Ch. 16 Creative Decision Making and Problem Solving

Decision Support Systems in the 21st Century, 2nd Edition

by George M. Marakas

What is Creativity?

Creativity is the ability to see the same things as everyone else but think something different.

Creativity involves the translation of our unique gifts and talents into something that is both new and useful.

Creativity is an important element in finding new ways to do old things and ways to do things yet undone.

Creativity Defined

To further refine our definition, we must distinguish between three related, but unique characteristics.

1. Intelligence is the ability to think and learn.

2. Academic achievement results in a degree after years of lectures, exams, and theses.

3. Creativity is the ability to redirect a line of thought into new directions.

Creativity DefinedMost people who are associated with the creation

of things of significance are deemed intelligent.

Many people with high academic achievement do not have a creative bone. Although they can solve complex problems, someone else must first formulate the problem for them.

Individuals who are both intelligent and deemed highly creative often do not display a history of high academic achievement.

Thus, intelligence and academic achievement are not evidence of creativity.

Creativity Defined

For our purpose, we define creativity in problem solving and planning as the ability of a subject in a choice situation to modify self-imposed constraints so as to enable him/her to select courses of action or produce outcomes that he/she would not otherwise select or produce, and are more efficient for or valuable to him/her than any he/she would otherwise have chosen.

The Occurrence of CreativityWhen creativity emerges, it often occurs in the form of an intuitive flash of insight.It is usually just the complete idea that is revealed. Equations, testing, and analysis come much later.An example is Velcro, which arose from George de Mestral’s observation about how cockleburs clung to clothes.Another is Post-It notes. Arthur Fry wanted a “poor” adhesive so he used a colleague’s adhesive that was “useless” because it took years to set.

Different Ways to Think

There are five basic categories of ways to think:1. Logical thinking – the decision maker builds

on his or her experimental and analytical abilities. Most common and widely used for problem solving and for design a computer-based DSS.

Different Ways to Think

There are five basic categories of ways to think:2. Lateral thinking – disrupts the usual vertical

thinking by introducing discontinuity. Lateral thinking can be promoted by (1) awareness-refine, clarify, and identify ideas, (2) alternatives-brainstorm, and (3) provocation.

Vertical vs. Lateral Thinking: _ Concerned with stability and absolutes vs.

change and movement._ Seek the “right” answer vs. focus on what is

different_ Strive for continuity vs. introduce discontinuity.

Lateral Thinking

Three major activities are available to promote lateral thinking.

1. Awareness – these activities are intended to identify and understand current ideas (but not to evaluate them).

2. Alternatives – a conscious effort is made to produce as many different ways as possible to look at the problem.

3. Provocation – discontinuity is introduced into the thought process by forcing a change in the way the problem is viewed.

Different Ways to Think

There are five basic categories of ways to think:3. Critical thinking – takes the position that

certain elements within a problem context are most critical to the solution. By focusing on the critical elements only, a solution with an immediate and measurable impact can be crafted. For example, Pareto’s Law implies that 80% of problems occur from 20% of causes.

The Pareto “80-20 rule”

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Pareto Chart for Light Defect

About 80% of defects are due to only two of 10 categories

Different Ways to Think (cont.)

There are five basic categories of ways to think:4. Opposite thinking – the decision maker

takes the perspective of someone other than himself.

5. Groupthink – an alternative way of thinking that can be used to achieve group involvement, e.g. idea generation and brainstorming.

Intuition

Intuition is often identified as an important element in creative decision making and problem solving.

Managers who can harness their intuition can often respond more quickly to a given situation and apply both experience and judgment.

Intuition

IN Marseilles, France, …a suspect on board a fishing vessel was thought to be smuggling heroin. Unfortunately, when the naval patrol boarded the vessel, they could not find any drugs. As the naval patrol prepared to depart, one officer noticed that the boat’s concrete ballast was located in the front of the ship rather than at its normal position in the center. When the ballast was examined, the patrol discovered that it was hollowed out and contained the larges cache of heroin ever found. The intuition of the naval officer helped solve the problem.

Barriers to Creativity

Self-constraining beliefs – the participant makes the problem more difficult by assuming certain constraining conditions that do not exist.

Fears, beliefs, and stresses – people that fear criticism or have strong beliefs may have limited ability to be “free” and creative

Routines and rigidity – this may inhibit the information gathering, interactions, and incubation of thought that leads to creativity.

Creative Problem-Solving Techniques

Most techniques fit into four categories:

1. Serendipity – we cannot control this, but can enhance its probability of occurring by actively studying unexplained phenomena.

2. Free association – techniques in this category, such as brainstorming, focus on divergent thinking and creation of ideas while deferring judgment on those ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving Techniques (cont.)

Most techniques fit into four categories:

3. Structured relationships – new ideas are generated by forcing together two or more objects to produce new objects.

4. Group techniques – these enhance creativity in multiparticipant problem-solving contexts.

Tools to Aid Brainstorming

This free association technique involves gathering together a set of often-diverse people to generate a long list of ideas about a problem.

After this long list is generated, it is culled down to manageable size, often with surprisingly little effort.

Two commercial tools to aid in brainstorming are IdeaFisher and GroupSystems.

A Dialogue from Ideocentics’ IdeaFisherWhat qualifies a person to be a potential

customer? Young, professional, athletic and/or fashion conscious, has purchasing power.

What purchasing power? Will spend up to $100 weekly on apparel.

What decision-making power? Independent.

For this marketing effort, who is your choicest customer? (A regular customer? A past customer? A first time buyer?)  For what reason?

Some of the Tools in GroupSystems

Osborn’s 73 Idea-Spurring Questions

1. Put to other uses

2. Adapt

3. Modify

4. Magnify

5. Minify

6. Substitute

7. Rearrange

8. Reverse

9. Combine

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

Morphological Forced Connections

Another structured relationships technique.

A user writes down attributes of a problem, listing as many alternatives as possible for each attribute.

The user is then asked to consider all possible combinations of the alternatives.

These analyses can be performed in a matrix format and can easily be delivered via a DSS.

Analytic Hierarchy Process

It is often difficult to conceptualize all the different elements of a problem, or there is not enough cognitive energy to prioritize those elements.

The AHP was formulated to counter those situations, and is a mathematically-based theory.

It employs two key aspects: (1) data from the various variables that make up the decision, and (2) judgments about those variables.

Analytic Hierarchy Process (continued)

The AHP requires taking the following steps:1. Structuring the decision into a hierarchical model2. Pairwise comparison of all objects and alternative

solutions.

The form of the model has four elements:1. Goal – the desired outcome2. Criteria – elements that comprise the goal3. Subcriteria – elements inside the criteria4. Alternatives – solutions or choices available

This format allows decision makers to examine every part of a complex problem.

Group Techniques

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

Creativity and the Role of Technology

Until recently, there was little empirical evidence that technology either enhanced or inhibited creativity.

In effect, it was shown that the process imposed on the decision maker was the primary cause of enhanced creativity.

Lately, research has shown that when appropriate creativity-enhancing processes are combined with effective technology, the results are markedly greater.