How Creativity Class Changed My Life
The following reflection will detail a complete breakdown of the creativity unit studied at the University of Canberra from a student perspective. Enjoy. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch.
How can you possibly teach creativity? The only people I know who are truly creative are the ones studying art and creating amazing things. This was my mindset coming in to the unit. I never considered myself a creative person.
Little did I know, I was about to have my world turned upside down.
You can already tell how this unit has influenced me. The fact that i’ve chosen to do the last piece, a critical reflection, as a blog post on medium rather than the standard format.
Day 1. An introduction to Creativity
We began with intros. I explained how I was in my final year of studying Entrepreneurship and briefly mentioned my creative agency, Mude. It would’ve been a shame if I was offering such a service and didn’t bother to learn about the theory behind the work I was already doing. We immediately jumped into our first activity; Creating something different out of lego pieces that would have normally formed a spaceship. After seeing that the other group had received an Eiffel tower, we cheekily decided to recreate one with our pieces.
At first we decided to do a 3D model but quickly realised that this was too challenging a task in the limited timeframe we had so we simplified our goal to creating a 2D model instead. Even this was tricky and slow to begin with, but as the first pieces were laid out, intuition took over and the rest of the group became engaged in natural play. We worked as an unguided team communicating, adding pieces and making adjustments until we’d achieved our final result. In hindsight i’ve realised that this still looks more like the original spaceship than an Eiffel tower!
What is my level of creativity and where do i want to get to?
I considered myself mildly creative. I’m often able to come up with new ideas and concepts (especially around around business models). However, I want to reach a level of creativity where my ability to be creative and think in abstract ways can be applied in ways that allow me to solve real world problems in business and everyday life.
- “Play” in spaces you feel comfortable in. This forces you to always be trying something new and increases your confidence around the unfamiliar. e.g. order a different dish or take a different route.
- Being observant — Always paying attention to and analysing your surroundings.
During the morning break, inspired by what my tutor Diane shared about trying new things; I decided to follow my curiosity after coming across an old ‘Outdoors Club’ poster covered in spiderwebs. I decided to call the now fading number that was provided to have it answered by a man named Greg who informed me that he hadn’t been at UC for years and the ‘peak time’ of the club was during the mid 90’s. He then recommended me some great hiking spots around the Brindabella mountains and wished me a successful journey through uni. This interaction made my day. It felt like i’d discovered a hidden treasure in a game and it never would’ve happened unless I followed my curiosity to see where it led me.
We were given red noses to wear to show that when you’re a creative person you will always be wearing a ‘red nose’ which represents risk taking and putting yourself out there, open to ridicule. This is something that you would eventually get so used to ‘wearing’ that it doesn’t even bother you anymore and becomes natural instinct.
Our next activity involved using different kitchen equipment as a group to create a children’s toy. Our team contributed ideas and went through a trial and error process which led to incrementally developing the idea for a catapult toy game that involved hitting a see-saw to throw a ball into the air and then trying to catch it with a cup. We introduced tacit styles of learning and interactivity in our toy. It was also quite a challenging game which added replay ability and development of hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
We were shown 4 images: boat, beer, painting, hotdog and were challenged to come up with a scenario involving every item. I came up with painting on a boat with beer flavoured hotdog buns. This activity was done to introduce us to the habit of seeing connections between otherwise unrelated things in order to be more creative, come up with new concepts and develop creative problem solving skills.
Metaphor for creativity at my workplace.
A butterfly is the metaphor I chose. Developing a creative solution and going back and forth with ideas is growing the cocoon and once the plan or idea is implemented, the cocoon then blossoms into a butterfly.
Learning Styles
I found from analysing learning styles that I learn best when in a hands on environment with a lot of visual input. This means that “spatial” is my preferred learning style. Read more about learning styles here.
Day 1 Recap
I didn’t know what to expect when first walking into the class. I figured I would be learning to become more creative but I always wondered — how can someone be taught creativity? After todays workshop I knew the answer.
You can only teach someone the theories and methodologies that have been proven to increase creativity. They must change their lifestyle and habits to accommodate for these in order to become a more creative person.
Throughout the day we undertook a series of tasks and challenges — most of which weren’t blatantly obvious why we were doing them until we were made aware of the theory behind what we had just done. The lego pieces activity allowed us to visualise the creation process and intuition allowed us to make tweaks to each others pieces until we hit a natural work flow resulting in a finish we were all satisfied with.
