ), one paper with a neuroscience background ( Osman, 2012 ) 1 , papers about cultural differences ( Güss and Dörner, 2011 ; Sonnleitner et al., 2014 ; Güss et al., 2015 ), papers about validity issues ( Goode and Beckmann, 2010 ; Greiff et al., 2013c ; Schweizer et al., 2013 ; Mainert et al., 2015 ; Funke et al., 2017 ; Greiff et al., 2017 , 2015b ; Kretzschmar et al., 2016 ; Kretzschmar, 2017 ), review papers and meta-analyses ( Osman, 2010 ; Stadler et al., 2015 ), and finally books ( Qudrat-Ullah, 2015 ; Csapó and Funke, 2017b ) and book chapters ( Funke, 2012 ; Hotaling et al., 2015 ; Funke and Greiff, 2017 ; Greiff and Funke, 2017 ; Csapó and Funke, 2017a ; Fischer et al., 2017 ; Molnàr et al., 2017 ; Tobinski and Fritz, 2017 ; Viehrig et al., 2017 ). In addition, a new “Journal of Dynamic Decision Making” (JDDM) has been launched ( Fischer et al., 2015 , 2016 ) to give the field an open-access outlet for research and discussion.

This paper aims to clarify aspects of validity: what should be meant by the term CPS and what not? This clarification seems necessary because misunderstandings in recent publications provide – from our point of view – a potentially misleading picture of the construct. We start this article with a historical review before attempting to systematize different positions. We conclude with a working definition.

Historical Review

The concept behind CPS goes back to the German phrase “komplexes Problemlösen” (CPS; the term “komplexes Problemlösen” was used as a book title by Funke, 1986 ). The concept was introduced in Germany by Dörner and colleagues in the mid-1970s (see Dörner et al., 1975 ; Dörner, 1975 ) for the first time. The German phrase was later translated to CPS in the titles of two edited volumes by Sternberg and Frensch (1991) and Frensch and Funke (1995a) that collected papers from different research traditions. Even though it looks as though the term was coined in the 1970s, Edwards (1962) used the term “dynamic decision making” to describe decisions that come in a sequence. He compared static with dynamic decision making, writing:

In dynamic situations, a new complication not found in the static situations arises. The environment in which the decision is set may be changing, either as a function of the sequence of decisions, or independently of them, or both. It is this possibility of an environment which changes while you collect information about it which makes the task of dynamic decision theory so difficult and so much fun. (p. 60)

The ability to solve complex problems is typically measured via dynamic systems that contain several interrelated variables that participants need to alter. Early work (see, e.g., Dörner, 1980 ) used a simulation scenario called “Lohhausen” that contained more than 2000 variables that represented the activities of a small town: Participants had to take over the role of a mayor for a simulated period of 10 years. The simulation condensed these ten years to ten hours in real time. Later, researchers used smaller dynamic systems as scenarios either based on linear equations (see, e.g., Funke, 1993 ) or on finite state automata (see, e.g., Buchner and Funke, 1993 ). In these contexts, CPS consisted of the identification and control of dynamic task environments that were previously unknown to the participants. Different task environments came along with different degrees of fidelity ( Gray, 2002 ).

According to Funke (2012) , the typical attributes of complex systems are (a) complexity of the problem situation which is usually represented by the sheer number of involved variables; (b) connectivity and mutual dependencies between involved variables; (c) dynamics of the situation, which reflects the role of time and developments within a system; (d) intransparency (in part or full) about the involved variables and their current values; and (e) polytely (greek term for “many goals”), representing goal conflicts on different levels of analysis. This mixture of features is similar to what is called VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) in modern approaches to management (e.g., Mack et al., 2016 ).

In his evaluation of the CPS movement, Sternberg (1995) compared (young) European approaches to CPS with (older) American research on expertise. His analysis of the differences between the European and American traditions shows advantages but also potential drawbacks for each side. He states (p. 301): “I believe that although there are problems with the European approach, it deals with some fundamental questions that American research scarcely addresses.” So, even though the echo of the European approach did not enjoy strong resonance in the US at that time, it was valued by scholars like Sternberg and others. Before attending to validity issues, we will first present a short review of different streams.

Different Approaches to CPS

In the short history of CPS research, different approaches can be identified ( Buchner, 1995 ; Fischer et al., 2017 ). To systematize, we differentiate between the following five lines of research:

(a) The search for individual differences comprises studies identifying interindividual differences that affect the ability to solve complex problems. This line of research is reflected, for example, in the early work by Dörner et al. (1983) and their “Lohhausen” study. Here, naïve student participants took over the role of the mayor of a small simulated town named Lohhausen for a simulation period of ten years. According to the results of the authors, it is not intelligence (as measured by conventional IQ tests) that predicts performance, but it is the ability to stay calm in the face of a challenging situation and the ability to switch easily between an analytic mode of processing and a more holistic one.

(b) The search for cognitive processes deals with the processes behind understanding complex dynamic systems. Representative of this line of research is, for example, Berry and Broadbent’s (1984) work on implicit and explicit learning processes when people interact with a dynamic system called “Sugar Production”. They found that those who perform best in controlling a dynamic system can do so implicitly, without explicit knowledge of details regarding the systems’ relations.

(c) The search for system factors seeks to identify the aspects of dynamic systems that determine the difficulty of complex problems and make some problems harder than others. Representative of this line of research is, for example, work by Funke (1985) , who systematically varied the number of causal effects within a dynamic system or the presence/absence of eigendynamics. He found, for example, that solution quality decreases as the number of systems relations increases.

(d) The psychometric approach develops measurement instruments that can be used as an alternative to classical IQ tests, as something that goes “beyond IQ”. The MicroDYN approach ( Wüstenberg et al., 2012 ) is representative for this line of research that presents an alternative to reasoning tests (like Raven matrices). These authors demonstrated that a small improvement in predicting school grade point average beyond reasoning is possible with MicroDYN tests.

(e) The experimental approach explores CPS under different experimental conditions. This approach uses CPS assessment instruments to test hypotheses derived from psychological theories and is sometimes used in research about cognitive processes (see above). Exemplary for this line of research is the work by Rohe et al. (2016) , who test the usefulness of “motto goals” in the context of complex problems compared to more traditional learning and performance goals. Motto goals differ from pure performance goals by activating positive affect and should lead to better goal attainment especially in complex situations (the mentioned study found no effect).

To be clear: these five approaches are not mutually exclusive and do overlap. But the differentiation helps to identify different research communities and different traditions. These communities had different opinions about scaling complexity.

The Race for Complexity: Use of More and More Complex Systems

In the early years of CPS research, microworlds started with systems containing about 20 variables (“Tailorshop”), soon reached 60 variables (“Moro”), and culminated in systems with about 2000 variables (“Lohhausen”). This race for complexity ended with the introduction of the concept of “minimal complex systems” (MCS; Greiff and Funke, 2009 ; Funke and Greiff, 2017 ), which ushered in a search for the lower bound of complexity instead of the higher bound, which could not be defined as easily. The idea behind this concept was that whereas the upper limits of complexity are unbound, the lower limits might be identifiable. Imagine starting with a simple system containing two variables with a simple linear connection between them; then, step by step, increase the number of variables and/or the type of connections. One soon reaches a point where the system can no longer be considered simple and has become a “complex system”. This point represents a minimal complex system. Despite some research having been conducted in this direction, the point of transition from simple to complex has not been identified clearly as of yet.

Some years later, the original “minimal complex systems” approach ( Greiff and Funke, 2009 ) shifted to the “multiple complex systems” approach ( Greiff et al., 2013a ). This shift is more than a slight change in wording: it is important because it taps into the issue of validity directly. Minimal complex systems have been introduced in the context of challenges from large-scale assessments like PISA 2012 that measure new aspects of problem solving, namely interactive problems besides static problem solving ( Greiff and Funke, 2017 ). PISA 2012 required test developers to remain within testing time constraints (given by the school class schedule). Also, test developers needed a large item pool for the construction of a broad class of problem solving items. It was clear from the beginning that MCS deal with simple dynamic situations that require controlled interaction: the exploration and control of simple ticket machines, simple mobile phones, or simple MP3 players (all of these example domains were developed within PISA 2012) – rather than really complex situations like managerial or political decision making.

As a consequence of this subtle but important shift in interpreting the letters MCS, the definition of CPS became a subject of debate recently ( Funke, 2014a ; Greiff and Martin, 2014 ; Funke et al., 2017 ). In the words of Funke (2014b , p. 495):

It is funny that problems that nowadays come under the term ‘CPS’, are less complex (in terms of the previously described attributes of complex situations) than at the beginning of this new research tradition. The emphasis on psychometric qualities has led to a loss of variety. Systems thinking requires more than analyzing models with two or three linear equations – nonlinearity, cyclicity, rebound effects, etc. are inherent features of complex problems and should show up at least in some of the problems used for research and assessment purposes. Minimal complex systems run the danger of becoming minimal valid systems.

Searching for minimal complex systems is not the same as gaining insight into the way how humans deal with complexity and uncertainty. For psychometric purposes, it is appropriate to reduce complexity to a minimum; for understanding problem solving under conditions of overload, intransparency, and dynamics, it is necessary to realize those attributes with reasonable strength. This aspect is illustrated in the next section.

Importance of the Validity Issue

The most important reason for discussing the question of what complex problem solving is and what it is not stems from its phenomenology: if we lose sight of our phenomena, we are no longer doing good psychology. The relevant phenomena in the context of complex problems encompass many important aspects. In this section, we discuss four phenomena that are specific to complex problems. We consider these phenomena as critical for theory development and for the construction of assessment instruments (i.e., microworlds). These phenomena require theories for explaining them and they require assessment instruments eliciting them in a reliable way.

The first phenomenon is the emergency reaction of the intellectual system ( Dörner, 1980 ): When dealing with complex systems, actors tend to (a) reduce their intellectual level by decreasing self-reflections, by decreasing their intentions, by stereotyping, and by reducing their realization of intentions, (b) they show a tendency for fast action with increased readiness for risk, with increased violations of rules, and with increased tendency to escape the situation, and (c) they degenerate their hypotheses formation by construction of more global hypotheses and reduced tests of hypotheses, by increasing entrenchment, and by decontextualizing their goals. This phenomenon illustrates the strong connection between cognition, emotion, and motivation that has been emphasized by Dörner (see, e.g., Dörner and Güss, 2013 ) from the beginning of his research tradition; the emergency reaction reveals a shift in the mode of information processing under the pressure of complexity.

The second phenomenon comprises cross-cultural differences with respect to strategy use ( Strohschneider and Güss, 1999 ; Güss and Wiley, 2007 ; Güss et al., 2015 ). Results from complex task environments illustrate the strong influence of context and background knowledge to an extent that cannot be found for knowledge-poor problems. For example, in a comparison between Brazilian and German participants, it turned out that Brazilians accept the given problem descriptions and are more optimistic about the results of their efforts, whereas Germans tend to inquire more about the background of the problems and take a more active approach but are less optimistic (according to Strohschneider and Güss, 1998 , p. 695).

The third phenomenon relates to failures that occur during the planning and acting stages ( Jansson, 1994 ; Ramnarayan et al., 1997 ), illustrating that rational procedures seem to be unlikely to be used in complex situations. The potential for failures ( Dörner, 1996 ) rises with the complexity of the problem. Jansson (1994) presents seven major areas for failures with complex situations: acting directly on current feedback; insufficient systematization; insufficient control of hypotheses and strategies; lack of self-reflection; selective information gathering; selective decision making; and thematic vagabonding.

The fourth phenomenon describes (a lack of) training and transfer effects ( Kretzschmar and Süß, 2015 ), which again illustrates the context dependency of strategies and knowledge (i.e., there is no strategy that is so universal that it can be used in many different problem situations). In their own experiment, the authors could show training effects only for knowledge acquisition, not for knowledge application. Only with specific feedback, performance in complex environments can be increased ( Engelhart et al., 2017 ).

These four phenomena illustrate why the type of complexity (or degree of simplicity) used in research really matters. Furthermore, they demonstrate effects that are specific for complex problems, but not for toy problems. These phenomena direct the attention to the important question: does the stimulus material used (i.e., the computer-simulated microworld) tap and elicit the manifold of phenomena described above?

Dealing with partly unknown complex systems requires courage, wisdom, knowledge, grit, and creativity. In creativity research, “little c” and “BIG C” are used to differentiate between everyday creativity and eminent creativity ( Beghetto and Kaufman, 2007 ; Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009 ). Everyday creativity is important for solving everyday problems (e.g., finding a clever fix for a broken spoke on my bicycle), eminent creativity changes the world (e.g., inventing solar cells for energy production). Maybe problem solving research should use a similar differentiation between “little p” and “BIG P” to mark toy problems on the one side and big societal challenges on the other. The question then remains: what can we learn about BIG P by studying little p? What phenomena are present in both types, and what phenomena are unique to each of the two extremes?

Discussing research on CPS requires reflecting on the field’s research methods. Even if the experimental approach has been successful for testing hypotheses (for an overview of older work, see Funke, 1995 ), other methods might provide additional and novel insights. Complex phenomena require complex approaches to understand them. The complex nature of complex systems imposes limitations on psychological experiments: The more complex the environments, the more difficult is it to keep conditions under experimental control. And if experiments have to be run in labs one should bring enough complexity into the lab to establish the phenomena mentioned, at least in part.

There are interesting options to be explored (again): think-aloud protocols , which have been discredited for many years ( Nisbett and Wilson, 1977 ) and yet are a valuable source for theory testing ( Ericsson and Simon, 1983 ); introspection ( Jäkel and Schreiber, 2013 ), which seems to be banned from psychological methods but nevertheless offers insights into thought processes; the use of life-streaming ( Wendt, 2017 ), a medium in which streamers generate a video stream of think-aloud data in computer-gaming; political decision-making ( Dhami et al., 2015 ) that demonstrates error-proneness in groups; historical case studies ( Dörner and Güss, 2011 ) that give insights into the thinking styles of political leaders; the use of the critical incident technique ( Reuschenbach, 2008 ) to construct complex scenarios; and simulations with different degrees of fidelity ( Gray, 2002 ).

