Solve Organizational Problems

I have led Creativity & Innovation Meetings to solve diverse company problems, including:

• Raising quality at work.
• Identifying new products.
• Improving chemical yield during a complex manufacturing process.
• Reducing waste at work.
• Applying world-class manufacturing principles to a product.
• Lowering costs and increasing the effectiveness of environmental cleanup.
• Developing new manufacturing technology.
• Handling manufacturing waste for an automobile parts firm.

Creativity & Innovation Meetings solve important company problems. Advanced creative thinking techniques help participants combine diverse bits from their environment and their minds into unexpected new and useful ideas.

I also consider Creativity & Innovation Meetings the best way to teach advanced creativity techniques because participants want to learn the techniques and apply them to a real problem.

The Sequence

Although each Creativity & Innovation Meeting differs, the same basic sequence appears in all. The following illustrates a typical flow for a four-day meeting.

First Session: Build the Creative Atmosphere

Participants introduce themselves, review the goals and agenda, begin team building, and use techniques to create a creative atmosphere. They learn how trigger-ideas can spark creative ideas during linear and nonlinear creative thinking.

Second Session: Define the Problem

The meeting organizer explains the problem. When necessary, participants give short talks in their areas of expertise. Individuals and teams then define the problem using advanced techniques.

Third Session: Generate Ideas

Each team produces ideas using many techniques. Individuals then generate ideas quietly on their own. Participants usually produce about 800 ideas, which are displayed throughout the meeting room.

Fourth Session: Incubate and Recharge

Participants have free incubation time and engage in individual activities designed to enhance creative thinking.

Fifth Session: Develop Proposals

Each person combines ideas displayed in the room into an innovative one-page proposal for a fresh approach to the problem. Teams then identify criteria for an effective, high-quality solution.

Participants share their proposals with their teams and receive feedback based on those criteria. Each person revises the proposal and gives it to management.

Sixth Session: Incubate

Participants have another afternoon of free incubation time to enhance creative thinking.

Seventh Session: Create the Blockbuster Solution

Each team combines the proposals of its members and develops a blockbuster solution to the problem.

Eighth Session: Present and Commit to Action

Each team presents its blockbuster solution to the other participants and receives ideas for improvement. The participants then commit to action plans to implement the best solutions.

Participants

Whom you include depends on the problem and other goals. Participants may include executives, managers, supervisors, department heads, key professionals, customers, consultants, university professors, government representatives, and experts from other companies.

For example, one meeting brought together 42 people from marketing, sales, manufacturing, engineering, finance, personnel, quality, customer relations, and industrial design to develop new products. Another included R&D and maintenance managers, outside consultants, university professors, government representatives, and experts from other companies to address environmental-cleanup problems.

A consulting engineering firm and its chemical-company client brought together vice-presidents, managers, supervisors, and key professionals from engineering, R&D, marketing, manufacturing, and finance. Another organization included customers along with managers, supervisors, department heads, and key professionals from marketing, R&D, and manufacturing to solve mutual problems.

In short, the mix and number of participants depends on what the organization wants to accomplish. The goal is to bring together the people and perspectives most useful to the problem.

Outcomes

The outcomes fascinate and gratify. Management receives hundreds of ideas, including high-quality gems. Each participant also produces a one-page proposal, many containing fresh and unexpected approaches. Each team develops a unique, high-quality solution.

Sometimes participants combine solutions from different teams and develop them further. After one spectacular meeting, the senior R&D person in charge told me that 15 to 20 patentable ideas had emerged.

Participants say they enjoy the time well spent. They learn techniques for achieving quality solutions, and most say they will use them on the job. Some also make action plans to spread creative thinking techniques throughout their organizations.

A Success Story

People in a Fortune 500 company asked me to lead a four-day meeting to solve their world-class manufacturing problems. Managers, supervisors, and key professionals in R&D and manufacturing from five plants attended.

They wanted to shift paradigms, gain new perspectives, improve manufacturing practices, and capture long-range, worldwide competitive leadership. They also wanted to use modern creative thinking techniques, build synergy among participants, share what was happening at different locations, and strengthen networking and teamwork between plant sites.

Finally, they wanted specific action plans and commitments from participants. It was a tall order.

We met in Washington, DC, for four days and applied advanced techniques to problems identified early in the meeting. Participants spent two free afternoons at the NASA Space Museum and parts of the Smithsonian Institution.

By the end of the four days, participants had shifted many paradigms and produced an incredible number of outstanding ideas and quality solutions that exceeded the most optimistic predictions. They also developed committed action plans.