Creative Problem Solving - Revised FG PDF

*\ * **Slide 1**  **Say: Good Morning everyone! Welcome to the session on 'Creative Problem Solving'.** **Let's begin our discussion on this topic with a small story, shall we?** **Note to the facilitator - Narrate the following story with the right modulation (make it soun...

*\ * **Slide 1**  **Say: Good Morning everyone! Welcome to the session on 'Creative Problem Solving'.** **Let's begin our discussion on this topic with a small story, shall we?** **Note to the facilitator - Narrate the following story with the right modulation (make it sound interesting and exciting):** **I once read a story about a rich child who loves to write fictions. In his home lived a poor kid who used to stay with his mother. The mother was employed in that home as household help.** **The rich kid once received an email from his uncle praising him for his most recent work of fiction. The excited kid read out the email to the poor kid, \"My uncle was excited to read my story. He wrote \'Bravo!\'"** **Poor Kid: \"Well of course he liked it. You write such great stories. What\'s the story about?"** **Rich Kid: \"It\'s about a man who finds a magic cup. Soon, he learns that if he weeps into the cup, his tears would turn to pearls\....And at the end of story, he\'s sitting on a mountain of pearls with a blood stained knife in his hands and his dead wife by his side. "** **Poor Kid: \"So he killed her so that he could cry more and get rich?"** **Rich Kid: \"Yes, you\'re very quick!"** **Poor Kid: \"But why, couldn\'t he just smell cut onions?\"** **The rich kid was left speechless!** **Ask: So what does this story tell us?** **Elicit responses.** ***Say: Not all problems need complicated solutions. When we have simple, creative solutions available, we often tend to find answers in complicated ways. Likewise using creativity while solving problems at workplace can go a long way to increase your efficiency and productivity. This is exactly what we will learn in this session -- creative provlem solving.*** **Ask: Are you ready to embark on this amazing journey with me?** **Elicit Response.** **Move to the next slide.** **\ ** **Slide 2** **Time Required:** 20 minutes **Setting:** Group activity. Divide the participants into 3 teams **Materials Required:** Newspaper, masking tape **Objective - How we must stretch ourselves to think out of the box & think creatively to come up with new ways at looking at a problem/or coming up with new solutions.** **Directions and Set up:** - Split participants into 4 groups. - Give each group a stack of newspaper. - Use the masking tape to create a start line where all groups will need to stand and make a finish line where they will throw their paper planes. - Distance between the start and finish line is 1.5 to 2 Meters **Rules:** - The winning team will be the one who gets the most paper airplanes across the finish line. - The teams will be given 3 minutes to strategize without the newspaper. - The teams will then have 5 minutes to build their airplanes and get them across the taped line. **What\'s the point of this activity?** The main point of this activity is to focus on the fact that we tend to stick too much to the rules even though there were too few rules in this activity and how making too many assumptions greatly hinders our ability to think creatively and come up with new, out of the box solutions to solve problems. **Discussion & Debrief:** In this activity, most groups do not use the 3 minutes to build a good strategy and brainstorm possible ways to make the largest number of airplanes and make sure they can fly the short distance from the start to the finish line. Instead, they rush to get to the construction phase and most of the groups spend the 5 minutes they get for construction to create as many paper airplanes (airplanes with wings and tail) and the result is usually that most of the airplanes do not make it to the finish line because the designs are usually not very aerodynamic. There are 8 famous blocks that prevent us from thinking creatively. These 8 blocks are:  1. Believing you aren't creative 2. Making assumptions 3. Following the rules too strictly 4. Being serious 5. Avoiding risks or being wrong is bad 6. Always staying with your routines/habits 7. Thinking there is only one solution 8. Making judgments too quickly Apply the 8 blocks to what happened and ask the groups what assumptions did they make and what rules did they stick to, that caused them to design the airplanes the way they did.  Despite having very few rules in this activity, most groups will stick very strictly to them, they will mostly assume that an airplane must have wings and tail to qualify as an airplane. However, they can be more creative and simply just crumple each sheet of paper into a ball that becomes heavier and call that a new design or a futuristic airplane and then each \"Airplane" will be heavier in weight and it will be very easy for them to fly or throw them over the finish line.  What other creative groups have done in the past is that they simply created their planes, and put them together in one stack with a rubber band so that the combined weight of all the paper planes will ensure they will pass the finish line. Other groups simply put all their planes on one of the office chairs with wheels and they simply pushed the chair from the start to the finish line ensuring all their planes passed the finish line safely.  