A crash course in creative

problem solving workshops

How to prepare and conduct a creative problem solving workshop

Anton Danielsson

2015
Individual assignment in Industrial Design Engineering
D7016A Scientific methods for Industrial Design Engineering HT14

Lule University of Technology

Abstract

This literary review examines group ideation, and how to enhance creativity in brainstorming
workshops. It looks to assemble a series of guidelines to consider if you are looking to prepare
and perform a brainstorming workshop. Two research questions are posed:
1. What are the key aspects to consider when preparing and performing a brainstorming
workshop?
2. How would you plan and conduct a brainstorming workshop in order to enhance
creativity and idea generation?
The ongoing trend of shorter product life cycles and faster product development (PD)
processes means that companies need to be able to continuously innovate in order to stay
competitive (Filieri, 2012). If there are no pool of ideas to begin with, the later stages can be
difficult to proceed with (Sowrey, 1990).
Despite much praise, Alex Osborns Brainstorming method has been proven in scientific
research not to live up to all its hype. Working collaboratively is also questioned to great
extent, with suggestions that working in groups may reduce productivity compared to the
same number of people working independently. Among others, the Nominal Group
Technique is described as a method that is supposed to circumvent these issues and increase
group productivity.
The key aspects to consider when preparing a workshop are first of all who you should invite,
research shows that significant contributions has come from people with knowledge in the
particular domain. Another aspect is to combine solitary ideation with collaboration, since
using only collaborative methods have shown to reduce productivity. The number of
participants should be a maximum of eight or nine. Method of choice should be one that
combines solitary and collaborative ideation, one example would be the Nominal Group
Technique.
KEYWORDS: Creative problem solving, workshop, brainstorming, nominal group
technique

Content
1

Introduction
BACKGROUND
PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND
AIMS 1
PROJECT SCOPE
RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
OUTLINE OF THE TEXT

Theoretical framework

1
1

1
2
2

An introduction to industrial design

engineering
2
Industrial design engineering today 3
Osborns Brainstorming method and
group collaboration
3
The Nominal Group Technique
4
Osborns opponents
5
Warm-up exercises and alternative
methods
6

Discussion

Conclusions

What are the key aspects to

consider when preparing and performing a
brainstorming workshop?
8
How would you plan and conduct a
brainstorming workshop in order to enhance
creativity and idea generation?
9

References

10

1 Introduction

This study examines group ideation, and how to enhance creativity in brainstorming
workshops. It looks to assemble a series of guidelines to consider if you are looking to prepare
and perform a brainstorming workshop.
Based on a literary review, this study will examine group creativity and some aspects of it, in
terms of what to do and not to do. The study is performed by a single author as examination
of a 7.5 ECTS course as part of the final year in the Master of Science in Industrial Design
Engineering program at Lule University of Technology.
BACKGROUND
The generation of ideas are vital to any company or organization that wants to keep up with
an increasingly competitive market. Managers often focus their attention to the idea or
concept evaluation and design stages of the product development process. Since these are
more analytical in their nature, they are easier to produce guidelines and methods for, and
also easier to measure. But if there are no ideas to begin with, you will have a hard time
evaluating anything.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND AIMS
The objective of this study is to provide basic tips and techniques that you can use to enhance
the chances of generating creative solutions and ideas. This will help newcomers in
brainstorming, at work or in school, to begin looking at ways to systematically work with and
improve the idea generation process just as you would with any other stage in the productor service development process. The resulting guidelines of this report may be used by anyone
who wishes to perform a brainstorming workshop in order to generate ideas.
The aim of this study is mainly educational in the authors perspective, to show an ability to
critically analyze and select relevant and reliable scientific material. Also to review and
summarize this material in order to draw accurate conclusions which showcases insight into
a particular field of science and how it is relevant in the broader field of industrial design
engineering.
In order to accomplish this, two research questions was set up which it looks to answer:
1. What are the key aspects to consider when preparing and performing a brainstorming
workshop?
2. How would you plan and conduct a brainstorming workshop in order to enhance
creativity and idea generation?
PROJECT SCOPE
This study includes a literary review on the topics of group creativity, collaborative problem
solving and idea generation. Due to project regulations and time scope, this study will not
include any experiments or research outside the literary review.
1

