DMGT 732 - Facilitating Creative Thinking Fall 2017 | Charithra Sathyanarayanan, Jenna Bower, Stephen Langford, Varun Prahbu.
CONTENTS
Course objective Our team Project description Divergence and Convergence: Venn Diagram Logistics & Organization Value Proposition Workshop process
1st workshop iteration
1st workshop trial run
2nd workshop iteration
2nd workshop train run
Final workshop
Feedback from Reflections References
INTRODUCTION
Organizational Creativity For organizations to be successful in today’s world, it is not enough to just be experts - to just be motivated - to just be imaginative. It takes a framework that allows ideas to be original and appropriate - both useful and actionable. It requires organizational creativity. According to Teresa Amabile (1998), “creative thinking... refers to how people approach problems and solutions - their capacity to put existing ideas together in new combinations. The skill itself depends quite a bit on personality as well as on how a person thinks and works” (p. 2). It is a combination of individuals’ imagination, expertise, and motivation.
evenly across an organization, Ed Catmull (2008) suggests in “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity,” “everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone… It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas… [They] must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community” (p. 71). What this implies is that organizations, regardless of hierarchy, must allow all members to communicate freely, without the fear of repercussions or judgement, and must interact closely with academia, including student projects.
Organizations must allow individuals to apply their specific scope of knowledge and freely explore their interests. They must foster a labor of love, or intrinsic motivation, which when combined with these raw materials of creative thinking and expertise, is the ideal formula for creative breakthroughs. What’s more, even when talent is not spread 3
OUR TEAM
Our Team Varun Prabhu Jenna Bower Charithra Sathyanarayanan Stephen Langford
4
PROJECT BRIEF
Project Brief + Our Goals The goal of this project is to develop and facilitate a creative thinking workshop in order to help an organization reshape how they look at problems. This can be accomplished by exploring a problem or issue the group is encountering, whether internally or externally, and helping the group explore creative solutions through a number of different techniques, including lateral thinking. These can include issue exploration, idea generation, and/or implementation strategies. That said, with such a large number of techniques available to assist in this endeavor, it is best to consider the needs and dynamics of each individual audience before determining which techniques will be the most effective.
5
O U R O R G A N I Z AT I O N
Divergence & Convergence: Venn Diagram When coming together, the facilitation team had three directions in which we all wanted take the project. One member wanted to pursue an education route, another wanted to look into working with a local business, and then two were interested in working with a local nonprofit organization. Ultimately, we were able to accommodate all of our interests through working with One Hundred Miles.
Manufacturing/ Local Business
NGO’s
Education
O U R O R G A N I Z AT I O N
One Hundred Miles One Hundred Miles is a local non-profit in the Savannah area that seeks to preserve, protect, and enhance the one hundred miles of Georgia coast line. This organization was just recently founded 2013 under the belief that threats facing the coast, such as rapid urbanization and sea level rise, are rapidly encroaching on the natural ecosystem and will require an extraordinary approach to ensure the preservation of these areas. Their guiding principles are based on grassroots advocacy and careful stewardship, community education, and collaboration. This is not intended to only pertain to organizations such as One Hundred Miles, but also local citizens, policy makers, advocates, government agencies, and businesses alike. When we first approached Paulita BennettMartin, the Chief of Coastal Advocacy for One Hundred Miles, she not only expressed great interest in the idea, but she already had a project in mind. Paulita wanted us to help her organization come up with a way to get the community to act in a more environmentally conscious manner. What’s
more, after following up with Paulita, we were informed that it was not just One Hundred Miles that we’d be working with either. As of only a few months ago, One Hundred Miles and a number of other local organizations in the area had formed a working group aimed at addressing plastic and litter reduction around Savannah and that they would all likely be interested in participating in a creative thinking workshop. As several of the organizations were based on coastal and ocean preservation, there was a specific emphasis on Tybee Island, but their aim was not solely on Tybee. Some of these organizations include Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB), Clean Coast, Fight Dirty Tybee, Surfrider Foundation, Youth for a Clean Environment, and the Savannah-Chatham Sustainability Coalition.