The methods tool box is full of instruments that have to be explored more carefully before any individual instrument receives a ban or research narrows its focus to only one paradigm for data collection. Brehmer and Dörner (1993) discussed the tensions between “research in the laboratory and research in the field”, optimistically concluding “that the new methodology of computer-simulated microworlds will provide us with the means to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the field” (p. 183). The idea behind this optimism was that computer-simulated scenarios would bring more complexity from the outside world into the controlled lab environment. But this is not true for all simulated scenarios. In his paper on simulated environments, Gray (2002) differentiated computer-simulated environments with respect to three dimensions: (1) tractability (“the more training subjects require before they can use a simulated task environment, the less tractable it is”, p. 211), correspondence (“High correspondence simulated task environments simulate many aspects of one task environment. Low correspondence simulated task environments simulate one aspect of many task environments”, p. 214), and engagement (“A simulated task environment is engaging to the degree to which it involves and occupies the participants; that is, the degree to which they agree to take it seriously”, p. 217). But the mere fact that a task is called a “computer-simulated task environment” does not mean anything specific in terms of these three dimensions. This is one of several reasons why we should differentiate between those studies that do not address the core features of CPS and those that do.

What is not CPS?

Even though a growing number of references claiming to deal with complex problems exist (e.g., Greiff and Wüstenberg, 2015 ; Greiff et al., 2016 ), it would be better to label the requirements within these tasks “dynamic problem solving,” as it has been done adequately in earlier work ( Greiff et al., 2012 ). The dynamics behind on-off-switches ( Thimbleby, 2007 ) are remarkable but not really complex. Small nonlinear systems that exhibit stunningly complex and unstable behavior do exist – but they are not used in psychometric assessments of so-called CPS. There are other small systems (like MicroDYN scenarios: Greiff and Wüstenberg, 2014 ) that exhibit simple forms of system behavior that are completely predictable and stable. This type of simple systems is used frequently. It is even offered commercially as a complex problem-solving test called COMPRO ( Greiff and Wüstenberg, 2015 ) for business applications. But a closer look reveals that the label is not used correctly; within COMPRO, the used linear equations are far from being complex and the system can be handled properly by using only one strategy (see for more details Funke et al., 2017 ).

Why do simple linear systems not fall within CPS? At the surface, nonlinear and linear systems might appear similar because both only include 3–5 variables. But the difference is in terms of systems behavior as well as strategies and learning. If the behavior is simple (as in linear systems where more input is related to more output and vice versa), the system can be easily understood (participants in the MicroDYN world have 3 minutes to explore a complex system). If the behavior is complex (as in systems that contain strange attractors or negative feedback loops), things become more complicated and much more observation is needed to identify the hidden structure of the unknown system ( Berry and Broadbent, 1984 ; Hundertmark et al., 2015 ).

Another issue is learning. If tasks can be solved using a single (and not so complicated) strategy, steep learning curves are to be expected. The shift from problem solving to learned routine behavior occurs rapidly, as was demonstrated by Luchins (1942) . In his water jar experiments, participants quickly acquired a specific strategy (a mental set) for solving certain measurement problems that they later continued applying to problems that would have allowed for easier approaches. In the case of complex systems, learning can occur only on very general, abstract levels because it is difficult for human observers to make specific predictions. Routines dealing with complex systems are quite different from routines relating to linear systems.

What should not be studied under the label of CPS are pure learning effects, multiple-cue probability learning, or tasks that can be solved using a single strategy. This last issue is a problem for MicroDYN tasks that rely strongly on the VOTAT strategy (“vary one thing at a time”; see Tschirgi, 1980 ). In real-life, it is hard to imagine a business manager trying to solve her or his problems by means of VOTAT.

What is CPS?

In the early days of CPS research, planet Earth’s dynamics and complexities gained attention through such books as “The limits to growth” ( Meadows et al., 1972 ) and “Beyond the limits” ( Meadows et al., 1992 ). In the current decade, for example, the World Economic Forum (2016) attempts to identify the complexities and risks of our modern world. In order to understand the meaning of complexity and uncertainty, taking a look at the worlds’ most pressing issues is helpful. Searching for strategies to cope with these problems is a difficult task: surely there is no place for the simple principle of “vary-one-thing-at-a-time” (VOTAT) when it comes to global problems. The VOTAT strategy is helpful in the context of simple problems ( Wüstenberg et al., 2014 ); therefore, whether or not VOTAT is helpful in a given problem situation helps us distinguish simple from complex problems.

Because there exist no clear-cut strategies for complex problems, typical failures occur when dealing with uncertainty ( Dörner, 1996 ; Güss et al., 2015 ). Ramnarayan et al. (1997) put together a list of generic errors (e.g., not developing adequate action plans; lack of background control; learning from experience blocked by stereotype knowledge; reactive instead of proactive action) that are typical of knowledge-rich complex systems but cannot be found in simple problems.

Complex problem solving is not a one-dimensional, low-level construct. On the contrary, CPS is a multi-dimensional bundle of competencies existing at a high level of abstraction, similar to intelligence (but going beyond IQ). As Funke et al. (2018) state: “Assessment of transversal (in educational contexts: cross-curricular) competencies cannot be done with one or two types of assessment. The plurality of skills and competencies requires a plurality of assessment instruments.”

There are at least three different aspects of complex systems that are part of our understanding of a complex system: (1) a complex system can be described at different levels of abstraction; (2) a complex system develops over time, has a history, a current state, and a (potentially unpredictable) future; (3) a complex system is knowledge-rich and activates a large semantic network, together with a broad list of potential strategies (domain-specific as well as domain-general).

Complex problem solving is not only a cognitive process but is also an emotional one ( Spering et al., 2005 ; Barth and Funke, 2010 ) and strongly dependent on motivation (low-stakes versus high-stakes testing; see Hermes and Stelling, 2016 ).

Furthermore, CPS is a dynamic process unfolding over time, with different phases and with more differentiation than simply knowledge acquisition and knowledge application. Ideally, the process should entail identifying problems (see Dillon, 1982 ; Lee and Cho, 2007 ), even if in experimental settings, problems are provided to participants a priori . The more complex and open a given situation, the more options can be generated (T. S. Schweizer et al., 2016 ). In closed problems, these processes do not occur in the same way.

In analogy to the difference between formative (process-oriented) and summative (result-oriented) assessment ( Wiliam and Black, 1996 ; Bennett, 2011 ), CPS should not be reduced to the mere outcome of a solution process. The process leading up to the solution, including detours and errors made along the way, might provide a more differentiated impression of a person’s problem-solving abilities and competencies than the final result of such a process. This is one of the reasons why CPS environments are not, in fact, complex intelligence tests: research on CPS is not only about the outcome of the decision process, but it is also about the problem-solving process itself.

Complex problem solving is part of our daily life: finding the right person to share one’s life with, choosing a career that not only makes money, but that also makes us happy. Of course, CPS is not restricted to personal problems – life on Earth gives us many hard nuts to crack: climate change, population growth, the threat of war, the use and distribution of natural resources. In sum, many societal challenges can be seen as complex problems. To reduce that complexity to a one-hour lab activity on a random Friday afternoon puts it out of context and does not address CPS issues.

Theories about CPS should specify which populations they apply to. Across populations, one thing to consider is prior knowledge. CPS research with experts (e.g., Dew et al., 2009 ) is quite different from problem solving research using tasks that intentionally do not require any specific prior knowledge (see, e.g., Beckmann and Goode, 2014 ).

More than 20 years ago, Frensch and Funke (1995b) defined CPS as follows:

CPS occurs to overcome barriers between a given state and a desired goal state by means of behavioral and/or cognitive, multi-step activities. The given state, goal state, and barriers between given state and goal state are complex, change dynamically during problem solving, and are intransparent. The exact properties of the given state, goal state, and barriers are unknown to the solver at the outset. CPS implies the efficient interaction between a solver and the situational requirements of the task, and involves a solver’s cognitive, emotional, personal, and social abilities and knowledge. (p. 18)

The above definition is rather formal and does not account for content or relations between the simulation and the real world. In a sense, we need a new definition of CPS that addresses these issues. Based on our previous arguments, we propose the following working definition:

Complex problem solving is a collection of self-regulated psychological processes and activities necessary in dynamic environments to achieve ill-defined goals that cannot be reached by routine actions. Creative combinations of knowledge and a broad set of strategies are needed. Solutions are often more bricolage than perfect or optimal. The problem-solving process combines cognitive, emotional, and motivational aspects, particularly in high-stakes situations. Complex problems usually involve knowledge-rich requirements and collaboration among different persons.

The main differences to the older definition lie in the emphasis on (a) the self-regulation of processes, (b) creativity (as opposed to routine behavior), (c) the bricolage type of solution, and (d) the role of high-stakes challenges. Our new definition incorporates some aspects that have been discussed in this review but were not reflected in the 1995 definition, which focused on attributes of complex problems like dynamics or intransparency.

This leads us to the final reflection about the role of CPS for dealing with uncertainty and complexity in real life. We will distinguish thinking from reasoning and introduce the sense of possibility as an important aspect of validity.

CPS as Combining Reasoning and Thinking in an Uncertain Reality

Leading up to the Battle of Borodino in Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky explains the concept of war to his friend Pierre. Pierre expects war to resemble a game of chess: You position the troops and attempt to defeat your opponent by moving them in different directions.

“Far from it!”, Andrei responds. “In chess, you know the knight and his moves, you know the pawn and his combat strength. While in war, a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes weaker than a company; it all depends on circumstances that can never be known. In war, you do not know the position of your enemy; some things you might be able to observe, some things you have to divine (but that depends on your ability to do so!) and many things cannot even be guessed at. In chess, you can see all of your opponent’s possible moves. In war, that is impossible. If you decide to attack, you cannot know whether the necessary conditions are met for you to succeed. Many a time, you cannot even know whether your troops will follow your orders…”

In essence, war is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty. A good commander (or politician) can add to that what he or she sees, tentatively fill in the blanks – and not just by means of logical deduction but also by intelligently bridging missing links. A bad commander extrapolates from what he sees and thus arrives at improper conclusions.

Many languages differentiate between two modes of mentalizing; for instance, the English language distinguishes between ‘thinking’ and ‘reasoning’. Reasoning denotes acute and exact mentalizing involving logical deductions. Such deductions are usually based on evidence and counterevidence. Thinking, however, is what is required to write novels. It is the construction of an initially unknown reality. But it is not a pipe dream, an unfounded process of fabrication. Rather, thinking asks us to imagine reality (“Wirklichkeitsfantasie”). In other words, a novelist has to possess a “sense of possibility” (“Möglichkeitssinn”, Robert Musil; in German, sense of possibility is often used synonymously with imagination even though imagination is not the same as sense of possibility, for imagination also encapsulates the impossible). This sense of possibility entails knowing the whole (or several wholes) or being able to construe an unknown whole that could accommodate a known part. The whole has to align with sociological and geographical givens, with the mentality of certain peoples or groups, and with the laws of physics and chemistry. Otherwise, the entire venture is ill-founded. A sense of possibility does not aim for the moon but imagines something that might be possible but has not been considered possible or even potentially possible so far.

Thinking is a means to eliminate uncertainty. This process requires both of the modes of thinking we have discussed thus far. Economic, political, or ecological decisions require us to first consider the situation at hand. Though certain situational aspects can be known, but many cannot. In fact, von Clausewitz (1832) posits that only about 25% of the necessary information is available when a military decision needs to be made. Even then, there is no way to guarantee that whatever information is available is also correct: Even if a piece of information was completely accurate yesterday, it might no longer apply today.

Once our sense of possibility has helped grasping a situation, problem solvers need to call on their reasoning skills. Not every situation requires the same action, and we may want to act this way or another to reach this or that goal. This appears logical, but it is a logic based on constantly shifting grounds: We cannot know whether necessary conditions are met, sometimes the assumptions we have made later turn out to be incorrect, and sometimes we have to revise our assumptions or make completely new ones. It is necessary to constantly switch between our sense of possibility and our sense of reality, that is, to switch between thinking and reasoning. It is an arduous process, and some people handle it well, while others do not.

If we are to believe Tuchman’s (1984) book, “The March of Folly”, most politicians and commanders are fools. According to Tuchman, not much has changed in the 3300 years that have elapsed since the misguided Trojans decided to welcome the left-behind wooden horse into their city that would end up dismantling Troy’s defensive walls. The Trojans, too, had been warned, but decided not to heed the warning. Although Laocoön had revealed the horse’s true nature to them by attacking it with a spear, making the weapons inside the horse ring, the Trojans refused to see the forest for the trees. They did not want to listen, they wanted the war to be over, and this desire ended up shaping their perception.

The objective of psychology is to predict and explain human actions and behavior as accurately as possible. However, thinking cannot be investigated by limiting its study to neatly confined fractions of reality such as the realms of propositional logic, chess, Go tasks, the Tower of Hanoi, and so forth. Within these systems, there is little need for a sense of possibility. But a sense of possibility – the ability to divine and construe an unknown reality – is at least as important as logical reasoning skills. Not researching the sense of possibility limits the validity of psychological research. All economic and political decision making draws upon this sense of possibility. By not exploring it, psychological research dedicated to the study of thinking cannot further the understanding of politicians’ competence and the reasons that underlie political mistakes. Christopher Clark identifies European diplomats’, politicians’, and commanders’ inability to form an accurate representation of reality as a reason for the outbreak of World War I. According to Clark’s (2012) book, “The Sleepwalkers”, the politicians of the time lived in their own make-believe world, wrongfully assuming that it was the same world everyone else inhabited. If CPS research wants to make significant contributions to the world, it has to acknowledge complexity and uncertainty as important aspects of it.

For more than 40 years, CPS has been a new subject of psychological research. During this time period, the initial emphasis on analyzing how humans deal with complex, dynamic, and uncertain situations has been lost. What is subsumed under the heading of CPS in modern research has lost the original complexities of real-life problems. From our point of view, the challenges of the 21st century require a return to the origins of this research tradition. We would encourage researchers in the field of problem solving to come back to the original ideas. There is enough complexity and uncertainty in the world to be studied. Improving our understanding of how humans deal with these global and pressing problems would be a worthwhile enterprise.

Author Contributions

JF drafted a first version of the manuscript, DD added further text and commented on the draft. JF finalized the manuscript.

Authors Note

After more than 40 years of controversial discussions between both authors, this is the first joint paper. We are happy to have done this now! We have found common ground!

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for the continuous support of their research over many years. Thanks to Daniel Holt for his comments on validity issues, thanks to Julia Nolte who helped us by translating German text excerpts into readable English and helped us, together with Keri Hartman, to improve our style and grammar – thanks for that! We also thank the two reviewers for their helpful critical comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Finally, we acknowledge financial support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg within their funding programme Open Access Publishing .