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

The author of this study is currently a final-year master student at the industrial design
engineering program at Lule University of Technology in Sweden. Besides a foundation of
knowledge in industrial design engineering, the author has also previous knowledge in idea
generation and group collaboration. However, the knowledge consists mostly of personal
experience from university courses and projects where creative idea generation and
workshops has been implemented. When selecting research articles and materials, a bias
towards peer-reviewed work has been used. Cited material that is of questionable authority
is noted in the text.
OUTLINE OF THE TEXT
Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the goal, context and scope of this study. Chapter 2
presents the relevant theory and research findings from the literary review. Chapter 3
discusses the research findings and how relevant these are both in terms of their accuracy
and also in terms of the implications these might have in a broader perspective. Chapter 4
presents conclusions from chapter 2 and 3 and answers the research questions posed.

2 Theoretical framework

This section describes previous research findings on topics such as idea generation and
collaboration, which is necessary in order to draw relevant conclusions in regards to the
research questions posed. It also examines why these topics are important to industrial design
engineering.
An introduction to industrial design engineering
If you look back throughout the history of man-made objects, it is possible to determine a
change from making design decisions as you manufacture towards making design decisions
before you manufacture. This means that today, the result of the design process is not a
finished product as could be the case in the 19th century, but instead a set of drawings or
specifications that is eventually used to manufacture the finished product. Due to this, the
process of design as a separate discipline developed (Kappel & Rubenstein, 1999). As the
name suggests, industrial design engineering can be used to describe the interface between
design aesthetics and design engineering or construction. An industrial design engineer need
to be comfortable with using traditional science such as mathematics, engineering and
computing, while keeping traditional human factors and product expressiveness in mind
(Smets & Overbeeke, 1994). An example as expressed by Gerda Smets and Kees Overbeeke:
A car, for example, has to be technically safe, and it has to be safe from a human factors point of view,
in preventing the driver from executing wrong maneuvers. Yet it also has to make him know how to act
safely. (Smets & Overbeeke, 1994). The design process involves to a large extent problemsolving, as expressed by Kappel and Rubenstein: Designers adapt the visions in their minds, or
the minds of customers and users, to engineering drawings which are eventually converted to material
artifacts. (Smets & Overbeeke, 1994).