These were some examples of what other groups did who decided to think differently and challenge the 8 blocks to creative thinking. **Say: Creative Problem solving** is an essential skill for all employees. With the ability to solve problems one can work more effectively and, therefore, provide the foundation and framework for **continual improvement**.  Let me give you an interesting story about a problem which was solved in a creative way! **Say:** In the Kanpur Ordnance Factory's ammunition manufacturing unit, workers were required to wear special anti-static shoes. This was to prevent gun powder from being set off from static electricity when people walked around. These shoes were delicate and not designed to withstand everyday usage. Needless to say, these shoes were super costly too. Nonetheless workers still wore them outside the factory, walked on streets, rode bicycles etc. This withered the shoes off easily. The Ordnance factory was incurring a huge cost replacing these shoes. Being a government factory, with the employees protected by unions, the management of the factory felt very helpless in correcting the situation. In spite of repeated reminders, then pleading and finally multiple warnings, there was no change in the behaviour of the workers. A committee was set-up to come up with a solution. After much thought, one of the members suggested an interesting idea. What do you think it was? **Elicit responses.** **Say:** The idea was that the next order for the shoes should be like this -- Order all the right shoes in black and all the left shoes in white. No one will dare wear the contrasting pair of shoes outside in public. Problem was solved. Compliance happened. Simply brilliant, isn't it? Albert Einstein quotes -- "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." The more you deal with problems, smarter you will become. If you are a smart worker, your organization will consider you as an asset. **Say:** This session will be an exciting journey where you will learn about a skill that can equip you with the right mindset and tools to use your creative power to the maximum for better results. **Ask:** Are you ready for this journey? **Note:** Elicit response and move to the next slide. **Slide 3**  **Say:** Let us do a mini project now. This is an individual activity. Each of you think about problems you face in your everyday work life. Write down the problems that come to your mind irrespective of whether or not you can solve those problems. **Note:** 1. Give the participants 5 mins to think and write down the problems. 2. Elicit responses from a few participants. 3. Do not be judgmental and let the thoughts flow freely 4. **Important -- Ensure this activity does not derail and enter a different conversation dimension. The trainer should ensure the discussions are not centered around topics such salary and compensation. Direct the discussions away from such sensitive topics.** **Say:** Imagine this. You are the owner of a company that runs the same business that you are working in as an employee. Now, list down the problems that you wish to solve. **Note:** 1. Give the participants 5 mins to think and write down the problems. 2. Elicit responses from a few participants. 3. Debrief with the following points. **Say:** As we already discussed, problems are opportunities for growth. However, what are the problems that I can solve? The answer to this question will help you open up ways for development and growth. For example, in your everyday work, I am sure you all follow certain processes and procedures. Every process has its own limitations and the person who takes the ownership to use creativity to enhance the process is one who will be able to make good progress. However, most of our creative energy is lost when we think that it is not my job to improve the process or solve a certain problem. This trait or mindset differentiates an employee from an **INTRAPRENEUR.** An Intrapreneur is an employee who uses his creative streak and entrepreneurial skills to achieve the goal of the organization. Usually intrapreneurs are self-motivated, risk takers and proactive. They can easily identify the coming opportunities and risk as well. They can experiment with the given project without having the fear of loss. Being an entrepreneur whilst working in an organization is called intrapreneurship. If you have noticed, you would have seen that you have noticeably identified many problems when you think as an entrepreneur. Every one of us have entrepreneurial skills in us and using your entrepreneurial energy to improve your existing processes will make you a successful intrapreneur. **An intrapreneur is someone who is able to engage in creative problem solving.** Now that we have understood what intraperneurship means, let us now **learn about a few techniques which will be handy when we attempt to solve the problems that we have listed.** **Are you ready?** **Note: Elicit response and move to the next slide.\ ** **Slide 4** **Say: Let us now do another interesting activity.** **Time Required -- 20 Mins** **Materials required:** 1. **Ropes (2 ropes per team. Long enough to tie a person's hand and legs)** 2. **1 blindfold per team** 3. **A room that is spacious enough to move from one corner (A) to another corner (B) (minimum 10 sq feet distance between point A and B)** **Setting: This is a group activity. Divide the participants into teams of 4 members each. The activity must be timed. The trainer should use a stop watch for this. The activity cannot be conducted simultaneously for all the teams.** **Instructions:** 1. **Your task for this activity is to reach to point B from point A, as a team.** 2. **The teams should first internally decide on a leader.