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Keywords : complex problem solving, validity, assessment, definition, MicroDYN

Citation: Dörner D and Funke J (2017) Complex Problem Solving: What It Is and What It Is Not. Front. Psychol. 8:1153. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01153

Received: 14 March 2017; Accepted: 23 June 2017; Published: 11 July 2017.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2017 Dörner and Funke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Joachim Funke, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Creative Thinking for Complex Problem Solving

The challenges businesses face today are increasingly complex and systemic, often resisting obvious and definitive solutions. This complexity is frequently met with oversimplification, over-analysis, and quick fixes. But complex problem solving requires unconventional thinking to make unexpected connections—connections that others might not see. You can create these connections by bringing play and rigor into your problem-solving process. The most effective problem solvers harness creative thinking to see problems from unique angles, experiment with new and innovative ideas, and maintain momentum throughout the problem-solving process to make measured progress and move from problems to possibilities. Launching March 2024, our newest course will help you become a dynamic problem solver, equipped to take on today’s most intricate challenges with creative thinking and confidence.

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• Learn how to de-risk and experiment to build resilient strategies.
• Balance creative thinking and rigor to get to breakthrough ideas and sustainable solutions.

Skills You’ll Gain

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What You'll Learn

Introduction: welcoming complexity, watch a sneak peek, 2 video lessons.

Welcome Complexity: An Introduction to Mindsets and Methods—Delve into the essential components of curiosity, experimentation, and iteration to welcome complexity as an opportunity.

1 Assignment

Articulate a Complex Problem: In your organization, reflect on how play and rigor show up.

2 Discussions

When have you seen the power of adding more imagination or creativity into addressing a complex problem? What was the impact?

What common complex problem-solving pitfall tends to happen most on your team: oversimplifying, overanalyzing, or quick fixes? Why and how could you counter it?

2 Resources

Mindsets that Drive Complex Problem Solving: This guide provides information on embracing the mindsets of exploration, empathetic curiosity, and experimentation.

Overcoming Common Pitfalls: Strategies to recognize and address common pitfalls such as oversimplification, overanalysis, and premature solution finding.

Week 1: Open Up the Problem With Curiosity

4 video lessons.

Expand the Question: Engage Stakeholders and Invite Fresh Perspectives—Learn to uncover and ask the right questions by involving diverse stakeholders

Build Empathy: Put Humans at the Center—Apply critical thinking strategies to understand the biases and needs of stakeholders using three IDEO case studies

Diverge and Converge: Generate Possibilities and Make Choices—Explore IDEO’s diverge/converge process, and the powerful role ambiguity plays in problem solving

The Science of Play: Why Creative Problem Solving Works—Explore the neuroscience behind imagination and play, and why these concepts are so vital in problem-solving spaces.

Refine Your Problem Statement: Reflect on and apply techniques to deconstruct assumptions, broaden perspectives, refine your central problem statement based on human needs and resources.

3 Discussions

What “sacred myths” are present in your organization? How might they limit creativity and innovation?

Does your organization oversimplify, overanalyze, or jump to solutions when facing complexity? Why?

How can leaders nurture acceptance of uncertainty in the innovation process?

Uncover Assumptions: Tools to help you uncover starting points, hunches, and strong beliefs about your problem.

Right-Size the Question: Learn how to sharpen your problem statement with lessons from IDEO case studies.

Week 2: Get Tangible Through Experimentation

Level up Ideas—Techniques to evolve early hunches into tangible concepts

Build confidence—Learn to assess concepts using IDEO’s Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility framework

De-risk Through Experimentation—Learn how to use prototyping to de-risk your solutions

The Art of Observation—Techniques for capturing unbiased observations from your experiments

Create Prototypes: Bring your solutions to life with rapid prototyping, uncover hidden assumptions, and build resilience in your solutions.

What technique(s) helped you most in leveling up early ideas into testable concepts?

How might you increase the diversity of perspectives involved in shaping and assessing early prototypes?

In what ways can leaders nurture acceptance of uncertainty and nonlinearity in the early innovation process?

Tools for Prototyping and Experimentation: Guides on co-creation sessions, mock pitches, and boundary concepts.

Simulating Strategies and Solutions: Learn how to use strategy board games as tools for fostering problem-solving, creativity, and innovation.

Week 3: Iterate As You Learn

3 video lessons.

Meaning Making: Identify Patterns and Themes Through Synthesis—Balance playful synthesis with rigorous analysis to build compelling narratives

Pivot and Iterate—Techniques to adapt and evolve future solutions

Learn from The Future—Use future scenarios to pressure-test ideas and adapt to evolving concepts

Uncover Deep Insights: Apply the techniques of affinity clustering, stakeholder critiques, and working backward from future visioning to derive meaningful insights and identify moments to iterate or pivot.

What metrics would indicate you are making meaningful progress amidst complexity and uncertainty?

What insights challenged your assumptions about this problem space or audience?

In what ways can experiments that “fail” still provide value in complexity?

Find the Implications from Insights: Strategies for leveraging insights in problem-solving.

Measure Progress: Methods to track progress and align with future scenarios.

Conclusion: Maintain Momentum

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Sustain Commitment—Learn how to inspire behavioral change and sustain commitment.

Reflect on the Mindsets and Methods to Drive Sustained Change: Determine everyday rituals that motivate teams and counter change fatigue. Adopt lenses assessing current strategies while envisioning aspirational futures.

Why is it important to define success by outcomes rather than only concrete outputs/deliverables? How might this shape your approach?

What everyday rituals can leaders employ to keep teams inspired and committed for the long haul of complex problem-solving?

Temperature Check: Evaluate your progress and strategize the next steps to enhance confidence in your problem-solving direction.

Meet Your Instructors

Kate Schnippering

Executive design director at ideo.

Kate Schnippering is an Executive Design Director at IDEO, with a focus on creative technology. Kate brings ‘build to learn' experimentation to make real the futures we imagine. She creates conditions for teams and partners to immerse in imagination as a collective act—uplifting dreams and rigor in equal measure. In nearly a decade at IDEO, Kate’s developed teams, leaders, and organizations.

Her work investigates pathways to positive, systemic change for people and nature—by harnessing expressive technologies to make science & data relatable, and grow the power of everyday people. She’s built a real-world ‘magic school bus’ that teaches rover engineering to middle schoolers on Mars, designed a product for patients to partner directly with medical researchers in the study of rare diseases, and guided a youth mental health platform from proof of concept to delivery.

Michelle Lee

Partner and executive managing director at ideo play lab.

Michelle Lee is a Partner and Managing Director at IDEO, where she has applied her passion for play to leading interdisciplinary teams of designers and researchers in bringing engaging, interactive, and playful experiences to market. She believes in leveraging the principles of play to connect with people on a deeper emotional level that captivates, delights, and empowers.

Through her work, she has helped clients enhance workplace culture, championed responsible digital design, inspired underrepresented students to pursue careers in STEM, and supported organizations as they adopted practices in line with a circular economy. Michelle has shared her passion for play at SXSW, The Delight Conference, The Culture Summit, Circularity 23 and through numerous podcasts and articles.

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"Kate and her team brought people together from across the Ranger Business to engage in complex strategy development through a playful and curious program of work. With prototypes and ideas in hand, we explored new places and met new people, growing and learning together as a team. These glimpses into the future continue to inspire us, have changed our approach to work and compel us to continuously adjust and refine our Ranger strategy to support future generations."

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In today's fast-paced and dynamic world, problem-solving has become an indispensable skill. Whether you are a business leader, a student, an entrepreneur, or simply someone navigating the complexities of daily life, the ability to overcome challenges is paramount. One key to effective problem-solving is harnessing creativity.

In this article, we'll explore the concept of harnessing creativity in problem-solving and discuss innovative approaches to tackle various challenges successfully.

Understanding the Link Between Harnessing Creativity and Problem-Solving

Creativity and problem-solving are often perceived as separate domains. However, they are intricately intertwined. Creativity is the fuel that powers innovative problem-solving. When you introduce creativity into the problem-solving process, you open the door to fresh perspectives and unconventional solutions. Here's how it works:

1. Divergent Thinking

Harnessing creativity encourages divergent thinking, which is the ability to consider multiple perspectives and generate a wide range of ideas. This process is particularly valuable when tackling complex problems. Divergent thinking allows you to explore different avenues, identifying potential solutions that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

2. Out-of-the-Box Solutions

Creative problem-solving involves thinking beyond conventional boundaries. It prompts individuals to look for out-of-the-box solutions that challenge the status quo. This approach can lead to groundbreaking innovations that address problems in new and unexpected ways.

3. Resilience in Problem-Solving

Creativity fosters resilience in problem-solving. When you approach challenges with a creative mindset, you are better equipped to adapt to unexpected obstacles and setbacks. You are more likely to experiment with different approaches and persist until you find a workable solution.

Innovative Approaches to Problem-Solving through Creativity

Now that we understand the importance of creativity in problem-solving , let's explore innovative approaches that can help you harness your creative potential to overcome challenges.

1. Design Thinking

Design thinking is a problem-solving framework that places empathy at its core. It involves empathizing with the end user or the person facing the problem. By deeply understanding their needs, you can design solutions that truly address the issue. This approach encourages creative thinking, as it often requires brainstorming and prototyping to arrive at user-centric solutions.

2. Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a visual technique that allows you to organize thoughts and ideas in a nonlinear fashion. It's an excellent tool for problem-solving as it helps you see connections between different elements of a problem. This visual approach often leads to creative insights and novel solutions.

3. Brainstorming and Collaboration

Collaborative brainstorming sessions can be a hotbed of creativity. When you bring diverse minds together to tackle a problem, you benefit from different perspectives and experiences. Encourage open, non-judgmental idea sharing in a brainstorming session to stimulate creative problem-solving.

4. Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering involves breaking down a problem or a solution to its fundamental components. By dissecting an issue, you can better understand its intricacies and explore alternative ways to approach it. This analytical approach can trigger creative problem-solving by revealing hidden opportunities.

5. Storytelling and Scenario Planning

Using storytelling and scenario planning, you can create narratives that explore different outcomes and solutions. This approach encourages creative thinking by visualizing potential scenarios and their consequences. It allows you to anticipate challenges and devise strategies to overcome them.

6. Visual Thinking

Visual thinking is a method that involves using drawings, diagrams, and other visual aids to represent problems and solutions. Visualizing a problem often reveals patterns and relationships that are not apparent through words alone. This technique can unlock new, creative insights.

Case Studies in Creative Problem-Solving

To illustrate the power of creativity in problem-solving, let's delve into a few real-world case studies where innovative approaches led to remarkable solutions:

1. Airbnb: Empathy-Driven Design Thinking

Airbnb, the world's leading online marketplace for lodging and travel experiences, faced a unique problem. They needed to build trust between hosts and guests who were essentially strangers. To address this challenge, they implemented an empathy-driven design thinking approach. They focused on understanding the concerns and needs of both hosts and guests, leading to the creation of a secure platform with user-centric features.

2. SpaceX: Reverse Engineering for Rocket Reusability

SpaceX, Elon Musk's aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company, sought to reduce the cost of space exploration by making rockets reusable. Instead of following conventional engineering approaches, SpaceX employed reverse engineering by disassembling and analyzing the process of rocket launches. This led to the groundbreaking development of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has revolutionized space travel.

3. Tesla: Visual Thinking in Electric Car Design

Tesla, an electric vehicle and clean energy company, used visual thinking as a core part of its design process. By visualizing the electric car as a clean, efficient, and powerful machine, Tesla's team reimagined the possibilities of electric transportation. This approach led to the creation of high-performance electric vehicles that are changing the automotive industry.

Challenges in Harnessing Creativity for Problem-Solving

While harnessing creativity for problem-solving is essential, it comes with its set of challenges. Some of these challenges include:

1. Fear of Failure

Creativity often involves taking risks and embracing the possibility of failure. Many individuals and organizations are risk-averse, which can stifle creative problem-solving. Overcoming the fear of failure is crucial to unlock creative potential.

2. Lack of Resources

Creativity often requires time, resources, and a supportive environment. In organizations, tight budgets and stringent schedules can limit the space for creative problem-solving. Overcoming these constraints may require resource allocation and a cultural shift towards valuing creativity.

3. Resistance to Change

People and organizations can be resistant to change, especially when it comes to unconventional problem-solving approaches. Overcoming this resistance may require effective communication, leadership, and a commitment to demonstrating the value of creative solutions.

Conclusion: Harnessing Creativity for Effective Problem-Solving

In a world marked by constant change and complexity, effective problem-solving is a skill that can set individuals and organizations apart. Harnessing creativity in problem-solving is not just an option; it's a necessity. By embracing innovative approaches like design thinking, mind mapping, brainstorming, and visual thinking, you can unlock your creative potential to overcome challenges.

Real-world examples from companies like Airbnb, SpaceX, and Tesla demonstrate the power of creative problem-solving in achieving remarkable outcomes. However, it's crucial to acknowledge the challenges that come with creativity, such as the fear of failure, resource constraints, and resistance to change. Addressing these challenges head-on is essential for realizing the full potential of creative problem-solving.

In conclusion, by fostering a culture of creativity and incorporating innovative problem-solving methods, individuals and organizations can rise to the occasion and conquer the most complex challenges that come their way. Creativity isn't a luxury; it's a strategic advantage that can drive success in an ever-evolving world.

So, the next time you face a problem, remember to tap into your creative reservoir. You might just discover the innovative solution that changes everything.

About the Author

Awais Ahmed is a passionate writer and expert in the field of personal development, communication, and professional skills. With a background in psychology and a keen interest in human behavior, he is dedicated to helping individuals unleash their full potential and achieve personal and career success.

Continue to: Collaborative Innovation Social Problem-Solving

See also: Simple Ways to Teach Your Child Problem Solving Skills 5 Innovative Companies We Can Take Leadership Lessons From Critical Problem-Solving Skills for a Successful E-Commerce Venture

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• v.6(2); 2022 Apr

Creativity in problem solving to improve complex health outcomes: Insights from hospitals seeking to improve cardiovascular care

Amanda l. brewster.

1 Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley California, USA

Yuna S. H. Lee

2 Health Policy and Management, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, New York New York, USA

Erika L. Linnander

3 Global Health Leadership Initiative, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven Connecticut, USA

Leslie A. Curry

4 Health Policy and Management, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven Connecticut, USA

Associated Data

Introduction.

Improving performance often requires health care teams to employ creativity in problem solving, a key attribute of learning health systems. Despite increasing interest in the role of creativity in health care, empirical evidence documenting how this concept manifests in real‐world contexts remains limited.

We conducted a qualitative study to understand how creativity was fostered during problem solving in 10 hospitals that took part in a 2‐year collaborative to improve cardiovascular care outcomes. We analyzed interviews with 197 hospital team members involved in the collaborative, focusing on work processes or outcomes that participants self‐identified as creative or promoting creativity. We sought to identify recurrent patterns across instances of creativity in problem solving.