Industrial design engineering today

The ongoing trend of shorter product life cycles and faster product development (PD)
processes means that companies needs to be able to continuously innovate in order to stay
competitive (Filieri, 2012). This also means that the development process needs to be well
planned, efficient and reliable, which sometimes can be difficult when dealing with the
ideation stage of the development process, which is more creative and less analytical in its
nature. Most companies focus their efforts on the later stages of the PD process such as the
evaluation and selection of ideas, but if there are no pool of ideas to begin with, these later
stages can be difficult to proceed with (Sowrey, 1990).
In order to locate what drives innovation and creativity on the business and organizational
level, an investigation needs to be carried out first on the individual level (Ray & Romano
Jr., 2012). Our individual creative ability is the responsibility of the right brain hemisphere,
the same side that is also responsible for accessing the long term memory, visualizing and
intuition (Seibert & Kleiner, 1991; Herrman, 1981).
Osborns Brainstorming method and group collaboration
Alex Osborn is said to be the first person who introduced the world to Brainstorming, which
is a creative problem solving technique that relies on group collaboration. He determined
four major rules that a Brainstorming group should adhere to, these are:
1. Do not allow for any criticism or evaluation during the idea generation. As this would
get people hesitant to sharing wild ideas.
2. Encourage all ideas, ranging from the mundane to the crazy.
3. Aim for quantity, as Osborn said, quantity-breeds-quality.
4. Encourage the participants to combine and improve on others ideas (Zemke, 1993).
The first rule that states that no evaluation should take place in the beginning of the
Brainstorming is confirmed by other sources to be generally true because it will slow the idea
generation down and produce less ideas (Sloane, 1998 as cited in Boddy, 2012).
Osborns Brainstorming method claimed to double the productivity of a group (Osborn, 1957
as cited in Perttula, Krause, & Sipil, 2006), and this claim has resonated into a general belief
that group idea generation and collaboration produces more ideas, and a larger variety of
ideas at that. (Cross & Cross, 1995 as cited in Perttula, Krause & Sipil, 2006). One
argument behind this claim is that group collaboration enables people with different
backgrounds, experience and knowledge bases to work together, creating a more multifaceted solution (Eckerson, 1988 as cited in Boddy, 2012). However, there are vast amounts
of experiments and laboratory studies that report the opposite, that interactive group
collaboration during idea generation is actually less productive than the same amount of
people working individually (Taylor et al. 1958; Lamm & Trommsdorff, 1973; Diehl &
Stroebe, 1987; Mullen et al, 1991 as cited in Perttula, Krause & Sipil, 2006). One argument
is that when working collaboratively, each individual is expected to perform additional tasks,
which reduces his productivity.

When collaborating, you are not only asked to generate ideas, but also to communicate,
listen and discuss with the rest of the group (Perttula, Krause, & Sipil, 2006). The difference
in performance is generally explained as a result from four factors:
1. Production blocking happens because you need to both listen to ideas and generate
ideas.
2. Evaluation apprehension is what happens when people are afraid of sharing their
ideas to the group because they believe they will receive hard criticism.
3. Social loafing is when individuals free-rides on the group, because they believe that
somebody else will come up with a better solution or that their ideas are not needed.
4. Downward performance matching refers to an effect that might arise when high
performing individuals are teamed with low performing idividuals. What may
happen is that the high performance individuals conform themselves to the lower
performance norms and expectations. The opposite can also appear, where the high
performance individuals inspire the lower performing ones to produce better ideas
(Mullen et al. 1991 via Perttula, Krause & Sipil, 2006).
The Nominal Group Technique
There are however techniques that can be employed to circumvent these factors and increase
the productivity of collaborative groups, even to the level where they outperform individual
idea generation (Brown & Paulus, 2002 as cited in Perttula, Krause & Sipil, 2006). One
factor that has been researched is idea exchange during idea generation, and how that affects
the quantity and variety of ideas. This theory, that idea exchange during idea generation
should stimulate the subjects cognitively and increase their productivity may be found in
several sources (Brown et al. 1998, Hinsz et al. 1997, Nijstad, 2000; Paulus and Yang, 2000
as cited in Perttula, Krause & Sipil, 2006). Perttula, Krause & Sipil (2006) conducted an
experiment where they compared two groups, one which worked without any interaction
and one that exchanged ideas momentarily during the process. The results showed that the
group that exchanged ideas generated more ideas than the non-interaction group, and they
did so irrespectively of whether they shared ideas in groups of two or four persons. The idea
exchanging group did not however experience the same gain in terms of idea variety.
The Nominal Group Technique, NGT, utilizes this idea exchange theory in an effort to produce
an idea generation method that increases group productivity. It was developed by Andrew
H. Van de Ven and Andre Delbecq in 1968. The basic principle for the NGT is as follows:
1. Bring together six to eight people for a two to three hour session.
2. Hand out cards, 5 by 7 inch in size and with the problem written across the top.
3. Ask the participants to silently and individually come up with as many ideas and
solutions as possible for the problem during 15 minutes.
4. Let the participants explain their ideas to the group while the facilitator writes down
one idea per participant on a flip chart or whiteboard.
5. Discuss the ideas and encourage the participants to elaborate, build upon, defend, edit
and play around with each others ideas.