** 3. **Each person in the team will be handicapped in one way or the other. One person will be blindfolded, the 2nd person's hands will be tied, the 3rd person's legs will be tied and the 4th person will not be allowed to talk. The team members can discuss internally within the team and decide who will own which form of handicap.** 4. **Your team must aim at moving from point A to B. The team that reaches B in the least possible time will be declared to have won. However, all the members of the team must reach Point B, and then only will the task be considered completed.** 5. **Once you start moving you cannot restart.** 6. **You will be given 3 minutes to discuss and the activity will begin.** **Note: Appreciate the team that crosses the room in the least possible time and debrief with the help of the following pointers.** **Say: Great! I am sure you all had a great time doing this activity. Now, as a team, answer the following questions.** 1. **How would you define the problem that was presented to you?** 2. **When you were given 3 minutes time to discuss, what did you do as a team? What was the nature of your conversations?** 3. **How did you go about deciding on what your team is going to do?** 4. **How did your decisions play out in real time? What could you have done better?** **Note: Elicit responses from the participants and move to the next slide for debrief.** **Slide 5**  **Say: You were given a problem and as a team, you tried to solve it. Before evaluating the success, let us look at the different steps that we followed while solving the problem:** 1. **Clarify: Firstly, your team should have had a better understanding of the problem at hand. You should have had answers for the questions such as** - **What is my problem?** - **What are my biggest challenges that stop me from achieving my team's goal state? For example: only 2 people were independently mobile, the other who were dependent on others -- there were restrictions in the problem situation.** 2. **Ideate: Once you have the right understanding of the problem, then you can make a plan which will lead you to solving it. Making a plan involves using result-proven strategies to devise the right solution for the problem. In this activity, the person whose legs are tied cannot reach the endpoint easily. Hence, he/she must be carried. So you tie the legs of a person who is the easiest to carry.** 3. **Develop: You might have ideated a lot of strategies as a team during the 3 minutes. However, what needs to be implemented is something that the team should actively decide.** 4. **Implement: Now that you have a solution at hand, you should implement the same effectively. Otherwise the purpose of the entire process is lost.** **Say: This 4-step model of problem-solving that we discussed just now is called the CPS (Creative Problem Solving) model.** **Let us learn about each of these steps in detail.** **Slide 6** **Say: Albert Einstein once said, "If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it." While that may sound extreme, it does highlight the importance of defining problems. It also hints at some interesting facts: A well-defined problem often contains its own solution within it, and that solution is usually quite obvious and straightforward. By defining problems properly, you make them easier to solve, which means saving:** - **Time** - **Money** - **Resources** **In most cases you would have come up with the best solutions but what if? What if the solution is not the best solution or not necessarily the right solution?** **Narrate the following story:** **A motorcycle and moped manufacturer in India believed that creating heavier duty engines would allow rice producers to transport rice to higher elevation villages in the mountainside. They spent much time and investment in perfecting the solution. Creating a new engine and line of motorcycles designed to hold two to three large bags of rice to transport up mountainous roads. The marketing department created elaborate content promising more power and transport capabilities. Sales were outfitted with training on how to sell this new engine and what it could mean to the rice producers to have improved capabilities to move their goods up the mountain. The company was convinced that this solution would be embraced enthusiastically by rice producers. After several weeks of no sales and an inventory of new motorcycles sitting in their warehouse, a meeting was called to find out what was happening. In the meeting, one of the salespeople stood up and said -- "the reason is simple -- they are asking for donkeys, not motorcycles." The head of the company shouted "what!" and "why?" The salesperson said it rains consistently nine months of the year, causing hilly roads to be washed out or be impassable by motor vehicles. The only workable transportation, which can make it up to the mountainside villages were -- donkeys.** **Ask: So where do you think did the motorcycle company go wrong?** **Elicit responses.** **Say: In this story, the manufacturer believed they had the right solution for the problem. However, they did not make efforts to understand the true, immersive context behind the problem beforehand, which could have saved them from a warehouse of unsold motorcycles.** **Less than 1 percent of the workforce has been taught - how to define problems. Hence, we end up finding solutions for the symptoms of the problem instead of the problem itself. So, we have only temporary solutions and not a permanent one that is the major reason why most of the problems are unresolved.