Participants reported examples of creativity at both stages typically identified in problem solving research and practice: uncovering non‐obvious problems and finding novel solutions. Creativity generally involved the assembly of an “ecological view” of the care process, which reflected a more complete understanding of relationships between individual care providers, organizational sub‐units, and their environment. Teams used three prominent behaviors to construct the ecological view: (a) collecting new and diverse information, (b) accepting (rather than dismissing) disruptive information, and (c) employing empathy to understand and share feelings of others.

Conclusions

We anticipate that findings will be useful to researchers and practitioners who wish to understand how creativity can be fostered in problem solving to improve clinical outcomes and foster learning health systems.

1. INTRODUCTION

Improving performance often requires health care teams to employ creativity in problem solving, a key attribute of learning health systems. Creativity is defined the process of generating approaches that are both novel and useful. 1 , 2 Incorporating creativity into problem solving can help to address unique, site‐specific complexities that influence performance in health care, 3 , 4 and to enhance the positive impact of evidence‐based strategies adapted from outside the organization. 5 While some advances in health care can be applied generically across settings, researchers have documented the importance of innovation and adaptation by local implementation teams, 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 and customization to patients and context is a key part of patient‐centered, high‐quality care. 10 These observations from health care cohere with management research from other industries, which posits that when innovation depends on complex contextual information that is difficult to codify and transfer, innovation‐related problem solving needs to occur where that information is held, 11 and by the individuals who have agency to act on these solutions. 12 That is, key innovations must be made by staff located at each implementation site.

Despite the known importance of creativity in problem solving, relatively few studies detail how workers incorporate creativity into problem solving during the natural course of work—in health care or in other industries. 13 Prior research on creative problem solving in the workplace has been largely theoretical, 14 , 15 with some empirical research deriving from industries such as new product development 16 , 17 where novelty is an explicit goal of work. Such research also focuses on creative outcomes while neglecting processes that incorporate creativity as habit and routine, that is, as part of the organizational culture. 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 Detailed studies of front‐line problem solving in the automotive industry provide a useful framework for considering the dimensions of problem solving—including an important distinction between problem definition and generation of solutions 22 —but do not focus on creativity and innovation. More research is needed to better understand how creativity manifests during complex problem solving in health care. 18

Prominent learning and quality improvement models in health care assume that both problem definition and generation of solutions can be important sites of creativity. Models including Lean/Six‐Sigma, 23 the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Model for Improvement, 24 the strategic problem‐solving process, 25 and user‐centered design 26 focus on uncovering nonobvious problems through an emphasis on root cause analysis and understanding user experience. More research is needed to understand the process by which creativity manifests when grappling with the complexity and customization that health care demands. 20

Even as more health care organizations seek to become learning organizations by implementing structured improvement interventions, 23 reports of such efforts highlight the fact that these improvement interventions do not always achieve intended results. Health care teams must overcome distinctive and substantial barriers to creativity, including strong hierarchies, aversion to risk, highly specialized professionals, and emphasis on standardization of care to promote reliability and quality. 27 , 28 There can be tension between creativity and health care performance improvement, as health care delivery often seeks to minimize variation, and the core of creativity is enhancing variation. 29 Yet, influencing performance in health care often requires moving beyond stability and the status quo, a process well served by incorporating creativity. 27 Accumulating grounded evidence on how creative problem solving manifests in a variety of health care contexts is important for advancing understanding of this phenomenon. 30

2. QUESTION OF INTEREST

To describe in detail how creativity emerges as health care workers engage in problem solving, we sought to characterize the processes through which creativity emerged in problem solving within hospitals seeking to reduce mortality from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) as part of a 2‐year performance improvement collaborative called leadership saves lives (LSL). Mortality for AMI, now publicly reported and included in the value‐based purchasing bundle, 31 is influenced by components of care delivery that cross multiple boundaries within and outside of the hospital. 32 , 33 One important contributor to lower AMI mortality is clinicians' ability to resolve open‐ended problems through creative thinking. 34 Creative problem solving is especially relevant to AMI care teams working to reduce mortality because of the multifaceted nature of the problem, which spans multiple units and levels of hierarchy within the hospital, and extends past hospital boundaries to pre‐hospital and post discharge systems. Each care setting is unique in numerous important ways, making it essential for teams to develop novel solutions that work in their own contexts (ie, apply creativity).

The LSL collaborative involved 10 hospitals in which AMI care teams engaged in a curriculum designed to foster group learning and problem solving. While teams were encouraged to be creative in their problem solving, the limitations of prior evidence meant that the intervention could not be prescriptive about exactly how creativity was expected to be cultivated. As described elsewhere, 35 participating hospital teams reported increased capacity for learning and problem solving, and their hospitals experienced significant decreases in risk‐stratified mortality rate (RSMR) over the course of the study period, suggesting that these hospitals would be an ideal context for examining multiple instances of creative problem solving and distilling common patterns. We anticipate that findings will be useful to researchers and practitioners who wish to understand how creativity can be fostered in problem solving to improve clinical outcomes.

3.1. Study design and setting

We conducted a qualitative study to understand how creativity was fostered during problem solving in the 10 hospitals that took part in the LSL collaborative from 2014 to 2016. As previously described, 35 hospitals were selected for participation from the membership of the Mayo Clinic Care Network (MCCN), a national group of medical systems committed to quality improvement through collaboration. From the 21 MCCN members (as of January 2014), hospitals were identified as candidates if they met all three eligibility criteria: (a) at least 200 AMI discharges per year to ensure sufficient experience in caring for patients with AMI, (b) average or below average national performance on 30‐day RSMR between January 07, 2009 and June 30, 2012 as reported by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare in Spring 2014, suggesting opportunity for improvement, and (c) the largest hospital in the system, for hospitals in multihospital systems. From the list of 18 hospitals that met eligibility criteria, random sampling with a purposeful component 36 as used to select hospitals that were diverse in geography and teaching status. The first 10 hospitals were approached to determine receptivity; two declined and were replaced with sites similar in geography and teaching status. Hospital characteristics are presented in Table  1 .

Hospital characteristics (n = 10 hospitals)

3.2. LSL intervention

The LSL intervention, previously described in detail, 37 was implemented from June 2014 to June 2016. LSL was designed to foster reductions in AMI mortality by supporting the implementation of evidence‐based strategies and fostering improvements in domains of organizational culture related to hospital performance. Each hospital established a guiding coalition of approximately 15 staff involved in care of patients with AMI, representing multiple departments, and including senior executives as well as front‐line staff. Guiding coalition members participated in four, 1‐day workshops in which they were coached through a strategic problem‐solving methodology 25 to define a shared problem (ie, RSMR is too high) and objective (ie, reduce RSMR), and then use root cause analysis to generate, implement, and evaluate strategies designed to achieve the defined objective. Erika Linnander led intervention workshops at multiple LSL hospitals, and Erika Linnander and Leslie Curry engaged with guiding coalitions in three annual workshops that convened representatives of all 10 hospitals participating in LSL. LSL coalitions were encouraged to develop strategies that fit their unique contexts, through both tailoring existing evidence‐based practices and introducing completely novel approaches. The evidence‐based practices include monthly meetings with emergency medical services personnel to review AMI cases, identification of both physician and nurse champions for AMI care, nurses dedicated to the catheterization lab (not cross‐staffing from other units), pharmacist rounding on all inpatients with AMI, and creative problem solving. As noted earlier, the intervention did not prescribe specific approaches to cultivate creativity. Guiding coalitions were also encouraged to foster improvements in hospital culture related to AMI performance, focusing on domains of: learning environment, 38 psychological safety, 39 senior management support, 40 commitment to the organization, 41 and time for improvement efforts. 39

3.3. Data collection

We collected qualitative data about the use of creativity in problem solving in LSL hospitals using in‐depth, in‐person interviews 36 at the start of the LSL intervention, and at 6 months and 18 months into the 2‐year intervention. A team of interviewers who included individuals with backgrounds in qualitative research, health care management, and clinical care conducted interviews with staff involved in the guiding coalition as well as other clinicians and hospital executives, using a standardized interview guide ( Data S1 ). The interview guide asked about implementation of creative problem‐solving strategies as part of a broader set of interview questions examining the hospital's experience with LSL. Amanda Brewster and Leslie Curry were members of the team that conducted interviews. Interview participants were aware of the LSL intervention and aware that research was being conducted to understand the process of implementing the LSL intervention as well as its impact. Interviews took place at the hospitals where participants worked, generally in a quiet room. A total of 197 individuals participated in one or more interviews, with 162 interviews at baseline, 118 at 6 months, and 113 at 18 months into the intervention, for a total of 393 interviews (Table  2 ). The number of individual interviewees per hospital ranged from 15 to 26. Interviews lasted approximately 45 minutes and were audiotaped and professionally transcribed. The research procedures were reviewed and determined to be exempt by the Yale University Institutional Research Board.

Interview participant characteristics

3.4. Data analysis

Interview transcripts were analyzed by a 6‐member multidisciplinary team using the constant comparative method of analysis. 42 The current analysis of creative problem solving focused on content in which participants discussed work processes that they self‐identified as creative or promoting creativity, that is, ideas that were both novel and useful. Participants did not have to use the terms “creative” or “creativity” explicitly. Content could be coded as referring to creative problem solving if participants were providing examples in response to the structured interview questions on creative problem solving strategies, or if participants discussed processes for generating novel and useful ideas in response to other interview questions. We considered that participants would be best positioned to assess whether something was creative in the context of their environments, and therefore relied on participants' own judgements regarding novel and useful elements of the phenomenon. Each transcript was coded independently by at least three analysts, with discrepancies reconciled through negotiated consensus. A hybrid coding approach 43 in which we began with a small number of a priori codes based on key LSL program elements and added new codes as additional themes emerged during coding. Iterative coding and analysis occurred across each wave of data collection, with refinement and review by the full team of six analysts, until a final code structure was established and reapplied to the full dataset. We used Atlas.ti to facilitate coding and organization of data. The analysis team included members with diverse perspectives, representing expertise in health services research, management, organizational theory, social work, nursing, medicine, and anthropology. We sought to generate recurrent themes that characterize essential aspects of creative problem solving in hospital contexts, examining instances in which creativity emerged in uncovering nonobvious problems or finding novel solutions.

Across hospitals, participant descriptions of creativity in problem solving generally entailed the use of three prominent behaviors: (a) collecting new and diverse information, (b) accepting (rather than dismissing) disruptive information, and (c) employing empathy (ie, to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position). Each of the three behaviors appeared at times sufficient to advance creative problem solving by fostering a broad, inclusive new view of AMI care, which we term an “ecological view” (Figure  1 ). The following sections detail the three behaviors, followed by the emergent concept of an ecological view of AMI care.

Concepts identified as important to creative problem solving. Working from the right‐hand side of the figure, creativity in problem solving was promoted by the assembly of a new, ecological view of AMI care. At least one of three behaviors was typically used by LSL coalitions to foster this ecological view

4.1. Collecting new and diverse information

Collecting new and diverse information was a behavior that routinely contributed to creativity in problem solving for LSL coalitions. Sometimes the new information came from assembling new data or analyzing data in new ways; for example, conducting new analyses of mortality data helped LSL coalitions at several hospitals to expand their conception of their AMI mortality challenges to include non‐STEMI patients (patients with non‐ST segment elevation myocardial infarction). This was a significant shift, as most prior quality improvement efforts had focused exclusively on STEMI patients. As an example, a cardiologist on one hospital's team undertook a close and systematic review of AMI deaths, as part of a root cause analysis recommended in the LSL intervention, and noticed that non‐STEMI care seemed to offer greater opportunities for improvement, explaining:

With STEMI's there was never any waiting… but in non‐STEMIs [there were] delays… STEMI's, they all die after you've revascularized them. You've done everything you could… But the non‐STEMI's are coming in. Somebody thought they were stable, and then they deteriorate which makes you think you've got really more of an opportunity with them. (Hospital J, Physician).

In other cases, new and diverse information came from the LSL coalitions engaging personnel who had not previously been involved in problem solving related to AMI mortality. For example, an emergency medicine physician in one hospital described how input from personnel outside the LSL coalition informed plans for introducing a dedicated cardiology physician assistant (PA) role that would remain on site at all times. After the hospital's LSL coalition coalesced around the idea to add this role, the coalition sought out opinions from different stakeholders elsewhere in the organization, who brought to light a wide range of issues that would need to be worked out in order to successfully implement this solution. A physician on the LSL coalition described:

Then [a senior administrator] presented the other stuff, that I never thought of. Who technically has ownership of that PA?… How does the funding for that position come from everyone, if the revenue goes through one of our different cardiology groups?… I never thought of that. I said, “Give me a body, and have them there 24/7.”…Then the cardiologists say, “Well, it's great. What we do with the PAs when they're not in the cath lab?… That creative problem solving comes from listening to everyone's different opinions, and having the ability to separate me from the project. Taking out my own biases. (Hospital B, Emergency Medicine Physician).

Synthesizing diverse views allowed the team to gain a more accurate understanding of implementation challenges, enhancing the practical utility and likely impact of their ideas.

4.2. Accepting (rather than dismissing) disruptive information

Leveraging new and diverse information sources for creative problem solving typically required a second, distinct behavior: accepting (rather than dismissing) disruptive or unwelcome information. In describing instances where new information contributed to the development of novel and useful solutions, participants routinely described processes to overcome resistance to new information. For example, after the LSL coalition at Hospital J shifted to thinking about non‐STEMI care as a potential problem to address, team members identified another problem: high‐risk non‐STEMIs were difficult to identify. After getting input from other physicians and nurses and reviewing non‐STEMI risk guidelines from the American College of Cardiology, the LSL coalition recommended two major changes to improve care for patients with non‐STEMI AMI: a new protocol to equip nurses to initiate care for inpatients with evolving AMIs, and a new set of algorithms and procedures for attending cardiologists to more consistently review at‐risk cases. These new procedures met with initial resistance from other cardiologists within the hospital, but the opponents “knew that they couldn't just blow it off completely,” according to an LSL coalition member, because the LSL coalition had carefully documented a previously unrecognized pattern of non‐STEMI deaths pointing to the need for change. The LSL coalition helped to engineer this acceptance of information that diverged from prior beliefs by employing data, methodology, and a respected cardiologist as the messenger that would be compelling to the cardiologists.