6. Let everybody rank what they believe are the five best solutions on a card, the facilitator
then sums the votes up and produce a top five list (Zemke, 1993).
Research studies shows that groups using the NGT produce more ideas than groups using
traditional Brainstorming. They also produce ideas that are of higher quality (Van Nostrand
Reinhold, 1988 as cited in Zemke, 1993).
Osborns opponents
Turning the attention back to Osborns Brainstorming, some authors suggests that many of
Osborns rules and principles may in fact be less successful than what he claims. First is the
quantity-breeds-quality statement, which adheres to Osborns principle that participants
should defer judgement. The suggestion here is that asking participants to generate highquality ideas may just as well produce more high quality ideas than telling them to defer
judgement. There is also suggestions that states that the quality of ideas generated, could be
less related to the procedure and methods used or the encouragement to generate many
ideas, and more related to each individuals knowledge in the field and personality
characteristics (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988 as cited in Zemke, 1993). Nickerson (1999)
argues that there is a close relationship between creativity and expertise due to research that
shows that creative contributions in some domains have been made by people that are
knowledgeable in the field (as cited in Concalves, Cardoso & Badke-Schaub, 2013).
The optimal size of idea generation groups are also questioned. While Osborn suggested that
groups of 12 participants are the maximum, other authors suggests that groups should be of
no larger in size than eight or nine participants (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988 as cited in
Zemke, 1993). There exists however techniques that can be used if you are performing idea
generation in groups with a number of participants in the thousands, one example is the
Crawford Slip Method, invented in 1925 by a Professor C.C. Crawford at the University of
Southern California.
There are reported benefits to idea generation sessions if the group agrees on what the goals
of the session are and also the scope and nature of the problem. This can be done if the
facilitator asks the participants to list all the reasons for the session, and also their
understanding of the problem and what benefits can be gained from a possible solution. An
exercise like this should be performed in the beginning of the session and the effects gained
are increased quantity as well as quality of ideas generated (Hyams & Graham, 1984 as cited
in Boddy, 2012).

Warm-up exercises and alternative methods

Dr Amantha Imber, founder of the Australian company Inventium, argues that further
creativity gains can be experienced if the brain is allowed a warm-up. Much like athletes uses
exercises to warm up their bodies and muscles before a work-out, Imber talks about a
procedure which prepares the brain for a creative idea generation session. Her warm up
exercise is called Fat Chance and is performed as follows:
1. Divide the group into teams of two or three so that everybody can find it easy to
interact and talk to each other.
2. Present a seemingly impossible problem. Two examples of impossible problems could
be: How to achieve global consensus on one true religion by Friday? and How to
make an elevator with zero waiting time?
3. Ask them to produce at least three solutions in five minutes, and encourage the ones
who are finding it difficult by stating that the solution does not have to be logical or
sensible.
4. Let the teams present their solutions to the rest of the group.
The idea behind this exercise is that the nature and absurdity of the impossible problem
forces the participants to leave all logical solutions behind and come up with creative
solutions instead, since logical or rational ideas will probably not solve the problem
(Inventium, 2013). While she states that this exercise and its effects is based on scientific
research, no references are made so the suggestion of increased creativity should be taken
cautiously.
She also describes an idea generation method called Shifting, which is similar to the Nominal
Group Technique presented earlier but can be used when time is a premium. The basic
principle is as follows:
1. Ask the participants to generate ideas and solutions to a problem individually for five
minutes.
2. Let the participants share and discuss each others ideas for five minutes and encourage
them to modify and combine ideas.
3. Ask the participants to once more generate ideas individually for five minutes.
4. Share and discuss the new ideas that have been generated.
When psychologists at Harvard University compared two groups, one performing the stages
of Shifting, and the other one the typical Brainstorming procedure, the results showed that
Shifting produced a larger quantity of ideas and the ideas were of greater diversity (Imber,
2008). Again, no exact references are made to the Harvard research study, which affects the
trustworthiness of the statements.

