Towards a More Realistic Creative Problem Solving Approach

Abstract

This paper takes a closer look at the existing multi-step diamond shaped models for creative problem solving (CPS). A case history of a real-life technical problem in which CPS techniques were used is our source of inspiration for some new ideas about approaching CPS. We propose three concurrent processes: Content finding, Acceptance finding and Information finding. In concrete in-company projects, these three processes need to be managed simultaneously, which leads to a fourth overarching process: project management. Content finding is concerned with the process the creative session members are going through based on people's own active knowledge and ideas and on sharing their mental models to get new ideas. Acceptance finding is concerned with the co-creation of new and additional mental systems that are needed for bringing new ideas into good currency within the existing organization and goes beyond agreement on implementation plans. Information finding is concerned with gathering additional knowledge on the ideas that are not readily available during the session. Finally, Project management is concerned with organizing and leading the creative session and in the embedding of the project into the larger organization.

Full text

Towards a More Realistic Creative
Problem Solving Approachcaim_541 286..298
Jan Buijs, Frido Smulders and Han van der Meer
This paper takes a closer look at the existing multi-step diamond shaped models for creative
problem solving (CPS). A case history of a real-life technical problem in which CPS techniques
were used is our source of inspiration for some new ideas about approaching CPS. We propose
three concurrent processes: Content finding, Acceptance finding and Information finding. In
concrete in-company projects, these three processes need to be managed simultaneously,
which leads to a fourth overarching process: project management. Content finding is con-
cerned with the process the creative session members are going through based on people’s
own active knowledge and ideas and on sharing their mental models to get new ideas.
Acceptance finding is concerned with the co-creation of new and additional mental systems
that are needed for bringing new ideas into good currency within the existing organization
and goes beyond agreement on implementation plans. Information finding is concerned with
gathering additional knowledge on the ideas that are not readily available during the session.
Finally, Project management is concerned with organizing and leading the creative session
and in the embedding of the project into the larger organization.
Introduction
In 1967 Parnes introduced his famous model
of creative problem solving (CPS) based on
the original work of Osborn (1993 [1953]) in
which the separation of the divergent and con-
vergent phases were one of the principles of
CPS. Parnes’ five stages approach to CPS is
outlined in Figure 1. In their overview article,
Isaksen and Treffinger (2004) describe the 50
years of development of the CPS model. They
label the model in Figure 1 as CPS version 2.2
(the original Osborn model of 1953 is seen as
version 1.0).
For many practitioners this classical five-
stage linear approach of CPS raised questions
like:
• Is it really linear, i.e., step 1 followed by step
2, followed by step 3? (Isaksen & Dorval,
1993; Isaksen, Puccio & Treffinger, 1993;
Geschka & Lantelme, 2005).
• Is it US biased? Is Acceptance finding at the
end of the process fitting the US masculine
culture and less the more feminine Euro-
pean cultures such as the Dutch? (van der
Meer, 2001).
• Is it too much content oriented? Four stages
are devoted to content and only one to
Acceptance finding (Boer & During, 2001).
At the 4th European Creativity and Innovation
Conference (ECCI-IV in Darmstadt, Germany),
Isaksen and Dorval (1993) reported on a new
view on the CPS process (see also Isaksen,
Puccio & Treffinger, 1993). They noted that
most self-reported processes by practitioners
were more or less spiral types in contrast to
the strict linear types from theory. In their con-
ference contribution, they mentioned three
developmental waves. First came the original
Osborn/Parnes development of a logical five-
stage CPS process model. This was followed by
a second period of expansion and strengthen-
ing of the model, followed by, in the third
wave, the questioning of the linear sequence of
the stages of the CPS model. They suggested a
new way of looking at the CPS process; the
so-called ecological view. There are four major
components:
1. Understanding the problem.
2. Generating ideas.
3. Planning for action.
4. Task appraisal.
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Dependent on the key component ‘Task
appraisal’, one of the three other activities is
tackled first, and, depending how this is
executed, the task will be ended, postponed or
restarted again or one of the other activities is
tackled (see Figure 2). Looking at the Isaksen
and Treffinger historical overview (2004), the
model in Figure 2 is an in-between version
of CPS version 5.0 and the latest version 6.1
(see Figure 3).