In other situations, accepting disruptive information involved elevating the weight given to input from frontline personnel lower in the organizational hierarchy. The LSL guiding coalitions included perspectives not traditionally included in hospital process improvement discussions, such as EMS representatives external to the hospital. The perception that these representatives occupied positions that were more peripheral to the hospital and lower in the organizational hierarchy could have set up their perspectives to be dismissed. This risk was exemplified by the concerns of a paramedic on one LSL coalition, who reported initially feeling skeptical about the value he could add to a group that included high status individuals such as cardiovascular surgeons and department heads, who were seen as intimidating. (“I'm like, what's pre‐hospital's role? I mean this is a big, huge hospital system.”) Over time though, this paramedic saw that his perspective was actively accepted, and he was empowered to share his opinions with the group. Intentional emphasis on the importance of EMS by the LSL intervention facilitator aided this effort:

One of the first things [the team facilitator] brought up was the statistics on pre‐hospital, how much they're involved… Then I have [a physician] sitting right next to me, who looks at me and says, “What do you think about it? What can we do to improve the pre‐hospital side of things?” To me that brought me right into the team. (Hospital A, Paramedic).

Although hospital leaders were generally aware of the need to improve pre‐hospital processes, listening to and valuing the input from the EMS representative was key for the LSL coalition at Hospital A to understand the specific problems occurring at the interface of pre‐hospital and hospital care, a situation seen at other LSL hospitals as well. Once the problems had been identified, solutions could be introduced. In the case of Hospital A, the solution was for the hospital to hire an EMS liaison with experience as a paramedic to manage communication between pre‐hospital, emergency department, and other staff from the hospital who need to be activated to care for AMI patients. This solution was so widely recognized as effective in facilitating coordination across these systems that the hospital leadership agreed to fund a second liaison position.

Experience at another hospital illustrated how the hospital's senior management played an important role in getting team members to take new information seriously and thereby spurred creativity in problem solving. As part of the LSL project, this hospital started documenting the wait times for EKG results. These new data showed that slow EKG results routinely delayed AMI care. The EKG wait time measure represented new and disruptive information for the hospital, because EKG wait time had not previously been tracked or understood to delay AMI care. Senior managers within the hospital held firm on the need to substantially reduce EKG wait times, even after multiple barriers to solving this problem were identified: from limitations on which staff could perform EKGs, to transmission of results being slowed by wireless connectivity drops in different parts of the floor, to EKG results being printed in an area where they weren't immediately noticed. The stance of leaders, who were encouraging but very firm about the need to improve on the EKG wait time measure, forced ED teams to develop creative solutions rather than accept the inevitability of delays. The introduction of new, disruptive information about EKG wait times, coupled with active endorsement by multiple managers, represented a departure from previous quality improvement efforts in which teams were seen to resign themselves to the status quo. One manger explained:

[In earlier improvement efforts] I would hear an answer from one team that says, “No. This can't be done.” [Now] I think we have leaders who… are very good at saying, “Why not?” Then when we start looking at “why not,” we often find that, oh yeah, maybe it's possible… If [the leader] says I'm satisfied with, “This can't be done,” then you're not going to have much creative thinking. (Hospital I, Manager).

Taking the data on EKG wait times as a serious indicator of problems led to a variety of creative solutions being implemented in the ED over the course of the LSL project, including training new categories of staff members to perform EKGs, putting existing communication technologies to new uses, establishing a new space where EKGs could be performed when the ED was full, and printing EKGs in a new location, near the physicians who needed to interpret them. The changes were effective: the proportion of at‐risk patients receiving EKGs within the target time of 10 minutes rose from under 30% to 80%.

4.3. Employing empathy

Employing empathy—having problem‐solving staff consciously shift their mindsets to empathize with the experiences of colleagues or patients—was the third behavior regularly observed to foster creative problem solving for LSL coalitions. An example of empathizing with colleagues at referring facilities was reported by participants from Hospital F, which served as a referral center for AMI patients across a large region. As part of the LSL initiative, a nurse from the LSL coalition visited facilities that frequently transferred AMI patients to the hospital and followed the transfer process alongside providers at one referring facilities, which allowed her to experience the frustration of transfers from the referring facility's perspective (ie, empathize). She described the experience as follows:

I got myself involved in [a patient transfer] with their emergency physician, trying to help coordinate the transfer of that patient [from the outlying facility to our hospital]. It was amazing how complicated our system had made it to get a patient transferred. I was able to be that advocate and see it from that view and then experience that frustration from that provider standpoint. (Hospital F, Nurse).

Seeing transfers from the perspective of referring facilities revealed several flaws in the process, which were delaying patient care and led to the development of new approaches to streamline communication with referring facilities.

Another example of empathizing with colleagues was seen at Hospital D, where the director of cardiac services discussed the importance of understanding, in detail, the perspective of EKG technicians in order to address problems with EKG processes. He encouraged his team to go observe the EKG techs at work, to understand “steps to their job” and consider how to help them:

The first part is, don't be afraid to call and say, “I have a problem.” The second part is…go back, and [ask] what does the EKG tech do? They didn't know….[I said] maybe you ought to go with them for a while. You gotta go figure out…what are the steps to their job, and how can we make it more efficient, help them in quality? We learned together. We problem solve together. (Hospital D, Physician).

An example of empathizing with patients motivating creative problem solving was reported by a nurse coordinator explaining what happened when the LSL coalition reviewed the hospital's discharge education materials for patients with AMI. It was clear that the materials were inadequate to help patients effectively discharge (“It was horrid. I can't even believe that's what we were giving patients”). The team knew that improved materials were needed, but felt overwhelmed by the range of options. Ultimately, they took an approach of trying to put themselves in the patient's shoes, which led to the development of a patient education resource that was regarded as the best patient education tool in the hospital:

We just had to sit down and really problem solve and be the patient in the matter. What is going to make a difference? What's going to grab my attention as a patient to better adhere to my discharge instructions and understand them? All the praise goes to [three team members] because they put together the best patient education tools that we have in the hospital. (Hospital F, Nurse).

4.4. Ecological view

While we observed three distinctive behaviors fostering creative problem solving, as described in the sections above, the behaviors tended to accomplish the same thing: the assembly of a broad, inclusive new view of AMI care, which we term an “ecological view.” This ecological view, fostered by teams collecting new and diverse information, accepting (rather than dismissing) disruptive information, and employing empathy, routinely contributed to LSL coalitions creatively uncovering nonobvious problems and finding novel solutions. Figure  1 outlines our concept of how creativity in problem solving was driven by development of an ecological view of the care process.

We adopt the biological metaphor of ecology, which is often used in the study of organizations (Freeman 2006), 44 to connote the development of a shared understanding of AMI care that reflected the relationships among a wide range of different individual care providers, organizational sub‐units, and their environment. Organization scholars commonly analyze populations of organizations in an ecological context. We use the term “ecological view” to describe the emergence of self‐awareness inside the organization of this ecological context, as some of these providers and relationships were previously unknown, or known to only some but not all team members. The ecological view, in turn, infused the problem‐solving process with creativity—allowing team members to see the contours of problems that not previously been identified and to develop novel solutions.

5. DISCUSSION

In instances where creativity emerged during the problem‐solving process within LSL hospitals, a characteristic process was observed in which team members generated an ecological view of the AMI care process, reflecting a more complete understanding of relationships between care providers, organizational sub‐units, and their environment. The ecological view of AMI care sparked teams to define previously unrecognized problems, and to develop novel, tailored solutions. The experiences of the LSL hospitals indicated that identifying nonobvious problems represented an important site of creativity in the problem‐solving process. While our results stem from an initiative to improve AMI mortality, they could apply to initiatives to improve outcomes for other complex conditions involving care that spans disciplines, departments, and organizations, such as stroke, heart failure, and diabetes.

The emergence of the ecological view that supported creativity in problem solving was regularly fostered by at least three different behaviors: collecting new information, accepting disruptive information, and employing empathy. Although the role of the ecological view in creative problem solving was not theorized during the development or delivery of the LSL intervention, several of the LSL intervention components explicitly encouraged behaviors that we observed to promote an ecological view, and could be helpful for other hospitals seeking to promote creativity in problem solving. Specifically, the LSL intervention team facilitated the development of guiding coalitions with diverse membership, advised hospital teams to conduct root cause analyses, which fed the collection of new information, and coached on group processes to promote psychological safety to foster the process of surfacing disruptive information from individuals whose perspectives might not be known. Efforts to encourage empathy were not an intentional component of the LSL intervention although raising awareness of psychological safety could have heightened participants' focus on the feelings of others. Empathy—the exercise of intentionally placing oneself in a new perspective—emerged as an especially powerful tactic to leverage exposure to new information. This is consistent with prior research on problem solving in manufacturing, which identifies advantages of observing, first‐hand, a mechanical part in the situation where it is malfunctioning, as a way of getting richer information. 22 In the context of our study, the immersive quality of exercises in empathy may have provided richer information, and also emotional cues, which enhanced LSL coalition members' motivation to act on novel ideas that would have dissipated in the face of less compelling experiences. Intrinsic motivation has been theorized as an important contributor to individual creativity. 1

The behaviors we identified promoting an ecological view are not new to the quality improvement literature—other commonly used quality improvement models such as Lean and Six Sigma emphasize collection of new data and inclusion of diverse perspectives in understanding variability, waste, and poor performance. 45 , 46 Empathy for end‐users features as a component of the design‐thinking process, which is being used by some health care organizations for quality improvement. 26 Our results, however, provide real‐world examples of how these concepts foster creative problem solving in the context of a quality improvement intervention that targeted an outcome measure influenced by complex processes. While we reported the three behaviors that featured most prominently in participants' descriptions of examples where an ecological view emerged to promote creativity in problem solving during the LSL intervention, it is possible that other behaviors and supporting structures may promote the emergence of an ecological view in different settings. Notably, in the hospitals we studied, these three behaviors depended on support from a critical mass of team members in diverse clinical and managerial roles as well as hospital senior leadership. It is hard to say whether individual clinicians or staff members could enhance their own creative problem‐solving capabilities by applying these behaviors in isolation.

Our results should be interpreted in light of several study limitations. First, with 10 hospitals, our sample was relatively small, although hospitals were selected to be diverse in terms of geography, size, and teaching status, and each hospital tackled several dimensions of AMI care, thus accumulating a larger number of examples of problem solving. Further, the robust, longitudinal qualitative design allowed for deep characterization of the improvement process in each hospital. Second, hospitals in the study were exposed to a leadership development curriculum that encouraged a structured approach to problem solving; the process of creativity in problem solving may proceed differently in hospitals that had not been supported in this way. Third, we were not able to collect data on whether particular interventions introduced by the LSL hospitals were effective, or sustained over time beyond the study period, which prevents us from concluding whether solution quality was improved by creative problem solving in this study. We do know that LSL hospitals reduced AMI RSMR more quickly than the national average over the same time period, 35 suggesting that LSL hospitals did make changes that improved RSMR during the study period.

Our results provide a refined depiction of the creative problem‐solving process based on empirical observations across multiple hospitals. These findings suggest that health systems seeking to promote creative problem solving could encourage the three behaviors we have documented to advance an ecological view of care processes. As exploratory research, these findings point toward several opportunities for further study. First, it would be useful to examine the creative problem‐solving process in a different set of hospitals, working to improve a different outcome, to confirm the generalizability of our findings. A next step could include quantitatively testing the hypothesis that forming an ecological view is indeed constitutive of the creative problem‐solving process, and improves solution quality. Doing this could involve developing a survey‐based measure of the extent to which quality improvement teams have developed an ecological view of their target process, and evaluating the creativity and effectiveness of their solutions.

6. CONCLUSIONS

Creativity is crucial to performance improvement in health care, and evidence from other industries has linked individual traits such as motivation and values, as well as organizational traits such as leadership style, team climate, and decentralized structure to creative performance. 14 , 18 , 47 Seeking to illuminate the process by which creative problem solving occurs in health care, we observed a characteristic process that occurred across different hospitals, in which distinctive patterns of acquiring and processing new information contributed to creativity. These distinctive behaviors can be fostered by health care leaders seeking to improve performance on consequential clinical outcomes, including AMI mortality.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Supporting information

Data S1. Qualitative interview guide

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Funding for the Leadership Saves Lives (LSL) collaborative and its evaluation was provided through a research grant to Yale University from The Medicines Company, Parsippany, New Jersey. The authors thank the hospitals and guiding coalition members that participated in LSL for their time and dedication.

Brewster AL, Lee YSH, Linnander EL, Curry LA. Creativity in problem solving to improve complex health outcomes: Insights from hospitals seeking to improve cardiovascular care . Learn Health Sys . 2022; 6 ( 2 ):e10283. 10.1002/lrh2.10283 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Funding information Medicines Company

35 problem-solving techniques and methods for solving complex problems

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All teams and organizations encounter challenges as they grow. There are problems that might occur for teams when it comes to miscommunication or resolving business-critical issues . You may face challenges around growth , design , user engagement, and even team culture and happiness. In short, problem-solving techniques should be part of every team’s skillset.

Problem-solving methods are primarily designed to help a group or team through a process of first identifying problems and challenges , ideating possible solutions , and then evaluating the most suitable .

Finding effective solutions to complex problems isn’t easy, but by using the right process and techniques, you can help your team be more efficient in the process.

So how do you develop strategies that are engaging, and empower your team to solve problems effectively?

In this blog post, we share a series of problem-solving tools you can use in your next workshop or team meeting. You’ll also find some tips for facilitating the process and how to enable others to solve complex problems.

Let’s get started! 

How do you identify problems?

How do you identify the right solution.

• Tips for more effective problem-solving

Complete problem-solving methods

• Problem-solving techniques to identify and analyze problems
• Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions

Problem-solving warm-up activities

Closing activities for a problem-solving process.

Before you can move towards finding the right solution for a given problem, you first need to identify and define the problem you wish to solve. 

Here, you want to clearly articulate what the problem is and allow your group to do the same. Remember that everyone in a group is likely to have differing perspectives and alignment is necessary in order to help the group move forward. 

Identifying a problem accurately also requires that all members of a group are able to contribute their views in an open and safe manner. It can be scary for people to stand up and contribute, especially if the problems or challenges are emotive or personal in nature. Be sure to try and create a psychologically safe space for these kinds of discussions.

Remember that problem analysis and further discussion are also important. Not taking the time to fully analyze and discuss a challenge can result in the development of solutions that are not fit for purpose or do not address the underlying issue.

Successfully identifying and then analyzing a problem means facilitating a group through activities designed to help them clearly and honestly articulate their thoughts and produce usable insight.

With this data, you might then produce a problem statement that clearly describes the problem you wish to be addressed and also state the goal of any process you undertake to tackle this issue.  

Finding solutions is the end goal of any process. Complex organizational challenges can only be solved with an appropriate solution but discovering them requires using the right problem-solving tool.

