CREATIVE PROCESS

Learning Outcomes
At the end of this topic, you should be able to:
• Describe the creative cycle
• Outline the creative process
• Name some creative tools
 Creativity Cycle
Cycle  solution to one
problem may lead to another Explore connections
problem! Research Between ideas

Review Relax & wait

Apply
 Research
When you come across a ‘creative problem’
• Study history of the problem
• Talk to the people who are involved
• Do case studies of people who have dealt with
similar problems
• Obtain relevant information from the experts
or literature
 Explore the connections between ideas

• Examine and reflect on information you have

• Rank the importance of the different pieces of
information
• Think of connections between the information
 Relax and wait
• After hard thinking, it is sometimes necessary
to relax
• Do something relaxing and different
– To stimulate the mind
– To allow yourself to forget about the less
important ideas so that the more relevant ones
‘float to the top’
• Use some ideas will come…
• The ‘Aha! Moment’
 Apply, review and follow-up
• Once you have got some ideas, examine them
carefully
– Whether they can be improved further
– How they are to be implemented
• Review the whole process to see how you can
do better next time
 Recall…
No special algorithm for creativity, BUT there are
things we can do to enhance creativity
• Understand basic principles of creativity
• Learn the creativity process
• Practice the creativity tools
 Creative Process
Defining the problem/issue

Generating ideas to solve

Selecting idea

Implementing idea (and review)

 Defining the Problem
• Check that you are tackling the problem, not
the symptoms of the problem
• Ask yourself why the problem exists
repeatedly until you get to the root of it
• Lay out the bounds of the problem, work out
the
– Objectives
– Constraints
• Where a problem appears to be very large,
break it down into smaller parts
– Keep on going until each part is solvable in its own
right, or needs a precisely defined area of research
to be carried out
• Summarize the problem in as concise a form
as possible
 Generating Ideas
• Once you know the problem that you want to
solve, you are ready to start generating
possible ideas as solutions
• It is very tempting just to accept the first good
idea that we come across; but you may miss
many even better solutions
• Instead, you should try to generate as many
different ideas as possible; even bad ideas
may be the seeds of good ones
• At this stage you are not interested in
evaluating ideas!

• While you are generating ideas, remember

that other people will have different
perspectives on the problem  worth asking
for the opinions of others as part of this
process
 Selection of Idea
• Sometimes the best idea is obvious!
• Some other times it is worth examining and
analysing a number of ideas in detail before
you select one

• When you are selecting an idea, keep in mind

your definition of the problem you identified
earlier
 Implementation
• Having identified the problem, generated
several ideas and selected a solution, the final
stage is to implement this solution
 Creative Tools
• Creative tools (or techniques) ≡ tools in a
workshop.
• Different tools for different parts of the
creative process.
• Each tool has its particular strengths and
benefits, depending on the problems that we
want to solve.
 Another Way to Look at the Creative
Process
‘DO IT’
• D = Define problem
• O = Open mind and apply creative techniques
• I = Identify best solution
• T = Transform
• Define problem: Use creativity tools to ensure that we are
asking the right question.
• Open mind: Use creativity tools to generate as many answers
as possible to the question we are asking (at this stage we are
not evaluating the answers).
• Identify best solution: Select the best solution from the ones
we came up with. Where we are having difficulty in selecting
ideas, use creativity tools to help.
• Transform: Make an action plan for the implementation of the
solution, and to carry it out.
 Yet Another Way to Look at the Creative
Process
‘IDEAL’
• I = Identify the cause
• D = Describe options available
• E = Evaluate each options
• A = Act on the best option
• L = Learn from it!