The increasing interest in CPS in the 1980s
and 1990s has already drawn attention to the
weakness of a strictly linear stage model. The
dynamic nature of the process was anticipated
by Schön (1983). Rickards (1974) described
each application of a CPS technique as a learn-
ing process he called creative analysis. Basadur
(1994) and Puccio and his team (e.g., Puccio,
Murdock & Mance, 2005 and Puccio et al.,
2006) have also moved towards a less strict
linear approach. This is best illustrated in the
6.1 version of CPS (see Figure 3).
Again there are four basic elements:
1. Planning your approach.
2. Understanding the challenge.
3. Generating ideas.
4. Preparing for action.
These four elements are interdependent and
do not have to occur in a fixed sequence.
Important in Planning the approach is the
design of the process to be followed during
the creative session based on the situational
appraisal of the task. During Understanding the
challenge the problem will be framed, data will
be explored and opportunities will be con-
structed. Generating ideas is the traditional core
of CPS. And finally in Preparing for action the
ideas are developed into solutions and accep-
tance for them has to be built.
Our questioning of the CPS approach is a
little bit different. We agree on the non-linear
approach, we do see the different interdepen-
dent steps, but we also see important activities
outside the traditional CPS process, and we
feel the need to link the creative process to the
overall corporate innovation process. These
outside activities, executed in parallel or in
sequence, are of equal importance to, and are
also influencing, the more inside, say, normal
CPS activities.
We start with a case history of a technical
problem as an inspiration for our discussion
(the first author of this paper was a participant
in this case). The case runs from understand-
ing the problem towards trying to implement
the different solutions. The CPS approach itself
was successful, but the implementation was a
Figure 1. The Classical Five-Stage Creative Problem Solving Model
Source: Parnes, 1967.
Generating ideas
Understanding
the problem
Planning for
action
Task
appraisal
Figure 2. The Ecological Creative Problem
Solving Model
Source: Isaksen & Dorval, 1993.
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failure. Reflecting on this case inspired us to
come up with some modifications and adjust-
ments we think may be able to improve the
latest version 6.1 of the CPS model.
Bio-Excavator Case
The Bio-excavator is an example of applying
CPS techniques to a real-life technical
problem. The case is nearly 30 years old and
will be described anonymously. Sometimes
people question the use of an old case, because
more recent cases could be viewed as being
more modern and up to date, and can include
the latest insights. This historical perspective,
however, offers the opportunity to give a
detached overview of what can happen during
a CPS process. It leaves out some potentially
disruptive factors, and concentrates on what
really matters.
The client organization in this case is the
world market leader in dredging. The type
of dredging or excavating in this case is done
with ships equipped with a large cutting
wheel on which a number of big teeth
are located, a so-called self-propelled cutter
suction dredger (see Figure 4). These ships can
be quite large: an overall length of 160 m, a
beam of 29 m and a draught of about 10 m.
They can have a hopper capacity up to 20,000
cubic meters and can execute dredging activi-
ties up to 100 m deep. They need a crew of
about 40 persons.
The cutter head breaks the soil, and the
debris is sucked into the ship through tubes.
The water is pumped out of the ship and the
remaining soil can later be dropped some-
where in a safe place. Because of the hardness of
the soil at some locations, the wear and tear of
the teeth can be considerable. The replacement
Figure 3. Version 6.1 of the Creative Problem Solving Model
Source: Isaksen & Treffinger, 2004.
Figure 4. Self-Propelled Cutter Suction Dredging Ship
The cutter head is shown right under the bow. The ship can be temporarily fixed to the ground via the
retractable pole(s) at the left. The debris is pumped through the tube to the hold of the ship. The hoisting pole
for maneuvering the cutter head is positioned right on the bow.