7
Main section
TECHNIQUE LIBRARY
Logistics & Organization In order to prepare for the project, our group began by experimenting with the various creative thinking techniques that were included in the John Martin and Ros Bell’s (2010) “Technique Library,“ published by The Open University. While each member explored various techniques that he/she was interested in playing around with, the overall list was split up based on the categorization provided by Martin and Bell, such as exploring, defining, gathering, generating, grouping, screening, prioritizing, and planning. After each technique was attempted, each member was to then express in a group spreadsheet whether they thought the tool would be useful in the facilitation of the workshop and provide a reason for why or why not. If there was additional information or comments to provide, that could also be included. With a list of over 150 techniques, not including other techniques that were provided in additional course materials, this took several weeks to complete.
8
Technique
Yay or Nay?
Why?
Jenna
Exploring
Assumption Sufacing
Yay
Good for addressing really critical life decisions, or use bfore make a rsiky decision and needs to see if the assumptions th valid.
Steve
Exploring
Boundary Examination
Nay
Need a problem statement - but useful for redefining/clarifyin problem statement
Steve
Exploring
Boundary Relaxation
Nay
Similar to above
Jenna
Exploring
Bug Listing
Yay-ish
Good for working through creative blocks; maybe we could p with this technique for after we are gone; not worth putting int
Steve
Exploring
Causal Mapping
Yay
Good for forcing yourself to see causes of problems you othe ignored or overlooked
Steve
Exploring
Desired Future Drawing
Jenna
Exploring
Fishbone Diagram
Yay
Mindmap 2.0. Nothing "creative" here. Engineering problem s
Steve
Exploring
Free Association
Yay
Great for gaining out-of-the-box insights
Jenna
Exploring
Fresh Eye and Networking
Could be used well for co-creation
Jenna
Exploring
Greeting Cards
Too time consuming to test on my own, but seems like it wou useful way to get the ball rolling in a way thats not so serious
Steve
Exploring
I wish
Jenna
Exploring
Keeping a Dream Diary
Steve
Exploring
Mind Mapping
Yay
Good for determining which factors can be addressed and ho many reasons are not REAL factors but rather excuses
Steve
Exploring
Multiple redefinition
Yay
Could be useful in coming up with an overall problem stateme the group)
Steve
Exploring
Network Map
Jenna
Exploring
Preliminary Questions
Steve
Exploring
Premliminary Questions
*Still want to experiment
Used in creative swiping or adapting a new product from an o any checklist like this, it should be used in a flexible, drop-in-d and-error, spirit, rather than worked through rigorously (SCAM Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Magnify/minify, Put to other use Eliminate/elaborate, Rearrange/reverse)
Steve
Exploring
SCAMPER
Steve
Exploring
Visualizing a goal
Steve
Exploring
Why?
Nay
Aeh
Can be useful - Can be annoying
Varun
Gathering
Browsing
Nay
Too arbitrary for a group of non creatives to deal with. The pu can be unnerving without constant guidance
Jenna
Gathering
Bug Listing
Yay
Good for self exploration, could be used more specifically to a you while working in a group setting' and maybe confront tho starting? Or just to help individual groups members loosen up before starting the workshop.
Varun
Gathering
Charrette
Nay
It is essentially sitting down with all stakeholders invoved exploring/brainstorming/finding solutions/strategizing impleme whole process. Over a large span of time. It is our process w stakeholders involved. Nothing new. Not feasible
Varun
Gathering
Crawford slip writing
Yay
Write your individual brainstorming answers on a slip of pape HMW is asked. Collect at the end of 10 minutes.
