Creative Decision

Making and Problem Solving

Decision Support Systems in the

21st Century, 2nd Edition
by George M. Marakas

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 1

What is Creativity?
Creativity is the ability to see the same things
as everyone else but think something different.
Creativity involves the translation of our unique
gifts and talents into something that is both
new and useful.
Creativity is an important element in finding
new ways to do old things and ways to do
things yet undone.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 2

Creativity Defined
To further refine our definition, we must
distinguish between three related, but
unique characteristics.
1. Intelligence is the ability to think and
learn.
2. Academic achievement results in a
degree after years of lectures, exams,
and theses.
3. Creativity is the ability to redirect a line of
thought into new directions.
Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 3
The Occurrence of Creativity
When creativity emerges, it often occurs in the
form of an intuitive flash of insight.
It is usually just the complete idea that is
revealed. Equations, testing, and analysis come
much later.
An example is Velcro, which arose from George
de Mestral’s observation about how cockleburs
clung to clothes.
Another is Post-It notes. Arthur Fry wanted a
“poor” adhesive so he used a colleague’s
adhesive that was “useless” because it took
years to set.
Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 4
Different Ways to Think
There are five basic categories of ways to think:
1. Logical thinking – the decision maker builds
on his or her analytical abilities.
2. Lateral thinking – disrupts the usual vertical
thinking by introducing discontinuity
3. Critical thinking – takes the position that
certain elements within a problem context
are most critical to the solution. For
example, Pareto’s Law implies that 80% of
problems occur from 20% of causes.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 5

Different Ways to Think (cont.)
There are five basic categories of ways to think:
4. Opposite thinking – the decision maker
takes the perspective of someone other than
himself.
5. Groupthink – an alternative way of thinking
that can be used to achieve group
involvement.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 6

Lateral Thinking
Three major activities are available to promote
lateral thinking.
1. Awareness – these activities are intended to
identify and understand current ideas (but
not to evaluate them).
2. Alternatives – a conscious effort is made to
produce as many different ways as possible
to look at the problem.
3. Provocation – discontinuity is introduced into
the thought process by forcing a change in
the way the problem is viewed.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 7

The Pareto “80-20 rule”
Pareto Chart for Light Defect

100 100

80

Percent
60
Count

50 About 80% of defects are due

to only two of 10 categories 40

20

0 0

Defect
Count 43 36 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2
Percent 43.0 36.0 4.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Cum % 43.0 79.0 83.0 86.0 89.0 92.0 94.0 96.0 98.0 100.0

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 8

Intuition
Intuition is often identified as an important
element in creative decision making and
problem solving.
Managers who can harness their intuition can
often respond more quickly to a given
situation and apply both experience and
judgment.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 9

Barriers to Creativity
Self-constraining beliefs – the participant
makes the problem more difficult by assuming
certain constraining conditions that do not
exist.
Fears, beliefs, and stresses – people that fear
criticism or have strong beliefs may have
limited ability to be “free” and creative
Routines and rigidity – this may inhibit the
information gathering, interactions, and
incubation of thought that leads to creativity.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 10

Creative Problem-Solving Techniques
Most techniques fit into four categories:
1. Serendipity – we cannot control this, but can
enhance its probability of occurring by
actively studying unexplained phenomena.
2. Free association – techniques in this
category, such as brainstorming, focus on
divergent thinking and creation of ideas
while deferring judgment on those ideas.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 11

Creative Problem-Solving Techniques
(cont.)
Most techniques fit into four categories:
3. Structured relationships – new ideas are
generated by forcing together two or more
objects to produce new objects.
4. Group techniques – these enhance creativity
in multiparticipant problem-solving contexts.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 12

Tools to Aid Brainstorming
This free association technique involves
gathering together a set of often-diverse
people to generate a long list of ideas about a
problem.
After this long list is generated, it is culled
down to manageable size, often with
surprisingly little effort.
Two commercial tools to aid in brainstorming
are IdeaFisher and GroupSystems.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 13

A Dialogue from Ideocentics’
IdeaFisher
What qualifies a person to be a potential
customer? Young, professional, athletic and/or
fashion conscious, has purchasing power.

What purchasing power? Will spend up to $100

weekly on apparel.

What decision-making power? Independent.

For this marketing effort, who is your choicest

customer? (A regular customer? A past
customer? A first time buyer?)  For what
reason?
Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 14
Some of the Tools in GroupSystems

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 15

Osborn’s 73 Idea-Spurring Questions
Osborne created an “idea checklist” of questions
that asked the user to look at things from a new
perspective. Details are in Table 16-2, but the
questions fit in nine basic categories.

1. Put to other uses 6. Substitute

2. Adapt 7. Rearrange
3. Modify 8. Reverse
4. Magnify 9. Combine
5. Minify
Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 16
Morphological Forced Connections
Another structured relationships technique.
A user writes down attributes of a problem,
listing as many alternatives as possible for
each attribute.
The user is then asked to consider all
possible combinations of the alternatives.
These analyses can be performed in a matrix
format and can easily be delivered via a DSS.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 17

Analytic Hierarchy Process
It is often difficult to conceptualize all the
different elements of a problem, or there is
not enough cognitive energy to prioritize
those elements.
The AHP was formulated to counter those
situations, and is a mathematically-based
theory.
It employs two key aspects: (1) data from the
various variables that make up the decision,
and (2) judgments about those variables.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 18

Analytic Hierarchy Process (continued)
The AHP requires taking the following steps:
1. Structuring the decision into a hierarchical model
2. Pairwise comparison of all objects and alternative
solutions.
The form of the model has four elements:
1. Goal – the desired outcome
2. Criteria – elements that comprise the goal
3. Subcriteria – elements inside the criteria
4. Alternatives – solutions or choices available
This format allows decision makers to examine
every part of a complex problem.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 19

Group Techniques
These techniques focus on enhancing
creativity in multiparticipant situations.
One widely used mechanism is the Nominal
Group Technique which builds on the concept
of brainstorming. The six major steps of the
NGT are in Table 16-4.
Another technique is the Delphi Method. It
uses several rounds of user participation, with
pauses between for summarizing. The key
difference between Delphi and NGT is that
the participants are anonymous.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 20

Creativity and the Role of Technology
Until recently, there was little empirical
evidence that technology either enhanced or
inhibited creativity.
In effect, it was shown that the process
imposed on the decision maker was the
primary cause of enhanced creativity.
Lately, research has shown that when
appropriate creativity-enhancing processes
are combined with effective technology, the
results are markedly greater.

Marakas: Decision Support Systems, 2nd Edition © 2003, Prentice-Hall Chapter 16 - 21

Creative Decisions

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22 Learning