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of the teeth is a big issue. They have to hoist the
cutter head to the surface and replace the teeth.
Each replacement interrupts the dredging
process.
The dredging company had both its own
R&D department as well as the manufacturer
of the teeth (a Swedish company), to ask for
solutions to solve this wear and tear problem.
The ideal solution would be to use only one
cutter head for the total 20,000 m3capacity of
the ship, so the replacement of the teeth and
discharging of the debris would be simulta-
neous. Their actual and practical ambition was
a duration time which was twice as long as
the present one. The ideal solution would
request a leap of nearly 100 times the present
one. Neither the R&D department nor the
Swedish partner company was able to find a
good solution.
The R&D director was the problem owner
and the product champion: he wanted to
achieve this ambitious goal. In his search for
help, he approached an innovation consul-
tancy. An important part of their methodology
was the application of CPS techniques.
Their first action was a training session
with people from the dredging company. The
participants, besides the R&D director, were
marine engineers, dredging specialists, mate-
rial scientists and crew members of dredging
ships. In a one-week training programme, the
basic CPS procedures (divergence and conver-
gence), the different CPS stages (see Parnes,
1967: problem orientation, problem defini-
tion, idea generation, idea selection, solution
finding) and all major creativity techniques
(brainstorming, brainwriting, synectics and
morphology) were taught. This training was a
standard product offered by the consultancy.
No specific attention was paid to dredging
or excavating. Two experienced creativity
consultants were the CPS trainers. One had
his training from the Manchester Business
School, UK (Rickards, 1974), the other was
trained by the Creative Problem Solving Insti-
tute at Buffalo, USA. (By the way these two
consultants are not contributing to this paper.)
The training ended with the execution of
the first CPS stage, problem finding for the
excavating problem (see Figures 5 and 6).
Numerous problem definitions were gener-
ated. Examples are:
• how to attack rocks?
• how to excavate by hand?
• how to swallow earth?
• how to make soil digestible?
• how to train fish to eat the soil?
• how to make soil solvable?
• how to become Moses to split the earth?
These problem definitions formed the start-
ing points for the idea generation which was
scheduled some weeks later.
Figure 5. Simplified Image of the Problem: Removing Rocks from the Ocean Floor
Note: this is the original drawing, including the text in Dutch [golven =waves, grond =soil].
Figure 6. A Drawing Showing the Present Dominant Mental Thinking Process of the Dredging
Engineers: Always Thinking from the Ship. Why not start thinking from the rocks or from the sea?
[technische denkrichting =dominant focus of thoughts]
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The participants spent some time thinking
about analogous situations and about poten-
tial experts in those analogous domains.
Based on the problem definition on attacking
rocks, a representative of the military was
suggested. Another suggestion was a dentist
(can we expand his drilling techniques to a
larger scale?), and, of course, a biologist was
suggested to find out how animals make
holes or how plants get their roots in the
right place. Mimicking nature has always
been a good source for creative inspiration
(Benyus, 1997) (e.g., how does Woody Wood-
pecker make holes in trees without getting
a headache and without changing his beak
every day?).
The three-day idea-generating session was
organized a couple of weeks later. Besides
the external analogy experts and the CPS-
trained dredging people, some additional
people were invited to join the session. The
extra invitees were employees of the dredg-
ing company, including some members of the
board of directors. Also invited were two col-
leagues of the consultants acting as so-called
‘standard laymen’. In their approach, ‘stan-
dard laymen’ are persons well educated and
skilled in CPS, but completely unfamiliar
with the problem at hand. For the leading
consultants they offer informal support from
within the problem solving groups, they can
help keep the creative sparks going (the first
author was one of those ‘standard laymen’).
In total some 30 participants were active,
including secretaries to produce the report.
The two consultants who did the training
were the leading facilitators.
The period in-between the training and the
idea-generating session was used to invite
the analogy experts, to prepare them for their
roles, to give them a little background infor-
mation about CPS and to get them involved in
the dredging problem.
