Enterprise

Academy

Master Class

Creative Ideas in

Problem Solving

Dr. John Davies

Salford Business School

Professor John Davies PhD, MSc, BSc (Hons), FCQI, CQP, FHEA, MISBE 13 years experience in Manufacturing and Service Industries:

Chemical Processing, Building Chemicals, Paint and Adhesives Manufacture

Building Services Multinationals and SMEs

Salford: Professor of Quality Management and Business Development (18

years at Salford) Salford Business School Director of Knowledge Transfer SIFE Business Advisory Board member

External: Director of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship

(ISBE) Former Chair of the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) Advisory

Council

Maxwell 316, 0161 295 2479, j.davies@salford.ac.uk

AGENDA

ProblemsEffective Problem SolvingProblem Solving MethodologyAnalytical and CreativeCreative ThinkingBarriers to CreativeCreative ThinkingTechniques for CreativityCreativity

GOAL OR OBJECTIVE - SOMETHING WHICH IS TO BE ACHIEVED

OBSTACLE OR OBSTRUCTION - SOMETHING THAT STOPS US ACHIEVING THE GOAL

PROBLEM SOLVING TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES SHOULD ALWAYS BE USED WHEREVER THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY

FOR IMPROVEMENT

DEFINITION OF A PROBLEM

GOAL + OBSTACLE = PROBLEM

Believe in Improvement

• Attitude of mind - constructive dissatisfaction (there is always a better way)

• NOT “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”!!!

• Why not “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

JUMPING TO A SOLUTION BEFORE SUFFICIENTLY UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

IMPLEMENTING THE FIRST SOLUTION THAT COMES TO MIND

RARELY COLLECTING AND ANALYSING THE RELEVANT DATA

NOT USING THE APPROPRIATE TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

NOT PLANNING AND COMMUNICATING ACTIONS

NOT ‘FOLLOWING-UP’ IMPLEMENTED ACTIONS CHECKING FOR EFFECTIVENESS AND LESSONS LEARNED

THERE IS A NEED FOR A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING:

OURPERFORMANCE

ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

TEAM PROBLEMSOLVING APPROACH

PROBLEM SOLVING METHODOLOGY

INFORMATION/DATA TOOLS AND TECHNIQUESWE CANNOT SOLVE A PROBLEM UNTIL WE HAVE THE HARD FACTS AND DATA ASSOCIATED WITH IT. WITHOUT DATA WE ARE MERELY GUESSING AT THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM, AND OUR EFFORTS TO SOLVE IT ARE HAMPERED BY OUR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE

WHEN WE ADDRESS COMPLEX PROBLEMS, WE ARE OFTEN FACED WITH A GREAT DEAL OF INFORMATION.TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES HELP US ORGANISE ,UNDERSTAND AND INTERPRET DATA AND FACTS

WITHIN OUR ORGANISATION IT IS HELPFUL TO USE COMMON OR UNIVERSAL PROBLEM SOLVING METHODOLOGIES FOR WHICH ALL INDIVIDUALS CAN EFFECTIVELY USE AND INTER-RELATE WITH OTHERS, ESPECIALLY IN TEAMWORK ACTIVITIES. THE BASIS IS TO ADOPT A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH BY FOLLOWING A LOGICAL SEQUENCE OF PROBLEM-SOLVING STEPS

THE DEMING CYCLE (ALSO KNOWN AS THE SHEWHART CYCLE)

PLAN

DO

ACT

CHECK

FOUR STAGECONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTPROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS/CHANGE MODEL