The challenges that followed entailed us building children’s and adults toys by combining everyday items such as kitchen utensils. In both instances, the process was relatively the same as in the lego scenario however this time each of us put forward our ideas and built/tested them as a group in a trial and error format until we reached a result that the majority of the group was happy with. I would later learn that what we had just done was a creative brain storming process where team members contribute and build on each others ideas. As we progressed further into these tasks and challenges, i began to pay more attention to why we were doing them and applying my knowledge of theories.
Creativity can be explained in many different ways but my favourite example was that creativity can be defined as:
“Seeing the same thing as everyone else but thinking something different”
I’ve realised that creativity is not a trait or characteristic, it’s a mindset and skill (think of it like a muscle) that needs to be exercised and grown.
Day 2. A venture into creative theories
Still half asleep on a Saturday morning, I foraged outside the classroom for something to use for our first activity. We were tasked with finding a natural item from outside and then forming groups and creating something that used all the items. This served as a great analogy for the importance of having a diverse team as everyone realised that the more diverse range of items we had, the more options we had for what we could create. To give you context, about half of the class chose a stick from outside. I had chosen a long piece of flexible bark and had no clue about what could be a creative use for it. After playing with it in my hands, I discovered it’s flexible nature and how it could be used as an arm extension to pick up pieces of rubbish. This has reaffirmed my suspicions of being a visual and kinaesthetic learner. (More on this later)
After seeing that most people gathered sticks for the first activity, it quickly became apparent that the unique objects were the most important as they provided more flexibility around what could be created. This served as a great example to prove that people who are different are often the most important and demonstrated the advantage of having a diverse group of people and perspectives rather than someone who ‘fits in’ and has the same opinions as everyone else. This is a great transition into discussing the “6 thinking hats” creative problem solving process which literally forces you to bring to the table a unique perspective to everyone else.
We brainstormed ways for the university to raise funds for the purchase of a NAO robot. A project that I would later become the team leader of.
I discussed getting sponsorship from larger organisations and possibly naming the robot after them but my favourite idea was to start some sort of robot competition between UC and ANU that all departments of both universities could rally behind and promote.
The 6 Thinking Hats
A creative problem solving process designed by Edward De Bono, It involves the use of metaphorical “thinking hats” to stimulate a balanced discussion from 6 different perspectives.
White: Facts, Neutral, Objective information
Red: Emotions, Hunches, Intuition, Gut feels
Black: Critic, Analyst, Logical Negative
Yellow: Sunshine, Optimism, Logical Positive
Green: Creative, Growth, Possibilities, Ideas
Blue: Cool, Agenda, Process, Organiser, Overview, Decision
Our group chose to tackle the problem of plastic bag pollution in the ocean using the thinking hats. At first, I thought the green and blue hats were the most important in the process and that the others were almost unnecessary. However, as the group discussed further, I found that each of the hats had their own justified roles. The black hat was necessary in order to develop the idea further and identify potential road blocks which the green would then find a creative solution for. The white hat would provide the knowledge and information necessary to aid the other hats in developing their arguments. When applying this method to a business discussion, you can see the potential benefit of having a diverse range of perspectives to create a well thought out solution.
A key takeaway for this activity was that context and scenario play a major role when influencing the way people think. Depending on the scenario, you would naturally fall into a different thinking hat and apply vertical or lateral thinking to support your arguments depending on your domain of knowledge in that field.
Morphological Analysis is a structured way of looking at things. The “Zwicky Box” (which is an extension of this), involves breaking down the ideas into smaller parts in order to turn it into a more structured process. We applied this method to break down the core components of a torch and come up with a brilliant new invention.
Introducing the Z-Torch. A torch that uses thermo-electric technology to convert the heat from your hand into a light source. Alternatively, it can also be charged using solar or a wind-up device. The idea behind it is to self generate the energy required to power the torch so that the batteries will never need to be replaced and the torch will always be ready to use.
I came across a particularly difficult challenge and it’s the first time in the class I wasn’t able to complete one. We were told to solve an existing problem and were shown a tiger, an Indian pipe and an image of the world. I found myself attempting to come up with a feasible solution that incorporated all 3 elements but found that as I was confining myself to a ‘somewhat feasible’ idea I was having trouble moving beyond the initial spark of imagination and developing the idea further in my mind. I even tried to apply morphological analysis but still couldn’t get anywhere.