Varun
Gathering
Delphi
Yay
Survey SMEs. Ask them the same question multiple times. Y SMEs permit
Varun
Gathering
Dream diary
Nay
Too much to ask SMEs and stakeholders. Not feasible for ou
Varun
Gathering
Five Ws and H
Yay
No brainer
Varun
Gathering
Focus groups
Nay
No brainer
Yay
Rationally search for causality of occuring event. Nothing "cre Engineering problem solving concept
Varun
Gathering
Kepner Tregoe
VA L U E P R O P O S I T I O N
Value Proposition In order to assess the working dynamics of the client, and how to best structure the workshop and provide the greatest benefit as possible, the team was invited to come out to the One Hundred Miles office to sit in on one of their meetings. It was during this meeting that we were able to observe the groups interactions and get a feel for what sort of campaigns that they are working on, such as a comprehensive recommendation plan for the City of Savannah to address plastic reduction, which includes bans, voluntary initiatives for restaurants, and education/awareness campaigns. They also mentioned ideas involving who might be willing to serve as a spokesperson for their campaigns, as well as what could be a potential mascot. In regards to assessing the organizational culture, which from here on in organizational culture will refer to that of the working group, the key observation that was made during this meeting was that creative thinking was not what this group was lacking. Being that the majority of these individuals had chosen to devote themselves preservation of the environment, it is not as if they work in a corporate monoculture workplace that kill creativity. In fact, by trade, they
think where there is no box - they think outside. However, what they did lack was structure. They were all over the place. There were times that we could not even keep up. Each idea or topic that was brought up would maybe bounce around long enough for a couple points to be made, but someone would soon have another idea or topic triggered, and that would then hijack everyone’s attention. This was the cycle throughout the observation session, and this, therefore, became the central focus of how to structure the workshop. That being said, upon formally proposing the workshop to the group at the end of the meeting, they were able to come up with a problem statement almost immediately, which was “how to incentivize businesses to voluntarily reduce their plastics consumption?� The aim of this being that if businesses choose to reduce, than consumers will not have the opportunity to litter, and therefore, harm the ecosystem.
9
1 S T I T E R AT I O N
1st Workshop Iteration After observing how the clients interacted with one another and how they brainstormed, the first draft of the workshop consisted of a series of stages that included gamified preliminary questions, multiple redefinition, and attribute listing. The first stage, preliminary questions, which also served as the icebreaker, was adapted from A.B. VanGundy’s (1983) 108 Ways to Get a Bright Idea, as well as Patch’s “5 Second Rule” Board Game. The intention for this adapted technique was to allow participants to have an entertaining experience while also uncovering insights that might not have come to mind through traditional brainstorming or issue exploration techniques. With “5 Second Rule,” a user pulls a card from a stack, reads the question on the card, such as “Name three 90’s Disney Channel movies,” flips a five second timer, and the participant reader directed the prompt to must answer before the timer runs out. While some may claim that a time crunch can hinder creative thinking, Amabile (1998) states that, “under some circumstances, time pressure can heighten creativity” (8). In cases such as this, participants creativity are not so much hindered by the deadlined, but rather heightened through this gamified experience. There are quite a large amount of questions that could be asked in
10
this stage, but these primarily revolved around the who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s, and why’s of the issue. The second stage, multiple redefinition, adapted from T. Rickard’s (1974) Problem Solving Through Creative Analysis, was intended to be used as a way of reforming the original problem statement that was provided during the fly-on-the-wall observation meeting. This sort of technique is designed develop more imaginative definitions of problems users want to address and allow users to think about the issues in range of mindsets, from empathetic, analytical, and motivational to magical, metaphorical, and unique. The process begins by writing down a vague, open ended problem that is to be addressed, and then completing a series of statements while referencing the original problem. Such statements might include, “If I could break all the rules of reality, I would…”; “This problem could be likened to…”; or “A strange way of looking at the problem is…”. After completing these statements, the users then reframe their original problem statement in light of the insights gained, with the hope being that they were able to see the problem in a different way. The third stage, attribute listing, was originally developed by Robert Crawford in the 1930’s, which is discussed in The Techniques of Creative Thinking (1954). With this technique, a product or system is broken into its separate components, with each component then analyzed to determine how it is achieved, and then restructured using the same components, but in different forms, in hopes of generating a better performance. After identifying the product or system that a user wishes to improve, each attribute is listed and then a number of the attributes that seem relevant are selected for comparison with alternative methods of achieving said attributes. The
aim is that by combining a few of these alternatives and replacing the original components that they replace, users will be able to come up with a new, more effective, or efficient, product or system. At this point, the goal was to then have the clients discuss which of these attributes of the plastic were realistic to attempt to address, pros and cons would be drafted, and then an implementation strategy could be developed.
