19 The creative process can be learned
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Anyone can learn to be more creative in their workplace. This book is devoted to helping you develop your abilities to be more creative and innovative in your workplace.
Watch this video presentation about the creative process.
Watch this video presentation that digs deeper into the creative process.
Seth Godin: The tribes we lead https://youtu.be/uQGYr9bnktw
Why is Creativity Important in Education? Sir Ken Robinson Video Series from Adobe Education https://youtu.be/Ee5A5NSbMN4
The Creative Process
There is a specific creative process that can help anyone in any workplace to be more creative. The creative process has 6 distinct steps.
Here are the steps described:
Explore — The creative process normally starts with a purpose, which appears either as a challenge to accomplish something or a problem to solve. Once this is established all aspects of the purpose need to be explored and all available resources to help complete the purpose should also be identified.
Ideas — The next step is to generate ideas of how the purpose could be completed. Don’t stop at the first good idea as you will need many ideas to find the really great and innovative one. Ideas can be generated in many ways but it really helps to collaborate with others. Make sure that you do not judge your ideas in this step so that you can be free to generate many ideas, even bad ideas. Of course, you need to capture all of the ideas you generate.
Select — After you have generated at least 50 or more ideas, now is the time to judge their quality and select the very best ones. Judging your ideas will be easier if you have 3 to 5 criteria for ranking your ideas. Two commonly used selection criteria are to identify the potential value that could be realized by each idea and compare that to the cost of implementing each idea.
Plan — After you have selected your best idea, you need to plan how you will implement it and convert it into reality. This normally involves a project planning approach that identifies tasks to be completed, timelines to complete them by, resources required and who is going to complete each task.
Implement — Plans are great, but only when they are actually executed are they valuable. Implementing innovative ideas requires courage to overcome any setbacks and unexpected obstacles that will arise.
Assess — After the implementation of the idea is complete, it is time to assess if the idea was successful. If the idea addressed the purpose by meeting the challenge or solving the problem then it can be assessed as successful. In some cases, even if the challenge or problem was not solved, but other values were realized then it could still be deemed as successful. Often the same selection criteria from step 4 are used to assess the success of an implementation.
This process is quite iterative, which means it repeats in a cycle. Unless the solution is perfect, there is normally a need to repeat the steps of the process to refine the solution or innovation.
The creative process as described above can be learned and practiced in any workplace context. I have been developing my proficiency in applying the principles of this process to the point where it comes second nature to me. As soon as a challenge or problem appears, I start exploring it and generating ideas for solutions that I will then implement and so on. You can learn to do this proficiently as well.
You likely already have a creative process that has been working for you. How do you solve problems now in your workplace? Can you make improvements to your process from my process?
Let’s explore this further; ask yourself the following questions:
Do I identify all available resources before I start looking for solutions?
Do I stop when I discover the first good idea and attempt to implement it right away?
Do I implement my ideas without solid planning?
How do I know whether my ideas were successful or not?
The following pages in the textbook will help you master the six steps of the creative process and the principles that will help you improve your skill and proficiency in using this process in any workplace you are working in.
Not everyone describes their creative process in the same six steps that I have, but if you look closely you will see that there are more similarities than differences. Ask someone who claims to be creative what creative process they use and you will see much in common.
The Innovation Cycle https://youtu.be/luJBtDB6ZjE
Challenge:
Select a challenge or problem that you would like to complete/solve using this creative process. Share the challenge or problem with a friend and commit to them that you will employ this process to complete this project. Then work through the following pages to employ the creative process to this challenge or problem.
Use your new skills with mind mapping that you learned in Principle 16 to map out the creative process as you would apply it to a real-world challenge/problem.
Build a mind map illustrating the challenge or problem that you selected in the challenge above to apply the creative process to. Share your mind map to a friend and ask them for feedback.
I promise you that if you commit yourself to learn to apply this creative process consistently, it will help you become a successful and valuable member of any workplace.
You have to go whole heartedly into anything in order to achieve anything worth having. — Frank Lloyd Wright