During the three-day session hundreds
of ideas were generated. The analogy experts
were interviewed by the participants. Their
stories proved to be important inputs for
the different idea-generating sessions. For
instance, the biologist told a story about an
interesting ecosystem in Helgoland, Denmark.
The sandstone soil of Helgoland is ‘used’ by
a small worm, the Polydora, who ‘drills’ holes
into the soil. By doing so he weakens the sand-
stone. The other player in this ecosystem is a
sea-hedgehog. This sea-hedgehog is fond of
eating Polydoras, but the Polydoras are hidden
in their own drilling holes. Luckily, the sea-
hedgehog has strong claws and is able to open
up the weakened soil. He breaks away the
sandstone and eats the Polydoras. If a solitary
Polydora had done this, his life would have
been saved, but Polydoras live in large groups,
and together they weaken the sandstone.
Thus, they are a ready prey for the sea-
hedgehogs. This story led immediately to an
interesting idea: why not attack the soil in
two stages? Figures 7 and 8 show the resulting
idea.
Not all analogy stories had this immediate
result, but all proved to be inspirational. The
ideas were clustered into groups of potential
solutions with similar characteristics. On
the last day ideas were improved, given
priorities and evaluated. First plans of future
actions are to develop the ideas emerged.
In the following months the most promis-
ing ideas were developed further by the
dredging company. The creativity consultants
were no longer involved in this part of the
project.
Figure 7. A First Vehicle Drills Holes in the Soil
[1ekarretje =1st trolley; hydraulish scharnier =
hydraulic hinge; boortjes over het gehele vlak
=surface covered with small drills]
Figure 8. A Second Vehicle Scrapes the Weakened
Soil. In a Series of Loops Both Vehicles Together
Can Achieve the Desired Result.
[2ekarretje =2nd trolley; schrape analoog
beitels: egel =sharp scraper]
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It was intriguing that even the biologist was
not able to tell how the Polydora made his
holes in the sandstone. Was it really ‘drilling’
or was it something else? Was it mechanical by
chewing or chemical by spitting? And this was
true for most biological analogies which were
addressed. So an important additional devel-
opmental activity was carried out at the Uni-
versity of Groningen. The biology expert was
professor at that university. He got a research
contract to investigate all kinds of mechanisms
sea animals use to make or drill holes. It took
one and a half years for this investigation.
Some animals do, indeed, use mechanical
means, some others chemical means, and yet
others use a combination. The forms and shape
of claws, teeth and beaks were investigated,
compared and judged on their efficiency or
effectiveness. Some useful ideas for different
shapes for the teeth of the dredging machines
were suggested.
The R&D director was very enthusiastic
about these ideas from nature. Top manage-
ment was as well and published about the Bio-
excavator in its annual report. They gave the
order to build some ‘bio-prototypes’. But the
Acceptance finding inside the R&D depart-
ment and the shipyard unexpectedly proved
to be inadequate. In the dialogue between the
client and the consultants there had been no
discussion about paying extra attention to the
Acceptance finding, because this was at that
time considered to be outside all CPS assign-
ments. The dominant (and naïve) view in those
days was that accepted ideas were automati-
cally implemented. However, the marine engi-
neers and the dredging specialists could not
stand the idea that a biologist could come up
with good ideas in their domain. They did not
officially refuse to build prototypes, but all
prototypes broke, could not be fixed, or the
data went ‘spontaneously’ missing. The R&D
director could not change this resistance-to-
change attitude, got insufficient support from
the board of directors, and finally gave up. The
project was cancelled, and not even any of the
intermediate results were ever implemented.
The R&D director resigned and became pro-
fessor at a business school. The Bio-excavator
was an interesting and challenging idea, but
the reality of corporate innovation proved to be
even tougher!