1. PLAN A CHANGE

2. TRY IT OUT

3. STUDY THE RESULTS

4. ADOPT CHANGE OR RUN IN SEVERALDIFFERENTENVIRONMENTS

THIS CYCLE IS THE DRIVING FORCE FOR INNOVATION AND IMPROVEMENT

10

STAGE 1. SELECT AND IDENTIFY PROBLEM

STAGE 2. COLLECT RELEVANT DATA

STAGE 3. ANALYSE DATA & FIND ROOT CAUSES

STAGE 4. GENERATE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

STAGE 5. SELECT THE OPTIMUM SOLUTION

STAGE 6. PLAN THE ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN

STAGE 7. TEST/TRY-OUT PLANNED ACTIONS

STAGE 8. IMPLEMENT AND MONITOR

PROBLEM SOLVING METHODOLOGY

NEVER ENDING IMPROVEMENTNEVER ENDING IMPROVEMENT

THE MOST FREQUENTLY USED TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

TOGETHER WITH SUGGESTED STAGE OF PROBLEM SOLVING METHODOLOGY

BRAINSTORMING--------- CAUSE & EFFECT--------- SELECTION GRID---------- FLOW CHARTING---------- RUN

CHARTS---------------- MIND

MAPS------------------ TREE DIAGRAMS---------- FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS CONTROL CHARTS-------- PARETO CHARTS---------- HISTOGRAMS--------------- SCATTER DIAGRAMS----

STAGE: 1, 3, 4, & 6 STAGE: 3 & 4 STAGE: 1 & 5 STAGE: 2 & 3 STAGE: 2, 7 & 8 STAGE: 2, 3, & 4 STAGE: 3, 4, & 6 STAGE: 6 & 8 STAGE: 2, 7 & 8 STAGE: 2 STAGE: 2, 7 & 8 STAGE: 2, 7 & 8

HISTOGRAM

SCATTER DIAGRAM

RUN CHART

MANY PROBLEMS ARE MORE COMPLEX THAN THEY FIRST APPEAR

THERE IS USUALLY MORE THAN ONE PROBLEM

THERE IS USUALLY MORE THAN ONE SOLUTION

MOST PROBLEMS HAVE ASPECTS OF INTERDEPENDENCE AND INTERRELATIONSHIP

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES HELP MAKE SENSE OF INFORMATION WHICH IS AVAILABLE FOR ANALYSIS

THE MORE COMPLEX PROBLEMS HAVE USUALLY BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG TIME

THE NEED FOR TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

ANALYTICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING

LEFT-HAND BRAINCOGNITIVE

RIGHT-HAND BRAINAFFECTIVE

OBJECTIVELOGICNUMBERSSEQUENCESTRUCTURALANALYSISMATHEMATICALWORDSCOMPUTELINEARCATEGORIESFACTSVERBALSPECIFICCONSCIOUS

SUBJECTIVEEMOTIONALPICTURESRANDOMSPONTANEOUSINTUITIONARTISTICVISUALCREATIVEIMAGINATIONWHOLEFEELINGSNON-VERBALGENERALUNCONSCIOUSTHE BRAIN

INTRODUCTION TO ANALYTICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING

DIVERGE

CONVERGE

CREATIVE THINKING

ANALYTICAL THINKING

LOTS OF IDEAS GENERATED

PROCESS OF EVALUATION

SOLUTION

ANALYTICAL THINKING INCLUDES SKILLS SUCH AS ORDERING, COMPARING,

CONTRASTING, EVALUATING AND SELECTING. IT PROVIDES A

LOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR PROBLEM SOLVING AND HELPS

TO SELECT THE OPTIMUM ALTERNATIVE BY NARROWING

DOWN THE RANGE OF POSSIBILITIES – A CONVERGENT

PROCESS

EFFECTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING REQUIRES A MIXTURE OF

ANALYTICAL AND CREATIVETHINKING SKILLS

SIX HONEST SERVING MEN

‘I kept six honest serving men They taught me all I knew, Their names were What and Why and When and Where and How and Who’

Rudyard Kipling

PROBLEM SOLVING

JOIN THE DOTS WITH 4 STRAIGHT LINES WITHOUTTAKING PENCIL OFF THE PAPER

STIFLED DURING CHILDHOOD LACK OF SELF CONFIDENCE FEAR OF CRITICISM JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS PROBLEM HOPPING DISTRUST OF INTUITIVE THINKING OVERDEVELOPED CRITICAL JUDGEMENT POOR TIME MANAGEMENT ALIENATION MINDSETS

BARRIERS TO CREATIVE THINKING (1)

I must never make a mistakeI’m not creativeI must follow the rulesI must always be practical and

logicalI haven’t got the time to be

creative

BARRIERS TO CREATIVE THINKING (2)

ASSUMPTIONSExample 1

• A man is driving a black car on a blackened road without street lights and without headlights on his car. A black cat crosses the road right in front of him and still he is able to apply the brakes to save the black cat. How come?