1 S T I T E R AT I O N
11
1ST TRIAL RUN
1st Workshop Trial Run The trial run for this workshop went far from as planned. There were issues all across the board, ranging from preparation by the facilitation team, working environment, required knowledge of the topic by participants, and an overall lack of clarity and effectiveness. As intended, the workshop began with preliminary questions, which had been reduced due to time constraints, but, as the game had not been explained as well as it could have been, and with the lack of knowledge on the subject matter by the participants, the process did not go as smoothly as hoped. From there, after deciding to go ahead and move on to the next stage, it was soon realized that there were even more clarity issues due to the reduction in number of questions. As the questions had intended to be answered in series, when questions were removed that had provided slightly more information than the following question and the ones that remained had not been rephrased, the participants were not sure what the questions meant. While the participants did attempt to answer the questions to the best of their ability, with such a lack of structure and knowledge, the insights were not very helpful, other than the fact that the facilitation team drastically needed to reassess the structure of the workshop.
12
1ST TRIAL RUN
13
2 N D I T E R AT I O N
2nd Workshop Iteration
The individuals we invited to this simulation workshop were our peers pursuing their masters in Design for Sustainability at SCAD, as well as a banker from a local bank. This trial run went exactly as planned except for a few scattered hindrances. Since we learned from the outcomes of the first iterations, we steered clear of over complicating tools and superfluous language.
has been adapted from Deborah Sugerman, Kathryn Doherty, Daniel Garvey, and Michael Gaas’ “Hopes/ Fears in a Hat”, from Reflective Learning (2010). In this process, each participant physically writes down their hopes and fears for this project on a prespecified poster, and then going around the room, in turn, each person reads one hope at a time until all the hopes have been read, and then repeating the process for the fears. This not only allows the participants to better understand what motivates and worries each other in regards to the problem, but it also allows for shared discussions around their mutual concerns and their overall vision for the organization. We noticed that the participants were far quicker at noting down their fears than listing out their hopes. Why was it easier to list out fears? Why is thinking of hope and happiness harder, in any realm? This insight enabled us to tweak the section for the final workshop. We decided to restructure this section as Fears and hopes for the final workshop. From there, we moved on to the next section which was reframing of the problem statement as a “how might we?” question. In hindsight, this section was highly redundant as it forced the participants to rework the same problem with barely any new insights into the subject matter, which was another point of interest for us. We decided to scrap this section in the final workshop.
As intended, the workshop began without an ice breaker since most of us were already acquainted. It was for this reason that we dove straight into a recap of the problem statement where we talked of the issue posed to us by Paulita Bennett-Martin. Most of the group was naturally drawn to exploring the realm of the problem since they possessed the required knowledge in the field. In the next section we used a tool called was hopes and fears, this particular tool
We then moved on to fabricating the mind map. Adopted from Tony Buzan, a mind map allows users to visualize, cluster, and organize ideas, notes, categories, sub-categories, etc. By separating each element and connection of the mind using stickies, users can then re-cluster and reorganize to gain insights in whatever manner they see fit. Some may even refer to this as organized chaos, and as Jane Henry (2013) states in “Creativity, Perception,
For the second iteration of the creative thinking workshop, the plan was to perform a simulation test of the final workshop within a controlled environment. To do so we began by setting up a room within our school to simulate the conditions of the environment we would use for the final workshop. Setting this up helped us in visualizing and critically assessing our movement and interactions within the environment. Thus greatly helping us in assigning specific tasks for each other so as to interact appropriately with the environment throughout the final workshop.