3 Discussion

While conducting this study, it became obvious that creativity and group productivity are
much-debated topics. Because of the direction the industry has taken, and continues on, with
its ever-shorter product life cycles and ever-increasing desire (and need) to innovate and
outperform the competition (Filieri, 2012), there seem to be a clear need for further research
into this scientific field.
Speaking from personal experience (from the viewpoint of a final year industrial design
engineering master student), you are mostly taught about the different methods of idea
generation and collaborative problem solving, and not the underlying research that has
formed and motivated many of the methods. The term Brainstorming is often loosely talked
about not as a specific method but rather as a collection of different methods or as a stage in
the development process. I would argue that to many people, the term Brainstorming is
synonymous with idea generation. Perhaps this is part of the problem why Osborns
Brainstorming method is sometimes argued to perform worse than others, because people are
simply not adhering correctly to the rules and are modifying them too much.
Before committing to this research study, my personal viewpoint, which is largely based on
what I have been taught at the university, was that Osborns four rules or cornerstones of
Brainstorming are generally true and should be your go-to guidelines while exercising idea
generation. Perhaps this is taught because it creates a generally positive include-everyoneand-all-ideas-climate, which may be the right way to conduct education, but a question that
can be raised, and that should be addressed in further research is; when are you doing people
a disservice by accepting and approving anything, regardless of quality? I personally believe
that in order to be productive and produce innovative ideas of high quality, you need to both
feel safe in the environment, safe in expressing your ideas, safe to experiment, while also
being able to give and receive constructive criticism and feedback. If no one dares to question
any ideas or give any constructive criticism, how can you expect people to grow and develop
in their skills?
While multiple research studies shows that there is a correlation between knowledge in a
specific domain and being able to generate innovative and breakthrough ideas in that same
domain (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988 as cited in Zemke, 1993; Nickerson, 1999 as cited
in Concalves, Cardoso & Badke-Schaub, 2013), one should not neglect the importance of
including people with less knowledge in a specific domain during idea generation. However,
maybe education should teach a more transparent viewpoint on which aspects play a key role
in creativity, idea generation and and group productivity. Namely that there are large
amounts of aspects to consider, and the scientists are often not in agreement on what is true.
This because findings and theories in this topic seem to be highly colored by the authors own
viewpoint, as expressed by Arthur B. Van-Gundy Jr.; Brainstormings proponents find supportive
results, while its opponents do not. (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988 as cited in Zemke, 1993).

Since this research study has only focused on a literary review of already performed
experiments, the next step should be to conduct experiments that reflects the viewpoint
expressed in the research questions posed in this study. This would be necessary in order to
validate the findings presented in this study, since many of the arguments are based on
previous experiments that may reflect a different viewpoint.
The results presented in this study may not be as significant as to provide a large contribution
to the scientific field of creative idea generation and collaborative problem solving. But it
may provide a basic foundation of knowledge for newcomers and people who have little
previous experience around the topic. The study also raises awareness about important
research findings around commonly accepted methods, which highlights the importance of
transparency in teachings and educations around the world.

4 Conclusions

The goal for this study was to provide guidelines and tips for people who wants to evaluate
their idea generation process and also for newcomers who wants to begin explore the
possibilities of creative problem solving and idea generation.
What are the key aspects to consider when preparing and performing
a brainstorming workshop?
When preparing and performing a brainstorming workshop, there are seemingly vast
amounts of aspects to consider, but a few of these are mentioned more often than others,
which would suggest that these might be of greater importance. These are:
1. Which people are going to participate in the workshop?
Multiple sources suggest that you should greatly consider who you are inviting to
participate in an idea generation workshop. This because research findings suggest
that there is a correlation between how knowledgeable a person is in a specific
domain, and his or hers ability to generate innovative and relevant ideas and
solutions to a problem in that same domain (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988 as cited
in Zemke, 1993; Nickerson, 1999 as cited in Concalves, Cardoso & Badke-Schaub,
2013).
2. Should you let them exchange ideas or not?
Research findings from multiple sources show evidence of increased productivity if
ideas are exchanged momentarily during the idea generation process Brown et al.
1998, Hinsz et al. 1997, Nijstad, 2000; Paulus and Yang, 2000 as cited in Perttula,
Krause & Sipil, 2006). Authors seem to agree that you should begin with solitary
idea generation for a set period of time before you begin exchanging ideas. Idea
exchange does not however seem to increase the level of diversity of ideas generated,
only the amount of ideas.