• Assumptions?

ASSUMPTIONSExample 2

• A donkey is tied to a rope 6 feet long and there is a bale of hay 8 feet away. How can the donkey get to the hay if he does not bite or undo the rope?

• Assumptions?

MINDSETS ARE BASED UPON:

PRECONCEPTIONS PERSONAL PREJUDICES VALUES ATTITUDES BELIEFS

EVERYONE NEEDS MINDSETS TO MAKE JUDGEMENTS ABOUT EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES. HOWEVER, THEY MUST BE CHALLENGED TO ENSURE THEY ARE NOT INHIBITING CREATIVITY

MINDSETS OR PARADIGMS

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

In the 1960s, the Swiss watch industry had a 65% share in the world market. The industry was approached with the idea of quartz technology. They rejected the innovation. The idea was taken up and developed by the Americans and Japanese, who went on to capture a huge amount of the Swiss world market. What had allowed this to happen was that the industry had developed a mindset that the watch was a precision-engineered product and they could not get away from that view of their product

BREAKING OUT OF MINDSETS OR PARADIGMS

4 matches

Solution

Brainstorming Creative Idea Generation

• Idea generation in any context

• Crucial in problem solving when we are trying to

generate all possible causes of a problem or

innovative solutions to problems

• If the problem you are dealing with is difficult

enough to warrant a team effort, you need to get

the full benefit of team brainpower

Brainstorming - How?

• Define area for brainstorm

• Select team

• Explain problem/opportunity

• Agree rules of the brainstorm

• Generate and record ideas

• Order ideas if appropriate

• Discuss ideas

TRADITIONAL RULES OF BRAINSTORMING::

SET TIME LIMITNEVER CRITICISE - IDEAS OR PEOPLEGET LOTS OF IDEAS - HOWEVER CRAZYRECORD ALL IDEAS - ALL MUST BE

HIGHLY VISIBLETIME OUT - REVIEW LIST IN SILENCEADD ANY FINAL IDEASEVALUATE IDEAS

BRAINSTORMING

AN EXERCISE IN CREATIVE THINKING

Brainstorming Exercise

• Creative Ideas

• How might prisons be abolished?

Cause & Effect Diagrams

• To structure the output of a brainstorming

session for further analysis

• To generate a team view of (possible)

causal relationships

Cause & Effect Diagrams - How?

• Brainstorm and then fit the output on to the diagram

• Decide which factors to further investigateCUSTOMER

DISSATISFACTION

Lack ofKnowledge

UnfriendlyService

Men

Not FreshMade

MethodMaterials

CheapTea

Milk notFresh

Too Strong

Urn notClean

Water notHeatedAdequately

Machines Environment

DecorOutdated

Cafe notClean

Cause & Effect Diagrams - Tips

• Be creative, don’t allow options to be

closed down by assumptions

• Use the categories appropriate to your

problem

• Never cross items off completely

• Focus on what you can control

• Use the ‘Five Whys’ to ensure that you

have got to the right depth

Cause and Effect Exercise

• Using the output from the previous brainstorming exercise, construct an appropriate cause and effect diagram

THE MORPHOLOGICAL MATRIX

• Break down a goal into its component parts or attributes.

• Consider these parts separately.• Recombine them to find new

solutions.

MORPHOLOGICAL MATRIX EXAMPLEDress Location MusicWild West Boat String Quartet

Bus Driver Rooftop Terrace Jazz Band

Film Star In the Country DJ

School Underground Club Acoustic

Begins with ‘P’ Warehouse Pianist

Someone else Posh Hotel Gospel Choir

1960s At Home Abba Tribute

Medieval By the seaside Blues Guitarist

Toga Favourite bar Karaoke

Black Tie Shop Window Sounds of Nature

Generation of New Ideas

• 10 items in each of the 3 categories gives 1,000 possible combinations.

• Add one more column (e.g. Food), gives 10,000 possible combinations.

• In teams, generate 3 new ideas for a surprise party from the matrix that you would not normally have considered.

THANK YOU

QUESTIONS?