The 9 Intelligences
Spatial- The ability to visualise with the minds eye.
Naturalist- I‘m constantly fascinated by nature and living things however, I wouldn’t have the discipline or slightest clue on how to maintain a garden. This is why i’m particularly interested in creating Bonsai’s as I see this as a way to improve my skills in this area. For now, i’ve settled for owning a terrarium full of little shrimps, moss balls and algae that are able to feed off each other and survive as a naturally self sustaining environment.
Musical- My musical knowledge is quite limited however I enjoy listening to all genre’s of music especially Rap and R&B. I’ve found that I’m not very good at analysing music that contains a lot of emotion beyond the lyrics used such as the Hallelujah song. I can relate a lot more to music that has very strong lyrics and rhymes and verbally explains how the artist is feeling rather than trying to articulate it with their voice and the way they carry a note.
Logical Mathematical- I am good at logical thinking and preventing my emotions from guiding my decisions however, I am lacking when it comes to the maths department.
Existential- This is an area I am passionate about and have researched extensively. I am deeply intrigued by philosophy and seeking the answers to these ‘bigger’ questions.
Interpersonal- My interpersonal skills are quite good and I believe this stems from having high levels of emotional intelligence and being able to establish rapport and read body language well. This mostly comes down to just listening and caring about what someone has to say.
Bodily-kinaesthetic- I play several sports (futsal, soccer, badminton) and go to the gym so I believe my skills are well-rounded in this area.
Linguistic- I feel that I am sometimes lacking in this area as I often have trouble formulating my thoughts into words as fast as I would like to, especially when dealing with complex ideas. But to be fair, I can also speak and read Nepalese fluently.
Intra-personal- Whilst it is important to observe the world around you, it is equally as important to observe and reflect on yourself and your own thoughts and actions. I’ve attempted to build my skills in this area through practicing mindfulness and meditation techniques.
I found from self analysis that I was lacking in the musical, mathematical and linguistic areas of these 9 intelligences.
Heuristic Ideation is the process of developing and forming new ideas yourself as well as taking educated guesses. A variant of Morphological Analysis, this technique is especially useful when trying to innovate or create something original.
Socratic Thinking This methodology and the 6 groups of questions associated are designed to get you deep into a conversation around a topic very quickly. The results when using this technique with a small group did amaze me. The depth of conversation we were able to achieve in such a short amount of time by asking these questions was insane. They force you to think differently as the answers aren’t always obvious at first.
I left the workshop feeling a little dazed but more interested than ever. I was experiencing information overload with the amount of theories and activities consumed within just a few hours and needed a few days to process the information. I hadn’t even begun to realise the immensity of the topic of “creativity” and that we had only just touched the tip of the iceberg.
Day 3. Understanding Theory
This was another day jam packed with creative theory however was much easier to get through as we did many smaller activities interlaced with theory. I’ve been trying to form a picture in my minds eye of the entire ‘map’ of creativity and where the theories we have learnt sit and intertwine.
We began the day by learning about learning. Something I’d never actually thought about. Diane taught us how to learn effectively by actively applying double loop learning. This is the process of reflecting as you are learning as well as after which results in better retention of information and a deeper level of understanding. Single loop is the default mode of learning that most people are accustomed to including me.
I’ve realised that my short term memory is terrible and this is having an impact on my learning. Diane mentioned that by repeating new information 10 times it can go past your short term memory and into your long term memory. I’ve repeated this fact to myself over 10 times so that I always remember to apply it when learning!
Although I now consider myself a highly creative person, I want to reach the state of Fluid or Crystallised Creativity which means that it is natural for me to behave this way at all times. In order to do this, I need a game plan for how I will increase my creativity. I’ve summed it up into 4 simple steps;
- Expand knowledge base
- Try new things
- Apply what i’ve learnt
- Reflect and repeat
They are pretty self explanatory. By expanding my knowledge base and researching into things i’m curious about, I can be exposed to new ideas and concepts that give me inspiration to try new activities that I wasn’t aware of previously. By trying new things I’m exposing myself to new environments and uncomfortable situations where I will be forced to explore and learn new things (by doing) which i’ve found is my preferred learning style. I can then apply what I learn to other areas of life. The final step is to reflect and repeat the process. I see this as an ongoing cycle to increase my creativity by constantly exposing me to new environments and challenges.