3. How many people are you going to invite?

If you include too many people, and choose a method that is not well suited for the
group size, you risk having a group where some people never get the chance to speak
or do not feel confident to share. Too few people might reduce the diversity or the
number of ideas generated. While Osborn spoke of a maximum of 12 participants,
other authors seem to agree on a maximum of eight to nine participants (Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 1988 as cited in Zemke, 1993).
4. What idea generation method should you instruct them to use?
When choosing idea generation methods, you really are spoiled for choice, and the
ones featured in this research study only represents a small portion of those available.
Based on the findings of this study, a method that incorporates both solitary and
collaborative idea generation should be considered, for example Nominal Group
Technique or Shifting.
How would you plan and conduct a brainstorming workshop in order
to enhance creativity and idea generation?
Because all situations are different from each other and therefore require different tactics,
there is no single correct answer. But based on the findings from this study, and my
personal experience in using some of the methods discussed, a suggested plan could be as
follows:
1. Choose a maximum of eight to nine participants. Carefully select and mix participants
who are both knowledgeable in the domain and also whom you think will be able to
cooperate with each other. I personally suggest including a few wild cards, these
people may not be as knowledgeable in the domain as the others, but they are mostly
there to inspire the rest and to view things from an outsiders perspective. If possible,
you should consider choosing people that have positive personalities and that are
perhaps not the most stubborn of people.
2. Divide them into pairs or groups of three and perform a brain warm-up exercise called
Fat Chance (as described earlier).
3. Depending on how much time you have, you can choose an appropriate idea
generation method. If you are short on time you can for example use Shifting, and if
available time is plentiful, you could use the Nominal Group Technique.

5 References

Boddy, C. (2012). The Nominal Group Technique: an aid to Brainstorming ideas in

research. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 15(1), pp. 6-18.
Filieri, R. (2012). Consumer co-creation and new product development: a case study in the
food industry. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 31(1), pp. 40-53.
Herrman, N. (1981). The Creative Brain. Training and Development Journal, 35(10), pp. 10-16.
Imber, A. (2008). Why brainstorming is bollocks. Contagious(16).
Inventium. (2013, February 20). Creative Thinking and Ideas. Elwood, VIC, Australia.
Kappel, T. A., & Rubenstein, A. H. (1999). Creativity in Design: The Contribution of
Information Technology. Transactions on Engineering Management, 46(2), pp. 132-143.
Perttula, M., Krause, C., & Sipil, P. (2006). Does idea exchange promote productivity in
design idea generation? CoDesign, 2(3), pp. 125-138.
Ray, D. K., & Romano Jr., N. C. (2012). Creative Problem Solving in GSS Groups: Do
Creative Styles Matter? Group Decision and Negotiation, 22(6), pp. 1129-1157.
Seibert, K. B., & Kleiner, B. H. (1991). Right Brain Approach to Time Management.
Management Decision, 29(4), pp. 46-48.
Smets, G., & Overbeeke, K. (1994). Industrial design engineering and the theory of direct
perception. Design Studies, 15(2), pp. 175-184.
Sowrey, T. (1990). Idea Generation: Identifying the Most Useful Techniques. European
Journal of Marketing, 24(5), 20-29.
Zemke, R. (1993, January 30). In search of... Training, pp. 46-51.

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