** **Hence, let us first learn about the strategies by which a problem can be defined effectively.** **\ ** **Slide 7**  **Ask: What is self-reflection?** **Elicit responses.** **Say: Self-reflection is like looking into a mirror and describing what you see. Have you ever been in a situation where you have been searching for a solution outside everywhere and finally found that the solution was right within you?** **Yes! Most of the solutions for the problems that we face comes from within ourselves. So, looking into yourself and asking yourself the right questions will help you to first identify the problems around you and their root causes.** **Remember, it is about questioning, in a positive way, what you do and why you do it and then deciding whether there is a better, or more efficient, way of doing it in the future. In any role, whether at home or at work, reflection is an important part of learning. Sometimes, we can become stuck in a routine that may not be working effectively. Thinking about the processes you follow can help you identify changes you might need to make.** **Next time, you find yourself facing a problem/task...engage in some self-reflection to come up with creative solutions for it.** **Ask: How do you think self-reflection can help you to engage in creative problem-solving?** **Note: Elicit response.** **Say: Great! (Note: add to the participant's points with the list of benefits mentioned below)** **Helps Strategize: Self-reflection is primarily a process of self-assessment, helping you to devise a strategy to pursue a certain outcome. Your mind needs to focus instead of wandering aimlessly. By reflecting on certain questions and thinking of appropriate solutions, your mind goes over problems in a more systematic manner. Self-reflection helps you prioritize and find the best way to deal with an issue. For Example: When you are faced with a problem during a conversation with a customer, instead of panicking, engage in self-reflection and it will help you to approach the problem in a more strategic manner.** **Emotional Intelligence: Normally, when we are presented with a problem we panic. While self-reflecting, you use multiple lenses to look at yourself. For example: when you have a difficult conversation with your colleague, in all possibilities you might get emotional. Reflecting on different perspectives will help you tap into your emotions and understand them from various angles. Paying attention to your thoughts is the key to interpreting your emotions and reactions. So, this will keep your emotions in control. Self-reflection gives you a better grasp of appropriate responses, in any situation.** **Clarity and Decision Making: One of the major benefits of self-reflection is clarity, which makes you a better decision-maker. By conducting an internal Q and A session, you are exposed to your goals, fears, shortcomings, and opportunities. If you are goal-oriented, your mind will strive for the optimum way to achieve results.** **Say: Look back at the list of problems that you have written down at the beginning of the workshop. This is the list of problems you aim to solve.** **Let us begin by identifying the root cause of these problems.** **Note: Move to the next slide.** **Slide 8** **Note:** It is advised that this image be printed on a card and handed to all the participants so that they can stick it on their workstation. **Say:** This card that has been given to you will help you to introspect and ask the right questions to arrive at the root cause of a problem. **For example:** Let's consider that your accuracy at work has decreased. This is your problem. Let us see how we can use the self-probing technique to find the root cause of this problem. 1. What? -- What is my error percentage now? From where has it increased to become what it is now? 2. Where? -- Where should I reach? What should my error percentage ideally be? 3. Why? -- Why has it increased? Can I observe any patterns or specific type of cases where errors have been marked? 4. When? -- When has it started to increase and by when should I bring it to control? 5. How? -- How did it increase? Are there any changes that have caused this increase? 6. Who? -- Who can help me with this? Asking these questions will help you understand that the errors have shot up only recently when a new step was added to the process which involved multi-tasking and you end up making mistakes when you multi-task. Hence, ask yourself the most relevant questions pertaining to the problem at hand with the intention of finding the root cause of the problem. Let us now try this new technique with the problem that you had identified at the beginning of the session. **Note:** Move to the next slide. **Slide 9**  **Say: Pick one problem situation that you have identified at the beginning of the session and use self-reflection techniques to do the RCA for the problem.** **Present your ideas. This is an individual activity.** **Note: Give them 5 minutes to prepare. Ask a few participants to present their ideas and give appropriate feedback.** **Note: Before moving to the next section, quickly revise the tools the learners can use to define a problem and get to the root cause.