After you’ve explored a problem and discussed ideas, you need to help a team discuss and choose the right solution. Consensus tools and methods such as those below help a group explore possible solutions before then voting for the best. They’re a great way to tap into the collective intelligence of the group for great results!

Remember that the process is often iterative. Great problem solvers often roadtest a viable solution in a measured way to see what works too. While you might not get the right solution on your first try, the methods below help teams land on the most likely to succeed solution while also holding space for improvement.

Every effective problem solving process begins with an agenda . A well-structured workshop is one of the best methods for successfully guiding a group from exploring a problem to implementing a solution.

In SessionLab, it’s easy to go from an idea to a complete agenda . Start by dragging and dropping your core problem solving activities into place . Add timings, breaks and necessary materials before sharing your agenda with your colleagues.

The resulting agenda will be your guide to an effective and productive problem solving session that will also help you stay organized on the day!

Tips for more effective problem solving

Problem-solving activities are only one part of the puzzle. While a great method can help unlock your team’s ability to solve problems, without a thoughtful approach and strong facilitation the solutions may not be fit for purpose.

Let’s take a look at some problem-solving tips you can apply to any process to help it be a success!

Clearly define the problem

Jumping straight to solutions can be tempting, though without first clearly articulating a problem, the solution might not be the right one. Many of the problem-solving activities below include sections where the problem is explored and clearly defined before moving on.

This is a vital part of the problem-solving process and taking the time to fully define an issue can save time and effort later. A clear definition helps identify irrelevant information and it also ensures that your team sets off on the right track.

Don’t jump to conclusions

It’s easy for groups to exhibit cognitive bias or have preconceived ideas about both problems and potential solutions. Be sure to back up any problem statements or potential solutions with facts, research, and adequate forethought.

The best techniques ask participants to be methodical and challenge preconceived notions. Make sure you give the group enough time and space to collect relevant information and consider the problem in a new way. By approaching the process with a clear, rational mindset, you’ll often find that better solutions are more forthcoming.  

Try different approaches  

Problems come in all shapes and sizes and so too should the methods you use to solve them. If you find that one approach isn’t yielding results and your team isn’t finding different solutions, try mixing it up. You’ll be surprised at how using a new creative activity can unblock your team and generate great solutions.

Don’t take it personally 

Depending on the nature of your team or organizational problems, it’s easy for conversations to get heated. While it’s good for participants to be engaged in the discussions, ensure that emotions don’t run too high and that blame isn’t thrown around while finding solutions.

You’re all in it together, and even if your team or area is seeing problems, that isn’t necessarily a disparagement of you personally. Using facilitation skills to manage group dynamics is one effective method of helping conversations be more constructive.

Get the right people in the room

Your problem-solving method is often only as effective as the group using it. Getting the right people on the job and managing the number of people present is important too!

If the group is too small, you may not get enough different perspectives to effectively solve a problem. If the group is too large, you can go round and round during the ideation stages.

Creating the right group makeup is also important in ensuring you have the necessary expertise and skillset to both identify and follow up on potential solutions. Carefully consider who to include at each stage to help ensure your problem-solving method is followed and positioned for success.

Document everything

The best solutions can take refinement, iteration, and reflection to come out. Get into a habit of documenting your process in order to keep all the learnings from the session and to allow ideas to mature and develop. Many of the methods below involve the creation of documents or shared resources. Be sure to keep and share these so everyone can benefit from the work done!

Bring a facilitator 

Facilitation is all about making group processes easier. With a subject as potentially emotive and important as problem-solving, having an impartial third party in the form of a facilitator can make all the difference in finding great solutions and keeping the process moving. Consider bringing a facilitator to your problem-solving session to get better results and generate meaningful solutions!

Develop your problem-solving skills

It takes time and practice to be an effective problem solver. While some roles or participants might more naturally gravitate towards problem-solving, it can take development and planning to help everyone create better solutions.

You might develop a training program, run a problem-solving workshop or simply ask your team to practice using the techniques below. Check out our post on problem-solving skills to see how you and your group can develop the right mental process and be more resilient to issues too!

Design a great agenda

Workshops are a great format for solving problems. With the right approach, you can focus a group and help them find the solutions to their own problems. But designing a process can be time-consuming and finding the right activities can be difficult.

Check out our workshop planning guide to level-up your agenda design and start running more effective workshops. Need inspiration? Check out templates designed by expert facilitators to help you kickstart your process!

In this section, we’ll look at in-depth problem-solving methods that provide a complete end-to-end process for developing effective solutions. These will help guide your team from the discovery and definition of a problem through to delivering the right solution.

If you’re looking for an all-encompassing method or problem-solving model, these processes are a great place to start. They’ll ask your team to challenge preconceived ideas and adopt a mindset for solving problems more effectively.

• Six Thinking Hats
• Lightning Decision Jam
• Problem Definition Process
• Discovery & Action Dialogue

Design Sprint 2.0

• Open Space Technology

1. Six Thinking Hats

Individual approaches to solving a problem can be very different based on what team or role an individual holds. It can be easy for existing biases or perspectives to find their way into the mix, or for internal politics to direct a conversation.

Six Thinking Hats is a classic method for identifying the problems that need to be solved and enables your team to consider them from different angles, whether that is by focusing on facts and data, creative solutions, or by considering why a particular solution might not work.

Like all problem-solving frameworks, Six Thinking Hats is effective at helping teams remove roadblocks from a conversation or discussion and come to terms with all the aspects necessary to solve complex problems.

2. Lightning Decision Jam

Featured courtesy of Jonathan Courtney of AJ&Smart Berlin, Lightning Decision Jam is one of those strategies that should be in every facilitation toolbox. Exploring problems and finding solutions is often creative in nature, though as with any creative process, there is the potential to lose focus and get lost.

Unstructured discussions might get you there in the end, but it’s much more effective to use a method that creates a clear process and team focus.

In Lightning Decision Jam, participants are invited to begin by writing challenges, concerns, or mistakes on post-its without discussing them before then being invited by the moderator to present them to the group.

From there, the team vote on which problems to solve and are guided through steps that will allow them to reframe those problems, create solutions and then decide what to execute on. 

By deciding the problems that need to be solved as a team before moving on, this group process is great for ensuring the whole team is aligned and can take ownership over the next stages. 

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ)   #action   #decision making   #problem solving   #issue analysis   #innovation   #design   #remote-friendly   The problem with anything that requires creative thinking is that it’s easy to get lost—lose focus and fall into the trap of having useless, open-ended, unstructured discussions. Here’s the most effective solution I’ve found: Replace all open, unstructured discussion with a clear process. What to use this exercise for: Anything which requires a group of people to make decisions, solve problems or discuss challenges. It’s always good to frame an LDJ session with a broad topic, here are some examples: The conversion flow of our checkout Our internal design process How we organise events Keeping up with our competition Improving sales flow

3. Problem Definition Process

While problems can be complex, the problem-solving methods you use to identify and solve those problems can often be simple in design. 

By taking the time to truly identify and define a problem before asking the group to reframe the challenge as an opportunity, this method is a great way to enable change.

Begin by identifying a focus question and exploring the ways in which it manifests before splitting into five teams who will each consider the problem using a different method: escape, reversal, exaggeration, distortion or wishful. Teams develop a problem objective and create ideas in line with their method before then feeding them back to the group.

This method is great for enabling in-depth discussions while also creating space for finding creative solutions too!

Problem Definition   #problem solving   #idea generation   #creativity   #online   #remote-friendly   A problem solving technique to define a problem, challenge or opportunity and to generate ideas.

4. The 5 Whys 

Sometimes, a group needs to go further with their strategies and analyze the root cause at the heart of organizational issues. An RCA or root cause analysis is the process of identifying what is at the heart of business problems or recurring challenges. 

The 5 Whys is a simple and effective method of helping a group go find the root cause of any problem or challenge and conduct analysis that will deliver results. 

By beginning with the creation of a problem statement and going through five stages to refine it, The 5 Whys provides everything you need to truly discover the cause of an issue.

The 5 Whys   #hyperisland   #innovation   This simple and powerful method is useful for getting to the core of a problem or challenge. As the title suggests, the group defines a problems, then asks the question “why” five times, often using the resulting explanation as a starting point for creative problem solving.

5. World Cafe

World Cafe is a simple but powerful facilitation technique to help bigger groups to focus their energy and attention on solving complex problems.

World Cafe enables this approach by creating a relaxed atmosphere where participants are able to self-organize and explore topics relevant and important to them which are themed around a central problem-solving purpose. Create the right atmosphere by modeling your space after a cafe and after guiding the group through the method, let them take the lead!

Making problem-solving a part of your organization’s culture in the long term can be a difficult undertaking. More approachable formats like World Cafe can be especially effective in bringing people unfamiliar with workshops into the fold. 

World Cafe   #hyperisland   #innovation   #issue analysis   World Café is a simple yet powerful method, originated by Juanita Brown, for enabling meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that are relevant and important to them. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines. Participants then self-organize and explore a set of relevant topics or questions for conversation.

6. Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)

One of the best approaches is to create a safe space for a group to share and discover practices and behaviors that can help them find their own solutions.

With DAD, you can help a group choose which problems they wish to solve and which approaches they will take to do so. It’s great at helping remove resistance to change and can help get buy-in at every level too!

This process of enabling frontline ownership is great in ensuring follow-through and is one of the methods you will want in your toolbox as a facilitator.

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)   #idea generation   #liberating structures   #action   #issue analysis   #remote-friendly   DADs make it easy for a group or community to discover practices and behaviors that enable some individuals (without access to special resources and facing the same constraints) to find better solutions than their peers to common problems. These are called positive deviant (PD) behaviors and practices. DADs make it possible for people in the group, unit, or community to discover by themselves these PD practices. DADs also create favorable conditions for stimulating participants’ creativity in spaces where they can feel safe to invent new and more effective practices. Resistance to change evaporates as participants are unleashed to choose freely which practices they will adopt or try and which problems they will tackle. DADs make it possible to achieve frontline ownership of solutions.

7. Design Sprint 2.0

Want to see how a team can solve big problems and move forward with prototyping and testing solutions in a few days? The Design Sprint 2.0 template from Jake Knapp, author of Sprint, is a complete agenda for a with proven results.

Developing the right agenda can involve difficult but necessary planning. Ensuring all the correct steps are followed can also be stressful or time-consuming depending on your level of experience.

Use this complete 4-day workshop template if you are finding there is no obvious solution to your challenge and want to focus your team around a specific problem that might require a shortcut to launching a minimum viable product or waiting for the organization-wide implementation of a solution.

8. Open space technology

Open space technology- developed by Harrison Owen – creates a space where large groups are invited to take ownership of their problem solving and lead individual sessions. Open space technology is a great format when you have a great deal of expertise and insight in the room and want to allow for different takes and approaches on a particular theme or problem you need to be solved.

Start by bringing your participants together to align around a central theme and focus their efforts. Explain the ground rules to help guide the problem-solving process and then invite members to identify any issue connecting to the central theme that they are interested in and are prepared to take responsibility for.

Once participants have decided on their approach to the core theme, they write their issue on a piece of paper, announce it to the group, pick a session time and place, and post the paper on the wall. As the wall fills up with sessions, the group is then invited to join the sessions that interest them the most and which they can contribute to, then you’re ready to begin!

Everyone joins the problem-solving group they’ve signed up to, record the discussion and if appropriate, findings can then be shared with the rest of the group afterward.

Open Space Technology   #action plan   #idea generation   #problem solving   #issue analysis   #large group   #online   #remote-friendly   Open Space is a methodology for large groups to create their agenda discerning important topics for discussion, suitable for conferences, community gatherings and whole system facilitation

Techniques to identify and analyze problems

Using a problem-solving method to help a team identify and analyze a problem can be a quick and effective addition to any workshop or meeting.

While further actions are always necessary, you can generate momentum and alignment easily, and these activities are a great place to get started.

We’ve put together this list of techniques to help you and your team with problem identification, analysis, and discussion that sets the foundation for developing effective solutions.

Let’s take a look!

• The Creativity Dice
• Fishbone Analysis
• Problem Tree
• SWOT Analysis
• Agreement-Certainty Matrix
• The Journalistic Six
• LEGO Challenge
• What, So What, Now What?
• Journalists

Individual and group perspectives are incredibly important, but what happens if people are set in their minds and need a change of perspective in order to approach a problem more effectively?

Flip It is a method we love because it is both simple to understand and run, and allows groups to understand how their perspectives and biases are formed. 

Participants in Flip It are first invited to consider concerns, issues, or problems from a perspective of fear and write them on a flip chart. Then, the group is asked to consider those same issues from a perspective of hope and flip their understanding.  

No problem and solution is free from existing bias and by changing perspectives with Flip It, you can then develop a problem solving model quickly and effectively.

Flip It!   #gamestorming   #problem solving   #action   Often, a change in a problem or situation comes simply from a change in our perspectives. Flip It! is a quick game designed to show players that perspectives are made, not born.

10. The Creativity Dice

One of the most useful problem solving skills you can teach your team is of approaching challenges with creativity, flexibility, and openness. Games like The Creativity Dice allow teams to overcome the potential hurdle of too much linear thinking and approach the process with a sense of fun and speed. 

In The Creativity Dice, participants are organized around a topic and roll a dice to determine what they will work on for a period of 3 minutes at a time. They might roll a 3 and work on investigating factual information on the chosen topic. They might roll a 1 and work on identifying the specific goals, standards, or criteria for the session.

Encouraging rapid work and iteration while asking participants to be flexible are great skills to cultivate. Having a stage for idea incubation in this game is also important. Moments of pause can help ensure the ideas that are put forward are the most suitable. 

The Creativity Dice   #creativity   #problem solving   #thiagi   #issue analysis   Too much linear thinking is hazardous to creative problem solving. To be creative, you should approach the problem (or the opportunity) from different points of view. You should leave a thought hanging in mid-air and move to another. This skipping around prevents premature closure and lets your brain incubate one line of thought while you consciously pursue another.

11. Fishbone Analysis

Organizational or team challenges are rarely simple, and it’s important to remember that one problem can be an indication of something that goes deeper and may require further consideration to be solved.

Fishbone Analysis helps groups to dig deeper and understand the origins of a problem. It’s a great example of a root cause analysis method that is simple for everyone on a team to get their head around. 

Participants in this activity are asked to annotate a diagram of a fish, first adding the problem or issue to be worked on at the head of a fish before then brainstorming the root causes of the problem and adding them as bones on the fish. 

Using abstractions such as a diagram of a fish can really help a team break out of their regular thinking and develop a creative approach.

Fishbone Analysis   #problem solving   ##root cause analysis   #decision making   #online facilitation   A process to help identify and understand the origins of problems, issues or observations.

