The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Graham Wallas’

We have talked about problem solving and generating great ideas on this blog a few times, but it’s never a bad idea to be exposed to other techniques or related techniques. Recently I attended a presentation “The Secrets of Creative Problem Solving” by Otto Schmidt hosted by Innovation Initiative. The Innovative Initiative is a non-profit forum supporting innovative businesses, so many inventors are members. The technique outlined below is also good for inventors who need some stimulation.

Key Objective for Creative Problem Solving

• Observe and notice more
• Improve ability to analyze
• Learn and use problem solving
• Practice solving real problems and situation

Observe and Notice More

• Scan: Notice and identify as many details as possible. Gather a set of details which the mind processes into ideas, concepts and understanding.
• Search: Consciously find details.
• Focus: Make clear in the foreground, middle or background. What the senses make clear is what the mind will think about.
• Attention: A willingness to give things time.

Improve Ability and Analyze:

Examine things methodically by separating into parts and studying interrelations to discover essential features.

1. Take things apart and put them back together. Notice the relationships when putting it back together, can you leave parts out?
2. Look from different points of view.
3. Use your imagination and determine the orders and steps. Why in that order?
4. Notice cycles or systems in the world. An example they gave is to look at your digestive system, if you take it away, the body stops to function.
5. Sort things in different ways.
6. Look for double meanings and hidden elements (parallels to past problems).
7. Find “ING” Words (Gerunds). An example: Say for instance your task is to build a superior bicycle, what are the important things you have to think about? Using “ing” words you would probably come up with sitting, pedaling, steering, braking, levering, changing, rolling, balancing, turning, protecting, rotating. You would use this concept with other problems.

• Problem Solving (Graham Wallas Creativity Model)
• Preparation: Data collection
• Incubation: Laying the issue aside, unconscious processing
• Illumination: Aha, new ideas emerge
• Verification: Check it out

Problem Solving Model Simplified

• Identify the real problem.
• List ways to solve it.
• Plan and test solution.
• Review the effectiveness of the solution.
• Adjust the solution.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Image Credit: Google images (redferret.net)

Further Reading

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

The Art of Invention

Creative Problem Solving

How to Read to Problem Solve

Do You Have This Critical Workplace Skill?

Over the past six months I’ve seen the word infographics coming up a lot in blog posts, articles and so on. Looking at the word combinations and the way it was used I had a clear idea of what the word infographics meant. According to Wikipedia, the definition of infographics is “Visual representations of information, data or knowledge.”

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is an infographic of how to generate great ideas, which is a combination of the steps from Graham Wallas and James Webb Young models. It’s a topic we have covered a few times so it should be familiar if you have been reading this blog for a while. The process to generate great ideas is a four-step process: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification/Implementation.

What are some ways you can use infographics in your work to make complex ideas simpler to digest? How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Further Reading

The Anatomy of An Infographic: 5 Steps To Create A Powerful Visual

How to Create Outstanding Modern Infographics

InfoGraphic Designs: Overview, Examples and Best Practices

10 Awesome Free Tools to Make Infographics

The Formula for Generating Great Ideas

How to Generate Creative Ideas

Summary of a Technique for Generating Great Ideas by James Webb Young

Related articles

• Infographics could be a cool solution for information overload. What makes them cooler and eye-catching are of course, the nicely done visuals. Information graphics (i.e. inforgraphics) takes boring data and statistics and dresses them up with graphics (makeuseof.com)
• Keep An Eye On These 10 Blogs For Stunning Infographic Collections (makeuseof.com)

While I was reading How to Get Great Ideas by Estelle H. Ries (1961), it became evident that it was simply a new spin on the information by James Webb Young (Technique for Producing Great Ideas) and Graham Wallas (Creativity Model in Art of Thought, which is an extension of Hermann von Helmholtz‘s model) that we have covered on this blog, but generating great ideas is an important art so it’s worth repeating. To make this process relevant, think about the following or any other pressing need, and use the formula to see where it leads you:

• Process that needs improving at work
• Product does not work the way you’d like it to
• Past ideas that were ahead of their time that could work now
• Problems that keep recurring
• Or any pressing issue that you’re facing

Step One: Preparation

There are two types of information to gather:

Specific

1. Gather as much information as possible on the topic of interest
   1. Look for  case studies in your industry and unrelated industries
   2. Conduct research on the internet
   3. Conduct research using commercial databases, you can access many through your public library portal
   4. Research industries different from your own to determine if there are ideas you can transfer
   5. Interview subject matter experts
   6. Brainstorm with colleagues
   7. Conduct focus group interviews
2. Read all the information gathered and synthesize them
3. Write down the information on 3×5 index cards, one item per card
4. Classify the information by sections of the topic of interest

Read the post How to Analyze Information to evaluate the quality of the data you gathered.