** **Slide 10** **Say:** Let us begin discussing about the next step of problem-solving with a quick exercise. Answer the questions on the slide. **Instructions:** The trainer should reach each of the questions from the slide and elicit responses from the participants. Use the following answer key: **Answer \#1** The person fell out of the first-story window. A critical thinker might try to identify possible landing pads that would allow survival of a thirty-story fall, but the lateral thinker will realize that the story did not specify what floor the person fell out of. They can safely, within the logic of the story, conclude that the person fell out of a ground floor window. **Answer \#2** The last person took the carton with the egg inside. This question challenges our ability to break outside of patterns, and introduce concepts not provided in the context of the story. Since everyone else in the story takes a single egg, the last person taking the whole carton is a new, but not impossible, scenario that the lateral thinker must conceive. **Answer \#3** Two feet. If the ocean rises, so will the boat, and the amount of ladder under the water will remain the same. A critical thinker might be tempted to work out the math in this obvious trick question, but a lateral thinker will spot the attempt at misconstruction. **Answer \#4** They weigh the same -- 100 pounds. This question is meant to trick the uncritical and unobservant listener from thinking that the material of the object affects its weight, even if there are 100 pounds of each. **Answer \#5** You would light the match first. Without it, you couldn't light any of the other appliances. This is another question that encourages the thinker to break free of assumed patterns and think outside the box. **Note:** Move to the next slide for debrief. **Say:** The term "lateral thinking" was coined in 1967 by physician and inventor Edward de Bono, to describe a kind of out-of-the-box reasoning and critical analysis of scenarios that call for more than just typical step-by-step logic to solve. It's important to know exactly what lateral thinking is, and how it differs from critical thinking. While lateral thinking is certainly "critical," as a specific train of thought, it is not the same as what we call "critical thinking." While critical thinking is about examining the pieces in play in any given scenario, lateral thinking is about rejecting what is existing and coming up with entirely new ways of looking at a problem. It's about bringing *new pieces* into the puzzle, rather than just working with what you have. **\ ** **Slide 11**  **Say: We are always accustomed with critical thinking. When we are forced to think laterally, we fail. That is what has happened during the previous exercise. Let us first understand what lateral/divergent thinking is.** **Narrate the following story:** **An experimenter puts 5 monkeys in a large cage. High up at the top of the cage, well beyond the reach of the monkeys, is a bunch of bananas. Underneath the bananas is a ladder.** **The monkeys immediately spot the bananas and one begins to climb the ladder. As it does that, the experimenter sprays it with a stream of cold water. Then, he proceeds to spray each of the other monkeys.** **The monkey on the ladder scrambles off. And all 5 sit for a time on the floor, wet, cold, and bewildered. Soon, though, another monkey begins to climb the ladder since the temptation of the bananas is too great. Again, the experimenter sprays the ambitious monkey with cold water and all the other monkeys as well. When a third monkey tries to climb the ladder, the other monkeys, wanting to avoid the cold spray, pull the monkey off the ladder and beat the monkey.** **Now one monkey is removed and a new monkey is introduced to the cage. Spotting the bananas, it naively begins to climb the ladder. The other monkeys pull it off and beat the monkey.** **Here's where it gets interesting. The experimenter removes a second one of the original monkeys from the cage and replaces it with a new monkey. Again, the new monkey begins to climb the ladder and again, the other monkeys pull it down and beat it -- *including the monkey who had never been sprayed*.** **By the end of the experiment, none of the original monkeys were left and yet, despite none of them ever experiencing the cold, wet, spray, had learned never to try and go for the bananas.** **So what do we learn from this experiment?** **Say: Right from when we are young, doing things people normally don\'t do is not accepted by our society. Everyone is conditioned to resist lateral thinking. Consider an example where a 1-year-old kid, who is in the quest of understanding the world, goes around toddling, taking everything that comes by its way, feeling it by touch, sensing it by licking...what do we do to the creative quest for knowledge of this child? We stop him. We say don't touch it. Don't go there. Don't do that\... And so on. So that creative ability is made to freeze.** **You are conditioned to not think laterally. Before continuing, it would be good to clarify one idea. No one kind of thinking is better than another. Critical thinking is also essential. However, the real problem is that we've been "trained" to only think this way. We've neglected spontaneity, wit, and captivating freedom.** **Lateral thinking or divergent thinking is a method by which we can break this and think in such a way that a maximum number of solutions are generated for the problem at hand. It is not just coming up with ideas but it is about coming up with ideas that others would not dare to think of, irrespective of what the implications of implementing the solution are. Many best solutions to most of the problems are rejected even before the idea could surface the conscious mind. So do not suppress your ideas. No idea is wrong. It is just about which idea is the best.** **Slide 12** **Say: How can we train ourselves at divergent thinking? The first technique is called brainstorming.** **Let us discuss this technique in detail after a short activity.