12. Problem Tree 

Encouraging visual thinking can be an essential part of many strategies. By simply reframing and clarifying problems, a group can move towards developing a problem solving model that works for them. 

In Problem Tree, groups are asked to first brainstorm a list of problems – these can be design problems, team problems or larger business problems – and then organize them into a hierarchy. The hierarchy could be from most important to least important or abstract to practical, though the key thing with problem solving games that involve this aspect is that your group has some way of managing and sorting all the issues that are raised.

Once you have a list of problems that need to be solved and have organized them accordingly, you’re then well-positioned for the next problem solving steps.

Problem tree   #define intentions   #create   #design   #issue analysis   A problem tree is a tool to clarify the hierarchy of problems addressed by the team within a design project; it represents high level problems or related sublevel problems.

13. SWOT Analysis

Chances are you’ve heard of the SWOT Analysis before. This problem-solving method focuses on identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a tried and tested method for both individuals and teams.

Start by creating a desired end state or outcome and bare this in mind – any process solving model is made more effective by knowing what you are moving towards. Create a quadrant made up of the four categories of a SWOT analysis and ask participants to generate ideas based on each of those quadrants.

Once you have those ideas assembled in their quadrants, cluster them together based on their affinity with other ideas. These clusters are then used to facilitate group conversations and move things forward. 

SWOT analysis   #gamestorming   #problem solving   #action   #meeting facilitation   The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what we have, with respect to the desired end state, as well as what we could improve on. It gives us an opportunity to gauge approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of the conditions that affect our future. When we understand those conditions, we can influence what comes next.

14. Agreement-Certainty Matrix

Not every problem-solving approach is right for every challenge, and deciding on the right method for the challenge at hand is a key part of being an effective team.

The Agreement Certainty matrix helps teams align on the nature of the challenges facing them. By sorting problems from simple to chaotic, your team can understand what methods are suitable for each problem and what they can do to ensure effective results. 

If you are already using Liberating Structures techniques as part of your problem-solving strategy, the Agreement-Certainty Matrix can be an invaluable addition to your process. We’ve found it particularly if you are having issues with recurring problems in your organization and want to go deeper in understanding the root cause. 

Agreement-Certainty Matrix   #issue analysis   #liberating structures   #problem solving   You can help individuals or groups avoid the frequent mistake of trying to solve a problem with methods that are not adapted to the nature of their challenge. The combination of two questions makes it possible to easily sort challenges into four categories: simple, complicated, complex , and chaotic .  A problem is simple when it can be solved reliably with practices that are easy to duplicate.  It is complicated when experts are required to devise a sophisticated solution that will yield the desired results predictably.  A problem is complex when there are several valid ways to proceed but outcomes are not predictable in detail.  Chaotic is when the context is too turbulent to identify a path forward.  A loose analogy may be used to describe these differences: simple is like following a recipe, complicated like sending a rocket to the moon, complex like raising a child, and chaotic is like the game “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”  The Liberating Structures Matching Matrix in Chapter 5 can be used as the first step to clarify the nature of a challenge and avoid the mismatches between problems and solutions that are frequently at the root of chronic, recurring problems.

Organizing and charting a team’s progress can be important in ensuring its success. SQUID (Sequential Question and Insight Diagram) is a great model that allows a team to effectively switch between giving questions and answers and develop the skills they need to stay on track throughout the process. 

Begin with two different colored sticky notes – one for questions and one for answers – and with your central topic (the head of the squid) on the board. Ask the group to first come up with a series of questions connected to their best guess of how to approach the topic. Ask the group to come up with answers to those questions, fix them to the board and connect them with a line. After some discussion, go back to question mode by responding to the generated answers or other points on the board.

It’s rewarding to see a diagram grow throughout the exercise, and a completed SQUID can provide a visual resource for future effort and as an example for other teams.

SQUID   #gamestorming   #project planning   #issue analysis   #problem solving   When exploring an information space, it’s important for a group to know where they are at any given time. By using SQUID, a group charts out the territory as they go and can navigate accordingly. SQUID stands for Sequential Question and Insight Diagram.

16. Speed Boat

To continue with our nautical theme, Speed Boat is a short and sweet activity that can help a team quickly identify what employees, clients or service users might have a problem with and analyze what might be standing in the way of achieving a solution.

Methods that allow for a group to make observations, have insights and obtain those eureka moments quickly are invaluable when trying to solve complex problems.

In Speed Boat, the approach is to first consider what anchors and challenges might be holding an organization (or boat) back. Bonus points if you are able to identify any sharks in the water and develop ideas that can also deal with competitors!   

Speed Boat   #gamestorming   #problem solving   #action   Speedboat is a short and sweet way to identify what your employees or clients don’t like about your product/service or what’s standing in the way of a desired goal.

17. The Journalistic Six

Some of the most effective ways of solving problems is by encouraging teams to be more inclusive and diverse in their thinking.

Based on the six key questions journalism students are taught to answer in articles and news stories, The Journalistic Six helps create teams to see the whole picture. By using who, what, when, where, why, and how to facilitate the conversation and encourage creative thinking, your team can make sure that the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the are covered exhaustively and thoughtfully. Reporter’s notebook and dictaphone optional.

The Journalistic Six – Who What When Where Why How   #idea generation   #issue analysis   #problem solving   #online   #creative thinking   #remote-friendly   A questioning method for generating, explaining, investigating ideas.

18. LEGO Challenge

Now for an activity that is a little out of the (toy) box. LEGO Serious Play is a facilitation methodology that can be used to improve creative thinking and problem-solving skills. 

The LEGO Challenge includes giving each member of the team an assignment that is hidden from the rest of the group while they create a structure without speaking.

What the LEGO challenge brings to the table is a fun working example of working with stakeholders who might not be on the same page to solve problems. Also, it’s LEGO! Who doesn’t love LEGO! 

LEGO Challenge   #hyperisland   #team   A team-building activity in which groups must work together to build a structure out of LEGO, but each individual has a secret “assignment” which makes the collaborative process more challenging. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, conflict, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy.

19. What, So What, Now What?

If not carefully managed, the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the problem-solving process can actually create more problems and misunderstandings.

The What, So What, Now What? problem-solving activity is designed to help collect insights and move forward while also eliminating the possibility of disagreement when it comes to identifying, clarifying, and analyzing organizational or work problems. 

Facilitation is all about bringing groups together so that might work on a shared goal and the best problem-solving strategies ensure that teams are aligned in purpose, if not initially in opinion or insight.

Throughout the three steps of this game, you give everyone on a team to reflect on a problem by asking what happened, why it is important, and what actions should then be taken. 

This can be a great activity for bringing our individual perceptions about a problem or challenge and contextualizing it in a larger group setting. This is one of the most important problem-solving skills you can bring to your organization.

W³ – What, So What, Now What?   #issue analysis   #innovation   #liberating structures   You can help groups reflect on a shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. It is possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction. Progressing in stages makes this practical—from collecting facts about What Happened to making sense of these facts with So What and finally to what actions logically follow with Now What . The shared progression eliminates most of the misunderstandings that otherwise fuel disagreements about what to do. Voila!

20. Journalists  

Problem analysis can be one of the most important and decisive stages of all problem-solving tools. Sometimes, a team can become bogged down in the details and are unable to move forward.

Journalists is an activity that can avoid a group from getting stuck in the problem identification or problem analysis stages of the process.

In Journalists, the group is invited to draft the front page of a fictional newspaper and figure out what stories deserve to be on the cover and what headlines those stories will have. By reframing how your problems and challenges are approached, you can help a team move productively through the process and be better prepared for the steps to follow.

Journalists   #vision   #big picture   #issue analysis   #remote-friendly   This is an exercise to use when the group gets stuck in details and struggles to see the big picture. Also good for defining a vision.

Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions 

The success of any problem-solving process can be measured by the solutions it produces. After you’ve defined the issue, explored existing ideas, and ideated, it’s time to narrow down to the correct solution.

Use these problem-solving techniques when you want to help your team find consensus, compare possible solutions, and move towards taking action on a particular problem.

• Improved Solutions
• Four-Step Sketch
• 15% Solutions
• How-Now-Wow matrix
• Impact Effort Matrix

21. Mindspin  

Brainstorming is part of the bread and butter of the problem-solving process and all problem-solving strategies benefit from getting ideas out and challenging a team to generate solutions quickly. 

With Mindspin, participants are encouraged not only to generate ideas but to do so under time constraints and by slamming down cards and passing them on. By doing multiple rounds, your team can begin with a free generation of possible solutions before moving on to developing those solutions and encouraging further ideation. 

This is one of our favorite problem-solving activities and can be great for keeping the energy up throughout the workshop. Remember the importance of helping people become engaged in the process – energizing problem-solving techniques like Mindspin can help ensure your team stays engaged and happy, even when the problems they’re coming together to solve are complex. 

MindSpin   #teampedia   #idea generation   #problem solving   #action   A fast and loud method to enhance brainstorming within a team. Since this activity has more than round ideas that are repetitive can be ruled out leaving more creative and innovative answers to the challenge.

22. Improved Solutions

After a team has successfully identified a problem and come up with a few solutions, it can be tempting to call the work of the problem-solving process complete. That said, the first solution is not necessarily the best, and by including a further review and reflection activity into your problem-solving model, you can ensure your group reaches the best possible result. 

One of a number of problem-solving games from Thiagi Group, Improved Solutions helps you go the extra mile and develop suggested solutions with close consideration and peer review. By supporting the discussion of several problems at once and by shifting team roles throughout, this problem-solving technique is a dynamic way of finding the best solution. 

Improved Solutions   #creativity   #thiagi   #problem solving   #action   #team   You can improve any solution by objectively reviewing its strengths and weaknesses and making suitable adjustments. In this creativity framegame, you improve the solutions to several problems. To maintain objective detachment, you deal with a different problem during each of six rounds and assume different roles (problem owner, consultant, basher, booster, enhancer, and evaluator) during each round. At the conclusion of the activity, each player ends up with two solutions to her problem.

23. Four Step Sketch

Creative thinking and visual ideation does not need to be confined to the opening stages of your problem-solving strategies. Exercises that include sketching and prototyping on paper can be effective at the solution finding and development stage of the process, and can be great for keeping a team engaged. 

By going from simple notes to a crazy 8s round that involves rapidly sketching 8 variations on their ideas before then producing a final solution sketch, the group is able to iterate quickly and visually. Problem-solving techniques like Four-Step Sketch are great if you have a group of different thinkers and want to change things up from a more textual or discussion-based approach.

Four-Step Sketch   #design sprint   #innovation   #idea generation   #remote-friendly   The four-step sketch is an exercise that helps people to create well-formed concepts through a structured process that includes: Review key information Start design work on paper,  Consider multiple variations , Create a detailed solution . This exercise is preceded by a set of other activities allowing the group to clarify the challenge they want to solve. See how the Four Step Sketch exercise fits into a Design Sprint

24. 15% Solutions

Some problems are simpler than others and with the right problem-solving activities, you can empower people to take immediate actions that can help create organizational change. 

Part of the liberating structures toolkit, 15% solutions is a problem-solving technique that focuses on finding and implementing solutions quickly. A process of iterating and making small changes quickly can help generate momentum and an appetite for solving complex problems.

Problem-solving strategies can live and die on whether people are onboard. Getting some quick wins is a great way of getting people behind the process.   

It can be extremely empowering for a team to realize that problem-solving techniques can be deployed quickly and easily and delineate between things they can positively impact and those things they cannot change. 

15% Solutions   #action   #liberating structures   #remote-friendly   You can reveal the actions, however small, that everyone can do immediately. At a minimum, these will create momentum, and that may make a BIG difference.  15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change.  With a very simple question, you can flip the conversation to what can be done and find solutions to big problems that are often distributed widely in places not known in advance. Shifting a few grains of sand may trigger a landslide and change the whole landscape.

25. How-Now-Wow Matrix

The problem-solving process is often creative, as complex problems usually require a change of thinking and creative response in order to find the best solutions. While it’s common for the first stages to encourage creative thinking, groups can often gravitate to familiar solutions when it comes to the end of the process. 

When selecting solutions, you don’t want to lose your creative energy! The How-Now-Wow Matrix from Gamestorming is a great problem-solving activity that enables a group to stay creative and think out of the box when it comes to selecting the right solution for a given problem.

Problem-solving techniques that encourage creative thinking and the ideation and selection of new solutions can be the most effective in organisational change. Give the How-Now-Wow Matrix a go, and not just for how pleasant it is to say out loud. 

How-Now-Wow Matrix   #gamestorming   #idea generation   #remote-friendly   When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’ or a ‘creadox’. The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creadox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.

26. Impact and Effort Matrix

All problem-solving techniques hope to not only find solutions to a given problem or challenge but to find the best solution. When it comes to finding a solution, groups are invited to put on their decision-making hats and really think about how a proposed idea would work in practice. 

The Impact and Effort Matrix is one of the problem-solving techniques that fall into this camp, empowering participants to first generate ideas and then categorize them into a 2×2 matrix based on impact and effort.

Activities that invite critical thinking while remaining simple are invaluable. Use the Impact and Effort Matrix to move from ideation and towards evaluating potential solutions before then committing to them. 

Impact and Effort Matrix   #gamestorming   #decision making   #action   #remote-friendly   In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

27. Dotmocracy

If you’ve followed each of the problem-solving steps with your group successfully, you should move towards the end of your process with heaps of possible solutions developed with a specific problem in mind. But how do you help a group go from ideation to putting a solution into action? 

Dotmocracy – or Dot Voting -is a tried and tested method of helping a team in the problem-solving process make decisions and put actions in place with a degree of oversight and consensus. 

One of the problem-solving techniques that should be in every facilitator’s toolbox, Dot Voting is fast and effective and can help identify the most popular and best solutions and help bring a group to a decision effectively. 

Dotmocracy   #action   #decision making   #group prioritization   #hyperisland   #remote-friendly   Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim. The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see. Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision.

All facilitators know that warm-ups and icebreakers are useful for any workshop or group process. Problem-solving workshops are no different.

Use these problem-solving techniques to warm up a group and prepare them for the rest of the process. Activating your group by tapping into some of the top problem-solving skills can be one of the best ways to see great outcomes from your session.

• Check-in/Check-out
• Doodling Together
• Show and Tell
• Constellations
• Draw a Tree

28. Check-in / Check-out

Solid processes are planned from beginning to end, and the best facilitators know that setting the tone and establishing a safe, open environment can be integral to a successful problem-solving process.

Check-in / Check-out is a great way to begin and/or bookend a problem-solving workshop. Checking in to a session emphasizes that everyone will be seen, heard, and expected to contribute. 