The total project had a duration time of three
months for all the CPS activities (October–
December 1980; the report was produced
in January 1981). Investigating the different
kinds of excavating mechanisms in nature took
one and a half years. The struggle inside the
company with building the prototypes took
another year. So in total this case lasted nearly
three years.
Our Case-Based Inspiration: From a
Single CPS Process to a Series of
Multiple Parallel Sub-Processes
The Bio-excavator case shows that three differ-
ent sub-processes can be distinguished:
1. The Content finding process itself, including
CPS training and the real problem solving.
2. The process of Acceptance finding, which
proved insufficient at certain organizational
levels, leading to the failure in this case.
3. The process of additional Information
finding, extra information which could be
used to influence and stimulate the problem
solving process on the content level.
In more detail these three processes look like
the following.
Content Finding
This is the process where the participants
build on the content of the idea during the
CPS session. This sub-process resembles the
first four steps of the classical CPS approach
(Fact finding, Problem finding, Idea finding
and Solution finding). We define content as the
result of thinking and sharing within the
group of participants during a creative session.
It is based on their actual knowledge, as cap-
tured in their mental models.
Acceptance Finding
During and in parallel to the building of
content, another process should be going on:
Acceptance finding. This process starts right at
the beginning of each innovation project by
staffing the innovation team. But also a care-
fully designed and executed programme of
informing others in the organization to share
the generated knowledge should be part of
this sub-process. One can argue that first stage
of Fact finding could be part of this Acceptance
finding.
Information Finding
In the classic CPS model, Fact finding is the
first stage of the linear process. Only the par-
ticipants share their information amongst each
other. As the case shows us, there is also Infor-
mation finding going on to get extra informa-
tion from the outside world to the project (the
investigation on the ‘drilling’ mechanisms of
the animals). This external information helps
to enlarge or enrich the original mental models
of the participants.
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The Embedding of a CPS Session in
the Larger Organizational Context
There is a fourth process running parallel to
the CPS activities: the project management
process. Puccio, Murdock and Mance (2007)
mention that project management tools can
be linked to the CPS process while planning
the approach. Here we go one step further by
making project management the overarching
process needed to organize and manage the
various activities of the CPS sessions itself,
and to get the results embedded in the larger
organizational and innovation context. The
Bio-excavator is a large project for the dredg-
ing company with an approved budget and
defined reporting lines and with many people
involved. For the consultants it is an ordinary
project. Just two consultants, who provided
a standard training programme and rolled
out a normal idea-generation session. For the
biology professor it is yet another project. How
does it fit in his academic teaching programme
and can he produce scientific publications
based on this research?
All parties needed input from each other
and their different styles and their different
results influenced each other: all in all a
complicated interdependency. There was not
really one overall project manager who was
responsible for getting the results and for
managing all these interfaces. The R&D direc-
tor was the central hub, but he had given the
project leadership to one of his subordinates.
This project leader acted as liaison officer for
the consultants and the biologist, but was not
responsible for their results. And he needed
their results to get things done inside the
dredging company. The more or less autono-
mous execution of the sub-projects was a
major contributory factor to the final dis-
appointing result.
This case shows that CPS is much more
than just a sequence of brainstorming ses-
sions within a linear CPS process. In retro-
spect, the Content finding looks the easiest part
of the job. Acceptance finding was somehow
overlooked as being important at every stage
in the process, and not just at the end.
However, our knowledge and understanding
of Acceptance finding was, and still is, very
limited. (Note: idea implementation i.e.,
‘making it happen’) is the main subject of the
11th European Conference on Creativity and
Innovation, organized in Brussels in October
2009.) The case also shows that Information
finding can cause long duration times, and
that all these three sub-processes should be
managed within one centralized project man-
agement approach.
Our Proposal: Adjustments to the
Osborn/Parnes Approach
Inspired by our case, we can distinguish three
parallel sub-processes: Content finding,Accep-
tance finding and Information finding, plus one
overarching fourth process: Project manage-
ment – so once again a four-element approach,
like version 6.1 of CPS (see Figure 9).