** **Say:** Keep a pen and paper ready with you. This is an activity where you will have only 60 seconds to complete the task given to you. This is an individual activity. You will have to come up with a minimum of 10 points. **Ask:** What do you use a spoon for? **Note:** Elicit responses. The response would be to eat something and also to stir. **Say:** You will be given 60 seconds to come up with other ways of using a spoon apart from its regular use. For example, using the handle of the spoon to unscrew etc. **Note:** Find out the participant who has brainstormed the maximum number of solutions and ask him/her to read out the answers. Get responses from a few more participants. **Say:** What you have just done is called brainstorming. **Ask:** Now that you have done an activity on it, can you explain what brainstorming is? **Note:** Elicit response. **Say:** Brainstorming is a process for generating new ideas -- maximum solutions without critically analyzing the feasibility of implementing the solution. What you have done right now is what is precisely called divergent thinking. **All of us can practice and improve our divergent thinking. To do so, we need to focus on four areas in particular:** **Fluency:** the ability to produce a large number of ideas. (like we did in this activity just now) **Flexibility:** the ability to create a wide variety of ideas based on different fields of knowledge. (being well versed in your area of expertise) **Originality:** the ability to create innovative ideas. **Development:** the ability to improve our ideas, to make them more sophisticated. (further, work on an idea and develop it) **While brainstorming is one of the techniques to think laterally, there is another technique to develop these four aspects of divergent thinking. Let's look at that technique now.** **Slide 13**  **Say: The second technique on divergent thinking is Synectics exercises.** "Synectics" is a term coined by psychologist William J. J. Gordon. Basically, it means being able to find connections and relationships between concepts, objects, and ideas that seem unrelated. This exercise takes a lot of mental work. We can do it daily by choosing the concepts ourselves. **Activity:** What can I do with a paper clip and a spoon? Come up with as many answers as possible within 60 seconds. **Note:** Elicit responses from a few participants. **Say:** This technique will re-wire your brain so that you can get more accustomed to divergent thinking. You can try this technique by randomly choosing two objects which are not related to each other. This will help you to practice divergent thinking. **Force yourself to see the unusual points of view.** Do this even if it seems silly. For instance, imagine life as a banquet table, and you as one of the dishes. Now evaluate the table through several points of view of the diners. What would they expect to see on that table? What would disappoint them if not included? Is there anything laying on the table that\'s absurd, like a blow dryer? How can you make the arrangement more appetizing, and what can you add to make it unappealing? By challenging your imagination, your brain gets used to new thinking patterns, and creating fresh ideas will become easier. **Slide 14** **Say:** Now that we have learnt about divergent thinking, let us put this knowledge to practice. Take out the problems that you had listed in the beginning of the session. Use divergent thinking to come up with the maximum number of answers without being judgmental about the solution. **Note:** Give the participants 10 minutes to work on their problems and elicit responses from a few participants before moving on to the next section. **Note to the facilitator: Before moving on to the next part, recap the concepts taught until now. Have all the participants stand up and form a circle. Toss a small ball to any participant and he/she must share a recap point. After this, he/she must throw the ball to another learner and they must do the same. Continue this till all the learners have shared a recap point.** **Ensure the ball isn't thrown to someone who has already shared a recap point.** **Slide 15**  **Say: In the last section we have learned about generating alternative solutions. Let us now get into the next step of problem-solving.** **By now you would have learned how to come up with various solutions. Now that you have many solutions what will you do with them? You would have to arrive at one solution.** **This is what you do in this step. Convergent thinking is when you have more than one option and you have to decide upon one option as the solution.** **Convergent tools imply that we take several ideas and put them together in a way they can be related. Convergent thinking requires a deep analysis of the situation to be able to come up with a solution. This process is very organized and may not seem to be spontaneous like divergent thinking. ** **Let us now learn about a very effective tool that can help you with convergent thinking.** **Slide 16** **Note:** Identify a few volunteers for the role play. Team member 1: Manager Team member 2 & 3: Quality Manager, & Sr. Manager, Reporting authority of the Manager Team member 4: Subordinate ***Please note, you may tweak the situation or share a relevant example depending on the audience being trained.