Learning Styles
This is a way to absorb and process information. Essentially, it’s the way your mind operates and learns best.
Visual Learners learn by sight.
Auditory Learners learn by hearing.
Tactile Learners learn by touch.
I’ve found through metacognition that I am primarily a visual learner followed by tactile and my weakest learning style is auditory. It’s important for me to try and adapt for this when learning new things by applying complementary teaching methods that suit my style of learning. When revisiting Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences. (musical, verbal, math, logic, etc) you can see how a different learning style may be applied to each intelligence leading to many possible combinations of people.
After brainstorming in groups of how we could add 4 more hours to Diane’s day, our Ideas started out crazy and without boundaries but later became more rational and sensible. The conclusion I came to was simply for Diane to do less things and prioritise her life as she is doing more things than she has hours for in the day and she is already quite efficient with her time.
Characteristics of creative people
- See problems in new ways
- Open to new experiences
- Intrinsically motivated
- Take sensible risks
- Seek supportive environments
- Apply knowledge and skills in new ways to achieve valuable outcomes.
- Try something new and different every single day.
We engaged in an activity where we had to think of as many uses as we could for an everyday item like a napkin. This seemed like an ordinary activity until we were told to swap notebooks with our peers and add to and make comments to their ideas. I found that doing this allowed you to effectively ‘multiply’ your creative thinking with someone else’s to come up with ideas that neither would have ever been able to alone. After I exhausted my initial ideas, I hit a brick wall and was forced to apply my auditory and tactile styles of learning on top of the visual to experiment with the napkin and gain new insights. I was proud of the fact that I came up with about 27 ideas when most of the class was in the low 20's.
Whole Brain Thinking Model
Left sided
- Rational — logical, analytical, fact-based, quantitative
- Organised, sequential, planned, detailed
Right sided
3. Interpersonal, Feeling-based, kinaesthetic, emotional
4. Holistic, Intuitive, Integrating, Synthesising
I am definitely more left brained in that my thought process is a lot more structured, analytical, organised and logical however, I do have skills in the right side such as being intuitive, interpersonal and emotional.
Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom
This shows the full transition from data to wisdom. Reminds me of the philosophy I follow where my thoughts become my actions, which turn into habits that determine the outcome of my life. This is why I think it’s so important to develop your mindset by exposing yourself to the right environments and reading good books that influence your thinking in a positive way.
Thoughts > Actions > Habits > Life Outcome
Creativity Blockages
These can take form in a number of different ways. I’ve generally found that the higher I find myself in Maslow’s Hierarchy, the more mental clarity I have to be creative and innovative. I think it is important that you condition a mindset that is not easily swayed by the thinnest of winds in order to maintain a high level of mental clarity. Meditation is something I practice often when i’m experiencing stress or a cluttered mind. I intend to patiently wade my way through any blocks to my ability to be creative as these present themselves only as challenges to overcome.
My Life is Different Now
When going out, i’m not afraid to try new and different foods. In-fact, I always make an effort to try something that I haven’t before. I used to always go for the ‘safe zone’ of food that i’m familiar with and couldn’t be disappointed in. I often explore different routes, I no longer care that its a longer commute. I know that being exposed to new locations is good for me and i’ve learnt to constantly be observing myself and my surroundings for anything that I can learn or analyse. I no longer feel a constant need to check my phone, I’m comfortable with sitting in silence and observing and learning from my surroundings. I watch people in cars, I analyse the decisions they make and why they make them. People are endlessly fascinating. I’m inquisitive and curious about the world (as always) but i’ve now learnt to follow my curiosity and see where it leads me. A friend once called me “morbidly curious.” I now live by this code.
As a result of this change in behaviour, I’ve become comfortable with the uncomfortable. I noticed the other day that I no longer get nervous during presentations. Even when I fumble. I’m more observant than ever before. I pay attention to my environment and entertain theories about what may be influencing it to be the way it is. I recently had an experience in the apple store. Masters of simulating a unique experience and environment. I encourage you next time you go to pay more attention to the environment and behaviour of staff. There’s a lot to glean from the ‘apple experience’ and questioning why they’ve done things in a certain way.