General

1. This is an ongoing process throughout your life. Information from wide experience prepares your mind to see a particular subject matter in relation  to other things
2. Record any interesting information you come across in a scrapbook or other filing method that makes sense for you
3. Use your cell phone if you have one, or a camera to capture any interesting scenes that you see, both photos and videos and create a file on your computer in which to save them
4. Attend speeches, workshops, seminars and so on that are unrelated to your work just because they interest you, and take notes
5. Visit the websites How Stuff Works, AskNature.org and Ted.com often and read for a while
6. Go to your favorite bookstore and pick up magazines that are unrelated to your area
7. Go to magazine portals such as MagPortal.com and Magatopia and read about what’s happening in other industries and countries
8. Find incubator programs and innovation centers to learn about what new innovations are in the pipeline. There is a National Business Incubator Association. There is an association for practically anything
9. Discover what university research labs are working on
10. Re-read the answers to, “What process do you use to generate new ideas?” in the interviews conducted on this blog
11. Subject yourself to new experiences
12. Every so often, pull up the information and review them

Step 2: Working Over the Information in Your Mind

1. Look at the information you gathered from many different angles
2. Synthesize the information
3. Merge two facts and see how they fit together
4. Connect the information with what you already know (could be your general knowledge), nothing exists in a vacuum
5. As tentative or partial ideas come to you, no matter how crazy or incomplete, document them on the index card, one idea per card
6. Do not stop until you have at least one partial or incomplete idea
7. When everything is a jumble or it is pointless for you to do additional work, it is time for the next step

Step 3: Incubation

1. Turn over the problem to your subconscious mind
2. Take a break or work on an unrelated task or do something which stimulates the imagination and emotions

Step 4: Illumination - Eureka! I have It

1. When you least expect it, the idea comes to you (You have an aha moment)

Step 5: Verification/Implementation/Shaping & Developing the Idea

1. The idea will unlikely be ready to be implemented as is
2. Subject it to criticism – test it, then refine it
   1. Use the criteria you developed in Stage I to judge the quality of the solution
   2. Refine the idea if you have to
   3. Implement the idea
   4. Evaluate the idea
   5. If you find that the solution doesn’t work, go through the process again

How did the process work for you? Was it easy or difficult? What do you have to add to the conversation? What process do you use to generate ideas? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

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• Kevin O’Connor: Don’t Make the Solution Part of Your Problem (huffingtonpost.com)
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In what novel ways have you used information that you came across? What’s one concept that you discovered that has served you well? For me, it’s the creativity model presented in the Art of Thought by Graham Wallas. While conducting research on biomimicry, I came across information about a three-phase, 14-step process designed by Peter Floyd and Stephen R. Grossman that presents animal adaptations as models for problem solving. What got me excited was I had already decided that I was going to look at the idea of Evolution on this blog, which is one of the 50 ideas presented in 50 Big Ideas You Really Need to Know About by Ben Dupré, and here were two guys who are using Darwin’s three-step process for evolutionary change: extinction, mutation and selection. Floyd and Grossman have taken the three-steps and broken them down into a problem solving model. I thought that was simply brilliant, but I know that you can create a model that’s equally brilliant.

As presented by Ben Dupré, the idea of Evolution is a short read and only four pages in length. He talks about the origin of species, natural selection and the fifth ape.

“In the Origin, Charles Darwin succinctly summarizes natural selection as follows: ‘As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it very however slightly in any manner profitable, to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected . From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.’”

From the information presented in Dupré’s idea of evolution, I have extracted three great ideas that are very useful in a personal context:

1. In nature, resources such as food and mates are limited, so there will always be competition for access to them
2. Some people will be better equipped than others to prevail life’s struggles, and it is these individuals  that will live longer and produce more offspring
3. By minute and gradual changes over innumerable generations, animals and plants become better adapted to their surroundings; some species or kinds disappear, to be replaced  by others that have proved more successful for existence.

Possible Interpretation of These Ideas

• In flattened organizational structures, there are limited opportunities for promotions, therefore those expecting to excel must differentiate themselves and become more valuable to their clients, both internal and external
• The more skilled you become at problem solving, the better equipped you become at overcoming everyday challenges
• The more change resilient you are, and the more more receptive you are to ambiguity, the more longevity you’ll enjoy in the workplace
• Small and incremental changes lead to big changes in your life
• The more adaptable you are to change, the more success you’ll enjoy

As a professional, how can you use the idea of evolution to succeed in work and life? What changes can you make in your life to give you an edge?

Why evolution is one of the 50 ideas you really need to know about

Today you have to change or become extinct, so you have to mutate to be selected, in what ways can you change? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo and Video Credit: Apture

Every so often I present websites that I think you should know about. A few days ago I presented a hybrid creativity model based on Graham Wallas‘ and James Webb Young’s creativity model. In the model you have general information, which are things you discover and file away for future use. The websites today are geared toward rounding out your general knowledge. The more varied your knowledge, the more creative you are. The creative you are, the more creative ideas you unearth for problem solving.

One website I added to the mix because many people travel so I thought it would be handy for discounted airfares.

Space Adventures

Provides private spaceflight opportunities.  It’s the first company to have taken clients into space.      

Virgin Galactic

Are you interested in space travel? Virgin Galactic is a space tourism operator which will be providing sub-orbital flights. It is an offshoot of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson‘s enterprise.

Ask Nature

It’s the design portal for the Biomimicry Institute. Biomimicry is a fairly new field where nature is used to inspire problem solving. The Ask Nature website is filled with lots of information that will round out your general knowledge.

Travel Alerts

You will find discounted vacation and last minute travel. Get the alerts sent to your email box each week http://www.travelalerts.com.

If money were no object, would you invest in space travel? Please keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Ted talk: Biomimicry in action: Janine Benyus

Biomimicry in action: Janine Benyus

Space Tourism Markets What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Space Tourism Markets What We Know And What We Don’t Know

Photo Credit: Zemanta
Video Credit: YouTube via Apture