*** **Say:** You, as an employee, have come up with an innovative idea that can increase the team's productivity by 25%. You have discussed this with your manager and quality manager. Your manager is impressed with your idea, However, your quality manager is still not convinced. He calls for a meeting with all the subject matter experts and the senior management team to discuss this further. You will have 3 minutes to explain your idea and if the other team members like to resist this idea, they can. **Note:** After 3 minutes, ask one person to summarize the conversation. **Say:** It was a great attempt at trying to convince others to buy your idea. However, you might need some concrete methodology which will not only give confidence about your decision to you but others as well. If you had developed that confidence within yourself, then communicating the same to other stakeholders is not a big challenge. It is because of this reason (during the role play) you found it difficult to convince the stakeholders about the authenticity of their solutions. In this role play, the points presented by you were the strengths of the idea, whereas the questions asked by the others were the 'resistors. These two concepts come into play in 'Force Field Analysis'. The technique Force Field Analysis will clearly define the strength of the solution that one has taken. If your solution is not strong enough you can look for another solution by yourself. But if it is strong, doing force field analysis will help you to communicate the reasoning behind your decision. Let's understand this further. **Move to the next slide.** **Slide 17**  **Say:** Force Field Analysis was created by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s. Lewin originally used the tool in his work as a social psychologist. Today, however, Force Field Analysis is also used in business, for making and communicating go/no-go decisions. For change to happen the status quo, or equilibrium must be upset -- either by adding conditions favorable to the change or by reducing resisting forces. What Kurt Lewin proposes is that whenever **driving forces** are stronger than **restraining forces**, the status quo or equilibrium will change. There will always be driving forces that make change attractive to people, and restraining forces that work to keep things as they are. Successful change is achieved by either strengthening the driving forces or weakening the restraining forces. Let's say you want to bring about a change in a process or a change in the workplace. What will we do? **Step 1:** Describe your plan or proposal for change in a box in the middle of the paper. List the forces **for** change in a column on the left-hand side, and the forces **against** change in a column on the right-hand side. **Step 2:** Now, identify the factors that will influence the change. Consider the following questions: What business benefit will the change deliver? Who supports the change? Who is against it? Why? How easy will it be to make the change? Do you have enough time and resources to make it work? What costs are involved? What other business processes will be affected by the change? What are the risks? **Step 3:** Assign a score to each force, from, say, 1 (weak) to 5 (strong), and then add up the scores for each column (for and against). For a visual representation of the influence that each force has, draw arrows around them. Use bigger arrows for the forces that will have a greater influence on the change, and smaller arrows for forces that will have less of an influence. **Slide 18** **Say:** For example, imagine that you\'re planning to install new manufacturing equipment in a factory. You might draw up a Force Field Analysis like the one on the slide. When you look at the diagram, the score for forces against the change are more than forces for the change, which means it's not a good idea to implement this change. However, you can try to reduce the forces against change by - - Training the staff (\"Cost\" +1) to minimize the fear of technology (\"Staff uncomfortable with new technology\" -2). - Showing staff that change is necessary for business survival (new force that supports the change, +2). - Showing staff that new machines would introduce variety and interest to their jobs (new force that supports the change, +1). - Raising wages to reflect new productivity (\"Cost\" +1, \"Loss of overtime\" -2). - Installing slightly different machines with filters that eliminate pollution (\"Impact on the environment\" -1). These changes would swing the balance from 11:10 (against the plan), to 13:8 (in favor of the plan). **\ ** **Slide 19**  **Say:** Now that we have learned about convergent thinking, let us put this knowledge to practice. Take out the problems that you were working on and the ideas you generated with the help of divergent thinking. Now use convergent thinking to come up with the right solution. **Note:** Give the participants 10 minutes to work on their problems and elicit a response from a few participants before moving on to the next section. **\ ** **Slide 20** **Say:** Now that you have the solution ready, you cannot rest until it is successfully implemented. How do you go about that? You should first begin with communicating with the relevant stakeholders. Here are a few things you should keep in mind when you communicate your solution to your peers, seniors or your boss. Remember! The goal is not only to present your conclusions, but the foundation upon which they rest. Prepare to: - State both the problem and your conclusion clearly - Summarize the process you used, options considered, and difficulties encountered - Convince, not overpower - bring others to your side, or to consider without prejudice your supporting documentation and reason - Help others learn, as you have learned - If challenged and you