14
and Development,” “creative endeavor is more likely to emerge at the ‘edge of chaos’, in the mess between order and disorder” (p. 14). Unfortunately, this tool is where we lost one of the participants to the inherent complexity present within the tool. The key insight we gathered from this event was the fact that we needed to continue fostering the climate of creativity for the individuals who could use the tool instead and not utilize too much time catering to the stragglers (if any). They eventually catch up. Care needs to be taken in not making the feel inadequate though. The process of mind mapping was filled with generic responses as there was no coherent segway between any of the tools we used previously. It was at this point that we decided to drop the causal map because it made very little sense in finding more complex interactions with a tool that was not being effectively utilized. We then began working on exploring myriad stakeholders involved, using the Stakeholders engagement map. Participants would develop a stakeholder engagement map by brainstorming and mapping the relevant stakeholders in order to determine who all play a role in the system they are trying to address, what their potential for cooperation is, and to what extent their level of influence or intensity is in regards to the issue at hand. This technique was adopted from “Strategies for Assessing and Managing Organizational Stakeholders,” by Grant T. Savage, Timothy W. Nix, Carlton Whitehead, and John D. Blair (1991). Stakeholders play an important role in creating and maintaining business values for any company or organization. These include government entities, civil society, private sectors, and end users. Every company has its priorities on how they connect to
2 N D I T E R AT I O N
their stakeholders, and a stakeholder engagement map works well as a tool for determining a constructive approach towards addressing this issue. It is plotted on a two-axis system, where the x-axis indicates the intensity of the issue, while the y-axis shows the potential for the cooperation for the company. By dividing the issues into four parts, a completed engagement map provides clarity for the company to know which stakeholders should be monitored, defended from, and with which to collaborate and connect. From here, users are able to focus on opportunities that address how to shift specific stakeholders from one quadrant to another. This section imposed incredible cognitive load on the participants and slowed the workshop down to a snail’s pace as well as dropping energy levels across the room. In the next stage we worked on creating an opportunity statement so as to get everyone on the same page about the solutions that needed to be found.. The participants were quite saturated at that point of the workshop and we decided to have a quick break. According to Guy Claxton (2006), in “Beyond Cleverness: How to be Smart without Thinking,” even “a few seconds of ‘downtime’ can allow a fuller and more integrated mental picture of a situation to emerge, enabling a response to be less impulsive and more ‘thoughtful’” (p. 55). To encourage a sense of playfulness, while also maintaining a sense of purpose, some may even refer to this as a “hunch break.”
15
2ND TRIAL RUN
2nd Workshop Trial Run Since our participants were low on energy and were exhausted by the end of the first part of the session, we came up with a quick energy boosting activity which could help rejuvenate them. It was a no brainer activity where every participant had to come up with weird/funny laugh. The facilitators participated in the activity to make the participants feel more comfortable. Thus boosting morale within the room. We then moved on to the impact and feasibility map. Similar to the stakeholder engagement maps, a two-by-two map is plotted on a two-axis system, but with the x-axis indicating the level of impact and the y-axis indicating the level of feasibility. Once this is completed, users can not only determine what is the most effective solution, but also the most practical, and from there, they are able to determine an implementation strategy based on their own expertise. Once they plotted all the solution the facilitators enabled them in finding the appropriate cluster to focus on and asked them to pick out their top five solutions from the selected cluster. Those solution were used for the next stage of our activity. The selected solutions were then listed out on the comparison table. The comparison table was used to direct them towards a specific solution. We combined the sticky dots method with the 16
2ND TRIAL RUN
17
2ND TRIAL RUN
comparison table to help them work together to pick one solution they would all want to work on. Each of them were given 5 sticky dots, they then voted on the solutions. The solution that had the highest ranking points were the ones which were picked to be developed later. The end result of this activity did not go as planned as we had asked them to pick the solution from a range of cluster rather than just asking them to transfer the solutions from the high feasibility and high impact quadrant. Thus giving us yet another crucial insight. Do not touch crucial data points. Foster an environment where the participants interact with the content they create. Overall, a lot of roadblocks to creativity were unwillingly set up by the facilitators by constantly interacting with the charts and sheets. The other prominent issue we created ourselves was not having well thought out segways between sections. The insight we picked up from these events were that we need to bring the participants out to the medium and as facilitators write as little as possible. The insights we got from this iteration of the workshop were extremely helpful as they enabled us to refine and fine tune our approach, and refine our demeanor.