If you are running a series of meetings, setting a consistent pattern of checking in and checking out can really help your team get into a groove. We recommend this opening-closing activity for small to medium-sized groups though it can work with large groups if they’re disciplined!

Check-in / Check-out   #team   #opening   #closing   #hyperisland   #remote-friendly   Either checking-in or checking-out is a simple way for a team to open or close a process, symbolically and in a collaborative way. Checking-in/out invites each member in a group to be present, seen and heard, and to express a reflection or a feeling. Checking-in emphasizes presence, focus and group commitment; checking-out emphasizes reflection and symbolic closure.

29. Doodling Together  

Thinking creatively and not being afraid to make suggestions are important problem-solving skills for any group or team, and warming up by encouraging these behaviors is a great way to start. 

Doodling Together is one of our favorite creative ice breaker games – it’s quick, effective, and fun and can make all following problem-solving steps easier by encouraging a group to collaborate visually. By passing cards and adding additional items as they go, the workshop group gets into a groove of co-creation and idea development that is crucial to finding solutions to problems. 

Doodling Together   #collaboration   #creativity   #teamwork   #fun   #team   #visual methods   #energiser   #icebreaker   #remote-friendly   Create wild, weird and often funny postcards together & establish a group’s creative confidence.

30. Show and Tell

You might remember some version of Show and Tell from being a kid in school and it’s a great problem-solving activity to kick off a session.

Asking participants to prepare a little something before a workshop by bringing an object for show and tell can help them warm up before the session has even begun! Games that include a physical object can also help encourage early engagement before moving onto more big-picture thinking.

By asking your participants to tell stories about why they chose to bring a particular item to the group, you can help teams see things from new perspectives and see both differences and similarities in the way they approach a topic. Great groundwork for approaching a problem-solving process as a team! 

Show and Tell   #gamestorming   #action   #opening   #meeting facilitation   Show and Tell taps into the power of metaphors to reveal players’ underlying assumptions and associations around a topic The aim of the game is to get a deeper understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives on anything—a new project, an organizational restructuring, a shift in the company’s vision or team dynamic.

31. Constellations

Who doesn’t love stars? Constellations is a great warm-up activity for any workshop as it gets people up off their feet, energized, and ready to engage in new ways with established topics. It’s also great for showing existing beliefs, biases, and patterns that can come into play as part of your session.

Using warm-up games that help build trust and connection while also allowing for non-verbal responses can be great for easing people into the problem-solving process and encouraging engagement from everyone in the group. Constellations is great in large spaces that allow for movement and is definitely a practical exercise to allow the group to see patterns that are otherwise invisible. 

Constellations   #trust   #connection   #opening   #coaching   #patterns   #system   Individuals express their response to a statement or idea by standing closer or further from a central object. Used with teams to reveal system, hidden patterns, perspectives.

32. Draw a Tree

Problem-solving games that help raise group awareness through a central, unifying metaphor can be effective ways to warm-up a group in any problem-solving model.

Draw a Tree is a simple warm-up activity you can use in any group and which can provide a quick jolt of energy. Start by asking your participants to draw a tree in just 45 seconds – they can choose whether it will be abstract or realistic. 

Once the timer is up, ask the group how many people included the roots of the tree and use this as a means to discuss how we can ignore important parts of any system simply because they are not visible.

All problem-solving strategies are made more effective by thinking of problems critically and by exposing things that may not normally come to light. Warm-up games like Draw a Tree are great in that they quickly demonstrate some key problem-solving skills in an accessible and effective way.

Draw a Tree   #thiagi   #opening   #perspectives   #remote-friendly   With this game you can raise awarness about being more mindful, and aware of the environment we live in.

Each step of the problem-solving workshop benefits from an intelligent deployment of activities, games, and techniques. Bringing your session to an effective close helps ensure that solutions are followed through on and that you also celebrate what has been achieved.

Here are some problem-solving activities you can use to effectively close a workshop or meeting and ensure the great work you’ve done can continue afterward.

• One Breath Feedback
• Who What When Matrix
• Response Cards

How do I conclude a problem-solving process?

All good things must come to an end. With the bulk of the work done, it can be tempting to conclude your workshop swiftly and without a moment to debrief and align. This can be problematic in that it doesn’t allow your team to fully process the results or reflect on the process.

At the end of an effective session, your team will have gone through a process that, while productive, can be exhausting. It’s important to give your group a moment to take a breath, ensure that they are clear on future actions, and provide short feedback before leaving the space. 

The primary purpose of any problem-solving method is to generate solutions and then implement them. Be sure to take the opportunity to ensure everyone is aligned and ready to effectively implement the solutions you produced in the workshop.

Remember that every process can be improved and by giving a short moment to collect feedback in the session, you can further refine your problem-solving methods and see further success in the future too.

33. One Breath Feedback

Maintaining attention and focus during the closing stages of a problem-solving workshop can be tricky and so being concise when giving feedback can be important. It’s easy to incur “death by feedback” should some team members go on for too long sharing their perspectives in a quick feedback round. 

One Breath Feedback is a great closing activity for workshops. You give everyone an opportunity to provide feedback on what they’ve done but only in the space of a single breath. This keeps feedback short and to the point and means that everyone is encouraged to provide the most important piece of feedback to them. 

One breath feedback   #closing   #feedback   #action   This is a feedback round in just one breath that excels in maintaining attention: each participants is able to speak during just one breath … for most people that’s around 20 to 25 seconds … unless of course you’ve been a deep sea diver in which case you’ll be able to do it for longer.

34. Who What When Matrix 

Matrices feature as part of many effective problem-solving strategies and with good reason. They are easily recognizable, simple to use, and generate results.

The Who What When Matrix is a great tool to use when closing your problem-solving session by attributing a who, what and when to the actions and solutions you have decided upon. The resulting matrix is a simple, easy-to-follow way of ensuring your team can move forward. 

Great solutions can’t be enacted without action and ownership. Your problem-solving process should include a stage for allocating tasks to individuals or teams and creating a realistic timeframe for those solutions to be implemented or checked out. Use this method to keep the solution implementation process clear and simple for all involved. 

Who/What/When Matrix   #gamestorming   #action   #project planning   With Who/What/When matrix, you can connect people with clear actions they have defined and have committed to.

35. Response cards

Group discussion can comprise the bulk of most problem-solving activities and by the end of the process, you might find that your team is talked out! 

Providing a means for your team to give feedback with short written notes can ensure everyone is head and can contribute without the need to stand up and talk. Depending on the needs of the group, giving an alternative can help ensure everyone can contribute to your problem-solving model in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Response Cards is a great way to close a workshop if you are looking for a gentle warm-down and want to get some swift discussion around some of the feedback that is raised. 

Response Cards   #debriefing   #closing   #structured sharing   #questions and answers   #thiagi   #action   It can be hard to involve everyone during a closing of a session. Some might stay in the background or get unheard because of louder participants. However, with the use of Response Cards, everyone will be involved in providing feedback or clarify questions at the end of a session.

Save time and effort discovering the right solutions

A structured problem solving process is a surefire way of solving tough problems, discovering creative solutions and driving organizational change. But how can you design for successful outcomes?

With SessionLab, it’s easy to design engaging workshops that deliver results. Drag, drop and reorder blocks  to build your agenda. When you make changes or update your agenda, your session  timing   adjusts automatically , saving you time on manual adjustments.

Collaborating with stakeholders or clients? Share your agenda with a single click and collaborate in real-time. No more sending documents back and forth over email.

Explore  how to use SessionLab  to design effective problem solving workshops or  watch this five minute video  to see the planner in action!

Over to you

The problem-solving process can often be as complicated and multifaceted as the problems they are set-up to solve. With the right problem-solving techniques and a mix of creative exercises designed to guide discussion and generate purposeful ideas, we hope we’ve given you the tools to find the best solutions as simply and easily as possible.

Is there a problem-solving technique that you are missing here? Do you have a favorite activity or method you use when facilitating? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you! 

thank you very much for these excellent techniques

Certainly wonderful article, very detailed. Shared!

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Decision Making: Social and Creative Dimensions pp 177–196 Cite as

Creativity and Complex Problem Solving in the Social Context

• Petra Badke-Schaub 3 &
• Cornelius Buerschaper 3  

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7 Citations

All over the world, in different contexts, people are concerned with the question of how to promote creativity. The dimensions of creativity seem to be categories which initiate growth and progress of mankind. Nevertheless, in theory and practice, researchers are using very different definitions of creativity. In this chapter we do not want to discuss different viewpoints of creativity (see e.g. Eisentraut & Badke-Schaub, 1995), but it seems necessary to state that the concept of creativity has gone through an interesting change in meaning. Whereas for several decades it was common to discuss and investigate creativity as an individual prerequisite for successful problem solving, a new perspective sees the team as a source of enhancing creativity and thus innovation (Agrell & Gustafson, 1996). We will illustrate why it is reasonable to understand creativity precisely as a problem solving process which is leading to a new product. This process may be an individual activity, but in current practice we often find creativity in a joint problem solving process, as an explicitly collaborative activity. Therefore, the social aspect is an additional requirement which influences the creative process throughout.

• Design Process
• Social Context
• Creative Process
• Critical Situation
• Design Work

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Badke-Schaub, P., Buerschaper, C. (2001). Creativity and Complex Problem Solving in the Social Context. In: Allwood, C.M., Selart, M. (eds) Decision Making: Social and Creative Dimensions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9827-9_9

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Creative Problem Solving: from complex challenge to innovative solution

Dr. Hannah Rose

Even if you usually excel at finding solutions, there will be times when it seems that there’s no obvious answer to a problem. It could be that you’re facing a unique challenge that you’ve never needed to overcome before. You could feel overwhelmed because of a new context in which everything seems to be foreign, or you may feel like you’re lacking the skills or tools to navigate the situation. When facing a difficult dilemma, Creative Problem Solving offers a structured method to help you find an innovative and effective solution.

The history of Creative Problem Solving

The technique of Creative Problem Solving was first formulated by Alex Osborn in the 1940’s. It was not the first time Osborn came up with a formula to support creative thinking. As a prolific creative theorist, Osborn also coined the term brainstorming to define the proactive process of generating new ideas.

With brainstorming, Osborn suggested that it’s better to bring every idea you have to the table, including the wildest ones, because with just a little modification, the outrageous ideas may later become the most plausible solutions. In his own words: “It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one.”

Osborn worked closely with Sid Parnes, who was at the time the world’s leading expert on creativity and innovation. Together, they developed the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process. To this day, this process remains an effective way to generate solutions that break free from the status quo.

The Creative Problem Solving process, sometimes referred to as CPS, is a proven way to approach a challenge more imaginatively. By redefining problems or opportunities, it becomes possible to move in a completely new and more innovative direction.

Dr Donald Treffinger described Creative Problem Solving as an effective way to review problems, formulate opportunities, and generate varied and novel options leading to a new solution or course of action. As such, Treffinger argued that creative problem solving provides a “powerful set of tools for productive thinking”.

Creative Problem Solving can also enhance collective learning at the organisational level. Dr David Vernon and colleagues found that Creative Problem Solving can support the design of more effective training programmes.

From its invention by two creative theorists to its application at all levels of creative thinking — from personal to organisation creativity — Creative Problem Solving is an enduring method to generate innovative solutions to complex challenges.

The four principles of Creative Problem Solving

You can use Creative Problem Solving on your own or as part of a team. However, when adopted by multiple team members, it can lead to an even greater output of useful, original solutions. So, how do you put it into practice? First, you need to understand the four guiding principles behind Creative Problem Solving.

The first principle is to look at problems and reframe them into questions. While problem statements tend to not generate many responses, open questions can lead to a wealth of insights, perspectives, and helpful information — which in turn make it easier to feel inspired and to come up with potential solutions. Instead of saying “this is the problem”, ask yourself: “Why are we facing this problem? What’s currently preventing us from solving this problem? What could be some potential solutions?”

The second principle is to balance divergent and convergent thinking. During divergent thinking , all options are entertained. Throw all ideas into the ring, regardless of how far-fetched they might be. This is sometimes referred to as non-judgmental, non-rational divergent thinking. It’s based on the willingness to consider all new ideas. Convergent thinking, in contrast, is the thinking mode used to narrow down all of the possible ideas into a sensible shortlist. Balancing divergent and convergent thinking creates a steady state of creativity in which new ideas can be assessed and appraised to search for unique solutions.

Tangential to the second principle, the third principle for creative problem solving is to defer judgement. By judging solutions too early, you will risk shutting down idea generation. Take your time during the divergent thinking phase to give your mind the freedom to dream ambitious ideas. Only when engaged in convergent thinking should you start judging the ideas you generated in terms of potential, appropriateness, and feasibility.

Finally, Creative Problem Solving requires you to say “yes, and” rather than “no, but” in order to encourage generative discussions. You will only stifle your creativity by automatically saying no to ideas that seem illogical or unfeasible. Using positive language allows you to explore possibilities, leaving space for the seeds of ideas to grow into applicable solutions.

How to practice Creative Problem Solving

Now that you know the principles underlying Creative Problem Solving, you’re ready to start implementing the practical method devised by its inventors. And the good news is that you’ll only need to follow three simple steps.

• Generating – Formulate questions. The first step is to understand what the problem is. By turning the problem into a set of questions, you can explore the issue properly and fully grasp the situation, obstacles, and opportunities. This is also the time to gather facts and the opinions of others, if relevant to the problem at hand.
• Conceptualising – Explore ideas. The second step is when you can express your creativity through divergent thinking. Brainstorm new, wild and off-the-wall ideas to generate new concepts that could be the key to solving your dilemma. This can be done on your own, or as part of a brainstorming session with your team.
• Optimising – Develop solutions. Now is the time to switch to convergent thinking. Reflect on the ideas you came up with in step two to decide which ones could be successful. As part of optimising, you will need to decide which options might best fit your needs and logistical constraints, how you can make your concepts stronger, and finally decide which idea to move forwards with.
• Implementing – Formulate a plan. Figuring out how you’ll turn the selected idea into reality is the final step after deciding which of your ideas offers the best solution. Identify what you’ll need to get started, and, if appropriate, let others know of your plans. Communication is particularly important for innovative ideas that require buy-in from others, especially if you think you might initially be met with resistance. You may also need to consider whether you’ll need additional resources to ensure the success of complex solutions, and request the required support in good time.

Creative Problem Solving is a great way to generate unique ideas when there appears to be no obvious solution to a problem. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by a seemingly impossible challenge, this structured approach will help you generate solutions that you might otherwise not have considered. By practising Creative Problem Solving, some of the most improbable ideas could lead to the discovery of the perfect solution.

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