I’ve found that overall my life has improved. I’m a happier person. Relationships are better. I have more knowledge. Business is better than ever. My health is better than ever and people listen when I talk. This has all been directly influenced by this new mindset i’ve established for life’s journey in one way or another.
My entire life is better than it’s ever been. Being more creative has just been a side effect and a beautiful one at that.
Appendix
Here you will find critical reflections for the given text, Creative Problem Solving for Managers.
Chapters 1–2
The first chapter begins by immediately introducing us to how creative thinking may be practically applied in real life scenarios such as the issues surrounding the environmental impact of airports and growing air pollution from aircraft.
It is suggested by Wertheimer ([1945] 1959) that the process of creative thinking involves deconstructing and restructuring our knowledge about something in order to gain new insights about its nature. This reminds me of Morphological analysis in particular the “Zwicky Box” which involves breaking down an idea into smaller parts to recreate it in a more structured process (Zwicky, 1969).
Maslow (1954) suggests that “…[creativity] seemed to be lost in adults, surfacing mainly in dreams”. This in particular stood out to me as i’ve had many dreams that are so vivid and full of imagination and complexity that I couldn’t possibly hope to recreate them consciously.
Reading this chapter exposed me to the varying opinions as to what creativity is that I hadn’t known previously. This becomes a complex topic as creativity is multi-faceted meaning that most definitions can be true to a certain degree. What I found particularly interesting is that creativity has no correlation with intelligence. (p.16)
The beginning of chapter 2 focuses on the need to define a problem properly before solving it. This is very much in line with design thinking which focuses on getting to the core and really understanding a problem before building your way to a solution. Some of the blocks to finding solutions for problems and in excess being creative can be a negative mindset, poor understanding of the problem and either lack of information or information overload. From my perspective a negative mindset is one which is incapable of adapting to change or seeing something from various perspectives.
If we dive deeper into this, Arnold (1962) suggests that psychological barriers such as perceptual blocks, cultural blocks and emotional blocks can limit an individuals creativity. I will need to pay close attention to the things that are blocking my ability to be creative.
Chapters 3–4
This chapter introduces us to the theories of creativity and the problem solving process. The first thing to note is that there is no standard authority on this subject and information is gathered from various disciplines.
Chapter mentions the ‘conditions under which ideation takes place are very important’ — I tried to brainstorm how this might be before reading further into it. My theory is that these conditions are important as they can be analysed and replicated to stimulate the ideation process.
Creative Idea: You could potentially study the human brain to see patterns that occur during the ideation process. You then study different chemicals and their effects on the human brain to see if you can find those same patterns occurring through a stimulant. You can then create a drink that’s been scientifically proven to boost creativity. This would be like an energy drink but targeted towards a demographic who want to boost their creativity rather than their energy levels. Wooh!
While ideas like this sound grand, what really matters is the execution of them. Back to the reflection.
I must agree with Locke (1690, 1964) that the source of all ideas comes from experience and knowledge. Knowledge from observations of the external world as well as how you internalise it in your mind. This theory strongly reinforces my action plan on becoming more creative:
- Expand knowledge base
- Try new things
- Apply what i’ve learnt
- Reflect and repeat
In Chapter 4, we are introduced to the notion that correctly defining the problem is the first and most significant step towards finding the solution. In-fact according to Einstein, if you’ve done so you’re already 90% of the way there. This requires a combination of divergent and convergent thinking to come up with and refine your ideas. Objective finding refers to having the ability to predict a problem before it occurs. (sounds like a superpower!) By searching for recurring patterns from past experiences or doing a performance analysis. A well known method of identifying problems is performing a SWOT analysis to immediately view an entity from four different perspectives to provide clues as to where an objective/problem may occur.
Chapters 5 & 6
Chapter 5 introduces us to more techniques for gaining further insight into problems. We begin by revisiting a core concept we’ve been familiar with since early primary school. The 5 W’s of who, what, where, when and why. This allows us to expand on a problem and identify important factors such as potential objectives as discussed in the previous chapter.
