Creative problem solving bootamp ebook

A storybook by SeriouslyCreative to help you achieve continuous improvement by

making people better problem scouts and ideators.

Creative Problem Solving Bootcamp

SeriouslyCreative.com

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If I only had one hour to solve a problem I would spend 55 minutes understanding it first. Once understood the solution would easily be created in the last 5 minutes.

Continuous Improvement doesn’t start with ideas, it starts with problems.

”Creative Problem Solving

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You can think of it as two frequencies. But we tend to think focus more on the second part. We think we know a problem that needs to be solved and want to quickly deliver a solution.

Let’s start at the begining where we make sure we have a good problem to solve and we understand it really well.

We need to first understand, so we can then create.

TWO FREQUENCIES

Opportunity Discovery

IdeaCreation

Creative Problem Solving!*

Opportunity DiscoveryBy spending the time to discover a problem and understand it really well; we often feel like we are going too slow and we should hurry up and deliver an idea. But this is a very important first step that makes sure we are solving a real problem (and not a symptom) and that the problem is worth solving. Think of it as “going slow to finish fast.”

This first phase is where we ask “But why?” We need to stop thinking about ideas and instead focus on asking questions like “why does this happen?” “what is holding us back?” “what is something we do that doesn’t add value?”

It’s like being a 6 year old child who asks questions all day long. It is also about being curious enough to dig into data, do the research and work hard to better understand a problem. It takes time and dedication to want to know more.

Finally, it is about being willing to challenge assumptions. We need to be willing to look at something that the whole company takes for granted and challenge it, asking why it is the way it is.


Beginner’s Mindset

This technique was created in the 1920s by Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota motors and father of what is the “Toyota Way of Continuous Improvement”, method which has influenced industries across the world in their drive to be better.

He believed in going to where a problem existed. For example: going to the paint shop of a car and ask “why” 5 times in order to discover the root cause of a problem. That way, he would make sure all efforts were put into the problem that needed to be solved; rather than waste time of symptoms or non-problems.

1 5 Why’s

✴See everything as it is the first time.✴Ask “why is this; this way” often.✴Observe what people do before assuming why they do it.

Example:30% of clients are outstanding payments of over 60 days. Why? Because they had an issue on their bill. Why? Because there was an issue with their order being incorrect. Why? Because the wrong items were sent. Why? Because the order was taken wrong. Why? Because it was taken too fast. Company incentives are based on speed. Counter-measure: Change incentives so they are not not just on speed, but accuracy.

Sakichi Toyoda



Making Problems Visual

The right side of the brain loves imagination. This is creative side where we value abundance of ideas, looking at the big picture, challenging assumptions and champion possibility.

Think of experiences or problems as journeys. Think of telling a story… In the beginning, in the middle and in the end.

Make a timeline. Map out the most important moments of the journey and place them high as good experiences or low for those ones that are not so good.

See how many low interactions can be improved. Maybe the issue is that there are too many interactions and the process should be simplified. Either way… make the problem visible.

2 Journey Mapping

If we want people to understand something we should find ways to make it visual.


beg


Think Human Centric

Look at these two problem statements. The second is written to be about a specific kind of person. The person may be fictitious, but he challenge they face is not.

By making problems about humans, we do two things: 1. We make sure that the challenge is something we know from talking to real people. 2. It makes the problem more meaningful for the people looking to solve it.

3 Personas

Our interactions are neither business to business or business to consumer but human to human.

A problemImprove the way orders are placed so that they are accurate and can be fulfilled in under 24 hours.


vs

About human centric problemHelp Mary, a online sales representative, capture all order information correctly and easily so that orders leave the next day.


Question Banking

Rather than just ask the one obvious question like “how can we make people happier when they come to the store?” A question bank asks you to come up with a lot of possible angles that address this same challenge.

For example, “how might we make it entertaining to be at our store?” or “what might we give people that would make their in store experience more enjoyable?”

The term HOW MIGHT WE and WHAT MIGHT WE are powerful ways to start questions. The word MIGHT opens people up to new possibilities.

4 Start with How might we…/What might we…?

Create many directions to explore for good ideas.Use questions to stimulate new thinking.


1.AMPLIFY: How might we add…2.REMOVE THE NEGATIVE- How might we reduce….3.EXPLORE THE OPPOSITE- How might we change…4.CREATE AN ANALOGY - How might we make it more like…5.PLAY WITH THE PROBLEM - How might we make people think

of it ….6.CHANGE THE STATUS QUO- What might we substitute X so it

is not a problem?