have an answer, present it clearly\ and you don\'t have an answer, acknowledge it and refer it for more consideration Implementing your solution is the culmination of all your efforts and requires very careful planning. The plan describes the sequence of actions required to achieve the objective, the timescale and the resources required at each stage. Ways of minimizing the risks involved and preventing mistakes have to be devised and built into the plan. Details of what must be done if things go wrong should also be included. **Say:** Now that you have communicated your solution and implemented it, the next important step is to monitor. **Ask:** Why should you monitor the progress? **Note:** Elicit response. **Say:** Once the plan has been put into effect, the situation has to be monitored to ensure that things are running smoothly. Any problems or potential problems have to be dealt with quickly. When the action is completed it\'s necessary to measure its success, both to estimate its usefulness for solving future problems of this type and to ensure that the problem has been solved. If not, further action may be required. After implementing your solution, evaluating it would help you to enhance the quality of your work many folds. Hence, the final stage in problem-solving is to look back and evaluate. Assuming that the problem will always stay solved once the plan is implemented is one of the major reasons why many problems stay unresolved even though the solution is concrete. Let us learn about evaluating your solution in the next slide. **Slide 22**  **Say:** In order to evaluate we should: **Follow up:** Follow-up with the problem, even if it seems to have been solved. Make sure that the problem doesn\'t come back. **Evaluate whether your solution brings in \"That\'s perfect" expression or just a \"Well, at least that helps" expression:** The solution achieves the stated goals, meets a need well.\ \"It works.\"  \"That does it.\" \"Problem solved.\" \"That\'s perfect." Because many solutions are only partial, the degree to which the solution works is also an important part of this measure.  \"Well, at least that helps.\" \"That worked pretty well.\" \"Wow. That really did the job.\" Find out which category your solution falls under. **Ensure that it has acceptable tradeoffs:** Negative side effects must also be factored in.  \"Too bad this also has such a downside.\" \"And the tradeoffs aren\'t too bad.\" \"I think we can live with the side effects.\" Failure to consider tradeoffs is a major weakness in problem-solving. It\'s always a good idea to ask relevant questions. \"What are the tradeoffs?\" \"And then what?\" \"What is the downside?\" Is your solution accepted by users? The solution is agreeable to those who must implement it, to those affected by it. It is not \"technologically brilliant but sociologically stupid.\"  \"People will use this.\" \"We enjoy using it.\" The solution has positive secondary effects or benefits and no (or minor) negative secondary effects.  \"We like it.\" \"It not only works well, but it looks nice, too.\" \"And it also does these extra things, too.\" Acceptance is a perceptual, emotional, and psychological phenomenon, as well as an intellectual and experiential one. It is crucial to think beyond the engineering, beyond the technology, when deciding whether the solution is or will be successful. You may have invented an anti-gravity device, but if no one will use it, it is not a successful solution. **Is your solution cost-efficient, practical and reliable?** **Good Cost/Benefit Ratio.** \ The solution is economical, with high price/performance ratio.  \"We can afford it.\" \"It's worth the money.\" \"It's worth the effort.\" \"Here\'s a new, less expensive way to do it.\" \"This will pay for itself quickly.\" Money (that of corporations and individuals) exist infinite amounts, and all solutions must compete with each other for these limited resources.\ **\ Practical:** The solution is logical, useful, systematic, understandable, \"doable,\" not overly difficult or complex for the intended benefits. It is as simple and direct as possible for the desired outcome.  \"We can do it.\" \"We found an easier way.\" \"I can see how this could work and what it could do for me.\" \"And this is much simpler and more straightforward than the previous idea.\" Sometimes a seemingly impractical solution is actually only a communication problem.\ **\ Reliable:** The solution will continue to work overtime with a high degree of reliability, consistency, and effectiveness.  \"I like it because I can depend on it.\" \"This has never let me down.\" \"It works first time, every time.\" Dependability is at the core of satisfaction. A component of reliability is duration or even permanence. Will the solution continue to work overtime (unless it is designed to be temporary), or will it stop working or fail at some point? \"Hah! It still works.\" \"This is designed to last a long time.\" \"This has lasted well beyond my expectations.\" **Sustainable:** Make sure that your solutions are sustainable. This should not be a temporary resolution for the problem but a permanent solution. **Do the necessary changes:** After the solution is evaluated, changes might need to be made - possibly even starting back to look at the options again. **Say:** Great! With this, we have come to the end of today's session. Let us do a quick recap of what we have learned today. **Note:** Have a few participants do a recap of the session. **Slide 23** **Note**: The trainer should elicit the top 3 key takeaways from the participants.