18
2ND TRIAL RUN
19
FINAL WORKSHOP
Final Workshop Iteration With the above insights, we decided to make a couple final adjustment to the workshop plan before the workshop was actually be conducted. Therefore, the final workshop plan began with first asking an introductory question, which was then followed by recapping the problem statements, fears and hopes, affinitizing and mind mapping, and developing an opportunity statement. After allowing a few minutes to break and allow ideas to settle, we picked back up with a practice brainstorming session, followed by a real brainstorm session, clustering ideas on an impact and feasibility map, a comparison table to evaluate what the most popular solution was, and then finally, a stakeholder map to determine who would be affected and who could play a role in the solution. In order to provide the greatest benefit for the clients, it was also decided to arrive a half hour early to set up the room. This included a slight rearrangement by moving the tables, hanging each of the tools on the walls, and laying out enough stickies and pens, and with a plethora of colors of each, that any design firm would be proud. As the workshop was also expected to run around three hours, it was also decided to bring in some bagels and muffins, as well as a large container of hot coffee from a local fresh and fair trade coffeeshop. These were well received. As the time for the beginning of the workshop
20
approached, the clients began to trickle into the room. However, as there was already a good amount of familiarity between different members, whether between the members of the working group or between the two groups, there were a few minutes allocated to introductions and small talk. With the difficulties that had occurred in attempting to schedule the workshop via an app that even some of the facilitation team was unfamiliar with, which was eventually scrapped and scheduling was switched over to just email, there were only going to be four participants in attendance. While this was less than half of what the workshop could have been, it likely allowed for a much smoother, and quicker, workshop. Had there been even double the participants, the workshop probably would have run significantly longer, with potentially butting heads, causing everyone to burn out before finishing all the steps. The organizations that were represented in the final workshop included One Hundred Miles, which had two individuals, Fight Dirty Tybee, and Youth for a Clean Environment. Introductory Question: If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time and why? The purpose of beginning the workshop with this question was for it to serve as an icebreaker, which as with prior iterations, was to get the clients feeling more comfortable with the facilitators and get the creative thought process flowing before beginning the actual process. That being said, as several of the individuals within both the working group and the facilitation team had certain similar personality traits, there was not a lot of variety in responses. They primarily consisted of picking up new hobbies and learning new skills, such as instruments and
woodworking, and reading - lots of reading, From there, the workshop was underway. We then began the actual workshop session with recapping the problem statement provided during the observation meeting in order to align everyone on a central focus. As anticipated, there were now two participants that had not been in attendance at the initial meeting. Regardless, it seemed as if everyone understood the direction the workshop was intended to be taken and the end goal of the workshop. Whether they had faith in it or not is another question, which will be addressed in a review of the feedback. Next, the workshop moved on to fears and hopes. Based on the experience of the second workshop trial run, it was determined that fears should come first rather than hopes as fears allows participants to look at why these issues need to be addressed while hopes allow participants to develop a shared vision of what they hope to accomplish. Both provide an intrinsic motivation, but ending on hopes allows users to end this stage on a positive note. According to Scott Barry Koffman, in “The Emotions That Make Us More Creative”, “the long-standing view in psychology is that positive emotions are conducive to creativity because they broaden the mind, whereas negative emotions are detrimental to creativity because they narrow one’s focus” (Aug. 12, 2015). Therefore, by ending this stage with positive desires, participants are in a more open-minded, creative, and inspired state-of-mind. Once the fears and hopes were clustered, the workshop moved into affinitizing and mind mapping, where “how do we get businesses to embrace biodegradable options?” was place at the center.