SOME IDEAS

ASK INSPIRING QUESTIONS


IdeaCreationWhen it comes to generating ideas, the mind has to be set on possibility. In order to do this, we need to focus on divergent thinking.

This depends on us being willing to say ideas that we are not so sure about at first and being willing to be wrong. That is why techniques should encourage individual contributions and anonymity. We do this with Post Its™.

In order to suspend judgement, you want people to think What if, Avoid “Yes but…”.and push for YES AND!

Brainstorming is about going from DIVERGENT to CONVERGENT. We tend to rush to converge in business. Time is money and we want to deliver a solution fast. But this leads us to suggest the first idea we come up with, and that’s not always good. Too often that’s the most common idea that everyone, including our competitors have.

The best ideas take bit more thinking and bit more work. So we need to suspend judgment just long enough for people to be divergent - to come up with all the choices before we kick into making a decision.

Diverge ConvergeMany ideas

All possibilities

Creating

Create Choices

Best possibilities

Top ideas

Selecting

Making choices


1 2Yes. Braistorming has RULES.i.Suspend judgement (we are going for quantity

first. not quality.) ii.Write now, talk later iii.Headline & get visual iv.Build upon ideas of others v.Wild ideas welcome vi.Stay on topic

LEAPROGPass ideas to the left. Get others to improve

or add-on to previous ideas.

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.”

-Albert Einstein

TECHNIQUES

Create Choices Idea Creation

SIMPLE SCAMPERSCAMPER is an acronym for words that help us look at the same problem but from different angles. It was originally created to help engineers improve product design but it works just as good for process. Here’s the 4 most provoking of those words:

SIMPLIFYCOMBINEAMPLIFY

ELIMINATE

Diverge


3 4ClusterIn order get a better grasp of all ideas, you want to then organize/group your post it’s by themes. You can also combine ideas that look like they could be part of a bigger picture or concept.

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.”

-Albert Einstein

DotMocracy

Make DecisionsIdea Creation

Is a technique that helps groups start being aware of those ideas that are more popular in the context of “voting stickers” and colors. Mark your favorite ideas and classify them like this:

Green - Low hanging fruitBlue - To discuss Red - Could be transformative

Converge

5 Draw and Pitch!Drawing your ideas is a way of prototyping. Helps you quickly see things different. It also shows how (or if it doesn’t).

Also, it helps you understand how it interacts with the users and what it takes to implement.

Finally, remember… you could have the best idea in the world, but you need to communicate it effectively. If it get’s lost in translation, it never was.… so pitch it like a “pro” and Good luck!! Creative Problem Solving

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“ ”If an idea is at first not absurd, there is no hope for it.

(albert einstein)

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. (alan kay)

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

(steve jobs)

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas

(linus pauling)

The future belongs to those willing to get their hands dirty.

(anonymous)

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.

(edwin land)

All life is an experiment. The more experiments the better. (r.w. emerson)

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again, fail again, fail

better. (samuel beckett)

Creativity is the power to connect the seamlessly unconnected. (william plomer)

Ask questions. Questions are what expose the insights that springboard you forward

to ideas. (anonymous)

Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what no one has

thought. (albert szent-gyorgyi)

quotes to inspire

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!* Seriously Creative

ABOUT US SeriouslyCreative is an ideas, innovation and insights company. We combine creativity, human centered design and play to solve problems, grow companies, amplify collaboration and deliver the future.

PURPOSE To empower people and organizations to become agents of constant improvement, innovation and growth.

MISSION To provide individuals and teams with the creative confidence, tools and skills they need in order understand their individual and collective role when it comes to company innovation and growth.

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Because the world of business is changing fast. Those who were not competitors a year ago now pound at your door. Last year’s competitive advantage is this year’s old news. What you thought was a best practice is already replaced with the next practice. Yes, we live in a world of rapid, disruptive and transformative change.

Business today demands we innovate. It constantly forces us forward to seek the next advantage, to better serve customers, to build value around deep consumer needs, to challenge the status quo, explore new opportunities and to suspend our normal judgements. It is only by staying ahead of the waves of change that we survive. Those who have learned how to manage in this chaotic race make change their advantage while others become the victim of it.

If what you’re looking for is a traditional management consulting firm then stop here.

We believe in modern business fueled by imagination and driven by entrepreneurial spirit. And we take our inspiration from business innovation overachievers like P&G, Virgin, Red Bull, Mayo Clinic, SAP and Lego.

Welcome to Business as Unusual!

Why innovate?