It seems that the theme for problem solving is that simple = effective. Even something as simple as a problem-solution checklist can have profound effects on the generation and development of ideas. Attribute listing is the morphological analysis technique that was taught to us by Diane and stuck with me the most. It’s intriguing to find that morphological analysis was first used by Fritz Zwicky (1948) in the areas of astrophysics and rocket science and is now used by us as one of many different theories revolving around the topic of creativity. The goal of using this techniques is to combine dimensions from the different variables of a product in ways that may seem unusual or impractical to force people to look at it from a different perspective and consider new possibilities. This seems like a great tool to be using in a focus group as it allows for the generation and discussion of a large amount of ideas over a short period of time.
The 6th chapter introduces us to different forms of brainstorming — something I had no clue even existed. Before reading further into the chapter, my assumption is that these various forms of brainstorming are to be used in different scenarios when trying to achieve a defined outcome.
When applying brainstorming methods, you want to always make sure that it’s structured as opposed to unstructured which is more likely to result in an unproductive meeting. The basic rules for brainstorming could be summarised in a session where there is no criticism, there are many wild and crazy ideas that are taken seriously and developed into even better ideas. I like the Round-Robin method as it encourages everyone in the group to contribute until all ideas have been explored.
Chapters 7 & 8
Lateral thinking is an alternative method of approaching problem solving with an indirect or creative approach by viewing the problem in different ways. Rather than trying to move forward, you move sideways; applying different methods and perspectives in order to transcend the limitations of your regular pattern of thought. One of the critical factors associated with lateral thinking involves recognising the dominant ideas that polarise our perceptions of a problem. This is a tremendously important step as it allows us to gain further knowledge into truly defining the problem itself taking into account the ideologies that may define our perception of it. It is also important not to fall into the trap of finding a solution for a problem and moving on too quickly. There could be a much better solution just around the corner. This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes: “the greatest enemy to a great life is a good life”. Another crucial step is to acknowledge the dominant thoughts and ideas that enter our minds when first approaching a problem and not allow them to define our boundaries for the solutions to the problem we may consider. Without this step, we would be limiting ourselves once again by our own initial thoughts which is exactly what lateral thinking and creative problem solving methods aim to overcome. Tethering factors are also something to have a heightened sense of awareness around and can limit your capacity to think outside the box. These are essentially assumptions or preconceived notions that we have and can be based off of who we are as a person and our sense of self. The borders of practising this heightened level of self awareness are blurred with those of mindfulness where the aim is to become an observer of your own thoughts and not react to them.
Synectics is best suited for identifying problems and developing solutions. It involves using unrelated examples (metaphors & analogies) to allow for problem solvers to view them from a different and perhaps more insightful perspective. I demonstrated this recently as I was dealing with a client who wanted to stay with their terrible web hosting service. I told them a story about my friends 90’s motorbike and compared it to mine that was made in 2011. I told them how every time I met with this friend, he had a new issue with the bike because it was so old and worn and used it as an analogy for the hosting provider that they were using.
Chapters 9 & 10
Chapter 9 covers paradigm breaking techniques and miscellaneous ideation methods. We’re introduced to the chapter with a completely unrelated story which is basically a combination of metaphors and analogies (as learned from the previous chapter) in order to form a story. This chapter looks at the interpretation of problems and ideas through methods such as creative writing and story telling. Vision building is an interesting concept and i’m drawing direct correlations with the techniques mentioned and ‘mood boarding’ which is a design technique for visualising a creative direction for a project. Symbolic Representation is one of the more abstract methods of problem solving that I have come across and involves constructing an image of a problem using symbols to represent things. I can see the advantage of this method when dealing with a particularly complex situation that involves many different variables. By using symbols to represent different things, it allows you to quickly develop a complex visualisation of the problem.
The Rich Pictures approach see’s participants drawing an image to represent the current situation and another to represent the solution or situation in future. This allows the team to condense a large amount of information and visually understand each others thoughts in a highly effective way.
Storyboarding is an advanced and more effective form of brainstorming as it allows you to condense information into images and drawings however, takes more time and effort to execute.
The ability to evaluate ideas is almost as important as the ability to generate them. And so, there are a range of evaluation techniques to suit every scenario. When dealing with a high volume of ideas, it helps to sort them into groups and derive the best ideas out of every group. Using an advantage/disadvantage table allows you to quickly sift through ideas by comparing them amongst each other against your key criteria. While these sorts of methods are great for high volume scenarios, when dealing with smaller situations, I tend to find that following my gut works best.
Source:
Proctor, T. (2010). Creative Problem Solving for Managers. 1st ed. Florence: Taylor and Francis.