FINAL WORKSHOP
At this point, while there was one clear leader of the session, every participant was engaging and discussing ideas. They were all standing, they were all having fun, and they were all sharing. They were bouncing ideas off of each other, and it became clear that what they had lacked in the observation session they now had. The next stage, developing an opportunity statement, was by far the most difficult aspect of the workshop. The aim was to find a unified problem that they all agreed should be tackled. They all knew what they wanted to address, but articulating this idea and putting it down on paper was more difficult than anticipated. To clarify, they were not arguing, they just could not put the idea down on paper. Throughout this stage, there was both sitting and standing, both talking and writing. There was one point that Aaron, the newest member of One Hundred Miles, was able to somewhat articulate it, through many words, but when everyone said to write it down, no one could remember exactly what he had said. Finally, however, they were able to come up with “We believe there is an opportunity to raise awareness for business alternatives for single use plastics so as to strengthen their green business leadership without increasing their cost.” The idea behind this opportunity statement was to encourage businesses to recognize the potential for increased revenues by becoming a green business and attracting a new additional customer base. In addition, by reducing the amount of litter present in the environment, the area will become more well known as being clean and attractive, thereby increasing traffic and business. Finally, it was time for a break. As previously mentioned, the opportunity statement was much more difficult to
determine than anticipated, and while the plan was to allow this break for an incubation period, it was definitely needed after the toll the last stage took. Once the break was over, it was time for the random, or practice, brainstorming session. Participants were asked to come up with ideas for “how to get icecream on Mars.” Ideas varied. Some were really interesting and funny, others were fairly generic, but all allowed the participants to get into the mindset of creative brainstorming. Before beginning the real brainstorming session, a few guidelines were mentioned. First, quantity over quality. Second, there’s no such thing as a bad idea. And third, build on the ideas of others. Basically, just come up with as many and as ridiculous ideas as possible. The quality information will be flushed out at the end. Ideas ranged from info/infographic books, partnerships with farmers markets, plastic trash art galleries, guerilla approaches, and using church leadership, among several others, as well as combinations of each. Next was feasibility and impact analyses. Here we made an interesting observation. To get the session started, one member began the stage by selecting one of the stickies posted in the brainstorming session, asked what everyone thought, and placed it in the corresponding quadrant. In doing so, the clients immediately became reliant on the facilitator and were hesitant to move any stickies themselves. Even as the facilitator tried to back away, the participants would just not move forward with relocating any ideas and rather just discussed them. However, over time, through instigation, they began to move them on their own. Some ideas were considered high impact, high feasibility, others were considered low feasibility, low impact. Some were
somewhere in between, and one was undecided. The five solutions that were considered the most feasible and had the highest impact were then moved to the comparison table, which were then voted on by the members. These included the guerilla approach, the information booklet, gamifying plastics reduction, church leadership, and incentive programs. Participants were only allowed to place one dot under each rating, which was a scale of 1 - 5 using happy and frowny faces. Ultimately, the most favorited solution was the information booklet, followed by a tie between guerilla campaign and gamifying. With the information booklet transferred over to the stakeholder map, the participants determined primary, secondary, and tertiary participants, with businesses the center focus. Primary stakeholders, which included recycling centers, tourists, students, waste management, customers, producers, etc., were placed in the closest circle. These stakeholders would be directly impacted by the implementation of the plan, while secondary stakeholders, which included consumers, local government, the city’s sustainability department, residents, and NGO’s were placed in the secondary ring. Lastly, citizens in general were placed in the outer tertiary ring. At this point, the workshop came to an end, with the outcome of which being the development of an information booklet on the sustainable alternatives to plastics for businesses. Once produced, these could be distributed to businesses and to locations that will allow the community to become more aware of the reality of the impact plastics have on the ecosystem, the benefits that can come from reducing plastics consumption, and the alternatives available. While the central focus of this was on informing
21
FINAL WORKSHOP
Final Workshop Iteration businesses, its implications as an educational campaign range across all sectors throughout the community, and being that it is spearheaded by an NGO, each of the members of the facilitation team was able to have their interests in which direction to take this project that began 9 weeks ago met.