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understanding by design

INSIGHTS + RESEARCH

collaboration & alignment by design

TEAMBUILDING

capabilities by design

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION

WORKSHOPS

IDEAS, STRATEGY & PLANNING

innovation by design

Our Services

engagement by design

INSPIRING

KEYNOTES

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understanding by design

INSIGHTS + RESEARCH

Popular Products: Deep Dives Consumer Date Nights User Experience Audits Journeys

Big insights equals big benefits.

While traditional research is good for bench-marking past behavior, design research is the way modern organizations guarantee improved future performance and decision making. It is about going beyond the “what” and understanding the “why” of people, problems and drivers. Our design approach looks at individual motivations, perspectives, pain points, desired outcomes all in order to deliver deeper, actionable insights that help clients confidently design engaging products, services, messages and business models.

We dig deep to truly understand drivers. To do this, we believe in GETTING OUT OF THE OFFICE, talking to people and asking tons of questions. We come back to you with more than just data and graphs but ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS that help guide you to real competitive advantages and bottom and top line impact.

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Popular Products: 100 Day Sprints, Service Design, SolutionSessions, Start it Up, Decision Making Camp Prototyping Studio Strategic Visioning, Transformer

“If you think how you always thought, you’ll always get what you always got.”*

We get you and your team to do your best thinking, look at the whole and real problem, break from the gravity of the status quo, challenge the assumptions of your day-to-day operations and develop a solutions that transforms your situation and that you are confident in successfully moving forward.

Our disruptive style, makes meetings work. Through "serious play", visualizations and simulations, we get businesses to the transformative solutions they seek faster (and collaboratively).

IDEAS, STRATEGY & PLANNING

innovation by design

*Gerald Hamman, SolutionPeople

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Popular Products: Radically Collaborative, Superhero Academy, Creative Jumpstart, Our Journey, Awesome Race, Back to Basics/Play Date, Brain Lab, Mystery Day, Inspiring Keynotes and more…

Engaging hearts and minds to build stronger, collaborative teams.

Success in business today is about collaborative teams that can rapidly come together to solve problems, design new ideas and overcome any challenge by out-pacing, out-working, out-thinking and out-creating the competition.

Our sessions are designed to be SeriousPlay. They are not just fun and games, but carefully engineered to meet the specific needs of your team. We get people improve creative confidence, communication, engagement, come up with solutions together, prototype and understand what is expected of them so they can walk the talk! Better yet, in work environments with demographic and cultural diversity, our sessions serve as a non-physical option fit for every shape and age and worthwhile investment for any organization. Teams have fun, but take away so much more.

collaboration & alignment by design

TEAMBUILDING

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Popular Products: Learn Design Thinking, Creative Jumpstart, IDEA Bootcamp, Human Centric 101, Human Centric Culture Camp, Presentations that Rock, Productive Meetings, Innovation Transformer

No boring lectures. No 15 bullet point slides. Our workshops are about amplifying human potential.

SeriouslyCreative helps organizations who need their people to develop the skills of tomorrow; TODAY. Innovation is less about what you know and more about how you think.

Principally, through our Idea Engineering™ Bootcamps, we teach people the new cognitive mindset that drives the world’s most innovative companies by immersing participants in real world exercises, teaching easily-applicable techniques and following up to ensure that what we discuss is effectively applied.

We have also designed several other workshops including “ready to wear” tips and techniques to improve leadership and professional performance at organizations.

Our workshops are practical, interesting, collaborative and fun. Just like kindergarten. Just bigger kids.

capabilities by design

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION

WORKSHOPS

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Popular Products: Change Happens, Radically Collaborative, BrainLab, Creative Jumpstart, Business as Unusual, Creative Connection

It’s not just about hearing it. It’s about getting it.

Our experienced speakers add context to your event in a very dynamic and SeriouslyCreative ways. We design and deliver sessions that get participants off their chair, engaging their minds and hearts with your message. Our SeriousPlay style gets groups of 10-500 actively participating and living the message.

Dana has been a featured speaker in TedX San Juan, SHRM, PIA, SME and Advertising Agency Association Conventions, Innovation Summits and private events locally and internationally.

Angie has served as speaker for APPR, CFSE, SHRM, SME, Instituto para el Desarrollo de la Juventud, Economic Development and Commerce of Puerto Rico, Echar Pa’Lante and private events locally and internationally.

engagement by design

KEYNOTES

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SeriouslyCreative.com

SeriouslyCreative

SCideaengineWeAreSeriouslyCreative

[email protected] 787-283-6077

Let’s Stay Connected!

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Creative problem solving bootamp ebook