22
FINAL WORKSHOP
23
Workshop Evaluation form
FEEDBACK Date Organization
Feedback Forms
Please respond to the following statements by using the 4-point rating scale to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree to each statement. Please circle the number that applies. 4-strongly agree 3-agree 2-disagree 1-strongly disagree Rate our team’s overall performance
1
2
3
4
Rate how valuable this workshop was towards creative thinking.
1
2
3
4
How effective were the trainers/facilitators in their communication?
1
2
3
4
The feedback form was structured in such a way that would help us understand their view on the workshop and about us as a group. We had split the feedback form into two where, one was the rating section and the other was a simple question answer format. We got really good feedback on the workshop and few suggestions to better our skills and the workshop.
How worthwhile do you think this workshop was for your company
1
2
3
4
Please rate how valuable this workshop was for you personally?
1
2
3
4
Some of the feedback for suggestions included clustering stickies as they are placed on the board, using a moderator to read stickies and facilitate discussions, provide more clarity in communicating connections, provide introductions and descriptions, prioritize time for the harder, more complicated stages, and better understanding what areas the participants are familiar with, such as with brainstorming. Positive feedback, on the other hand, included the overall outcome and creative thinking involved with the workshop, as well as the language, friendliness, energy, preparation, and techniques used.
How could the facilitators improve in their communication?
Did the workshop meet your expectations? Why or why not?
Please provide your suggestions that would improve this workshop.
Please elaborate on what you liked the most about this workshop.
Please provide any additional recommendations/suggestions.
24
REFLECTION
Reflection
CHANCE FAVORS THE CONNECTED MIND While creativity has traditionally focused on the individual, the idea that creativity can live within the organization is becoming increasingly popular, which includes, according to Henry (2013), the “role of collaboration in creativity and the community of practice (where people with similar interests and expertise get together and learn by building on each others expertise and knowledge) from which creative endeavor emerges (p. 13). In these settings, organizational members are able to build upon one another, and allow creativity to feed on creativity - where creativity begets creativity. ‘ From a social perspective, this notion of co-creation, especially one that impacts participants over a prolonged period of time, as suggested by Bryan Rill (2016), in “Resonant Co-Creation as an Approach to Strategic Innovation,” “facilitates an expansion of awareness that can lead to more sustainable business practices and workplace well-being. This benefits society at large through fostering more socially conscious and innovative organizations” (1135). The idea behind co-creation is to unlock the creativity of many people, not just one, in such a way that the group’s overall experience, both individually and collectively, is transformed, as well
as is the success of the organization that enables it. There are a lot of business leaders that seek to develop ways of improving their organization or solving problems that they face, whether internally or externally. That being said, as this team became aware of, it is crucial that ideas, plans, and solutions are tested and validated before being implemented. Therefore, the idea of this workshop is to serve as a systematic process that can allow facilitators to validate their ideas. That, or it would show the need for the reforming of their problem statement and direct them in a different direction. The workshop framework was created in such a way that it could be implemented across other various other fields and organizations. Before we could do the actual run through, it was necessary to conduct the observational session with the organization to understand the people, the organization, culture and the ecosystem that we would be working with. The workshop framework that we created is rudimentary, and could be made adaptable and is replicable to suit the organization’s need. To do so, all that is necessary is to first observe and interact, and then pull out and plug in the tools that would help us meet the end purpose of the workshop.
25
C I TAT I O N S
Amabile, T. M. (1998). “How to kill creativity”. Harvard Business Review. September-October 1998. Volume 76 Issue 5, p. 77-96.
Catmull, E. (2008). “How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity”. Harvard Business Review. September 2008. Volume 86, Issue 9, p. 64-72.
Claxton, G. (2006). “Beyond Cleverness: How to be Smart without Thinking”. Creative Management and Development, 3rd edition. Sage. London, p. 47-63.
Kaufman, S. B. (2015, August 12). “The Emotions That Make Us More Creative.” Retrieved November 16, 2017, from https://hbr.org/2015/08/ the-emotions-that-make-us-more-creative
26