We see Content finding and Acceptance
finding as the ‘normal’ inside CPS processes,
while Information finding and Project manage-
ment (a kind of task appraisal on a higher
level) can be seen as our new outside additions
to the CPS model. Even Acceptance finding can
be seen as partly an outside CPS activity.
Content Finding
For the Content finding step we follow the line
of reasoning of Geschka and Lantelme (2005).
In their modular approach, they propose a
standard building block in which all the stages
of content finding are split and compressed.
Figure 10 shows the basic module for content
finding (which, in their view, is applied to fact
finding, problem finding, idea finding as well
as solution finding).
Tassoul and Buijs (2007) argue for an extra
stage of clustering between all divergent and
convergent stages. In their opinion, clustering
is neither a form of diverging (you do not add
new ideas) nor a form of converging (you do
not discard any ideas). Clustering is seen as
a separate in-between step just for ordering
the ideas in understandable and recognizable
categories (see Figure 11).
If we put the ideas of Geschka and Lantelme
and Tassoul and Buijs together, this will lead
to the basic module in the Content finding
Figure 9. Findings from the Bio-Case: Three Inter-
Dependent Processes Concurrently Managed as
One Integrated Project – Content Finding, Accep-
tance Finding and Information Finding
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process of our approach for CPS, as shown
in Figure 12. The basic module has five steps.
The module starts with describing the task for
this module. This step resembles the problem
finding stage. Where in the Osborn/Parnes
model this is a single step for the total CPS
project, in our proposal it is the start of each
module. After this, task setting follows the
process of divergence, clustering and conver-
gence. After converging, reflecting on the
results achieved takes place in the last step of
the module. In this closing step also decisions
are made on how to take the results further.
This can be a single step forward, thus result-
ing in a more or less linear approach. But more
often, as in the Bio-excavator case, it will lead
to two or more simultaneous modules or
redoing several elements of the original
Content finding. This modular approach allows
us to design the content finding part of a con-
crete project in both a flexible (modular) and a
structured way (the module itself).
Acceptance Finding
Acceptance finding is most critical for new ideas
to find their way further into the organization
and further downstream in the innovation
process. As the case indicates, acceptance
within the company was not spread equally
over all hierarchical layers. Top management
and the R&D manager were very enthusiastic.
They had accepted the idea of investing in this
line of research and were willing to spend a
considerable part of the R&D budget on that.
However, the R&D engineers and the ship-
yard workers seemed not to be happy about
mimicking the ‘technology’ of some kind of
little creature in order to arrive at a dredg-
ing apparatus 10,000 times the size of the
Polydora.
Two issues that are frequently mentio-
ned in relation to Acceptance finding are
not-invented-here and resistance-to-change
(Katz and Allen, 1982; Couger, 1995). The not-
invented-here syndrome points towards a
situation where people do not want to work
with ideas that they have not generated them-
selves. In the Bio-excavator case, some of the
R&D people had been involved in the brain-
storming activities and could have witnessed
and maybe even contributed to the birth of this
new idea. Still they showed little enthusiasm
in bringing the idea to reality. However, it
could be the case that they did accept the idea
of using Polydora’s excavating qualities as
inspiration for developing a new dredging
technology, but for some reason were not able
to do so at the right level of proficiency.
Divergence
Clustering
Convergence
Figure 11. The Diverging–Clustering–Converg-
ing Module
Source: Tassoul & Buijs, 2007.
task
result
divergence
convergence
Task appraisal
Generate options
Select options
Share results, reflecting
Determing next steps
clustering
Inventorizing,
considering
& ordening
Figure 12. The Basic Module of Content Finding
task
result
divergence
convergence
Focus on task
Generate ideas
Select options
Share results
Decide on next step
Figure 10. Basic Module of Content Finding
Source: Geschka and Lantelme, 2005.
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Now to the second issue: resistance-to-
change. According to Kim (1993), the vast majo-
rity of an organization’s knowledge resides
within the mental models of the individual
employees. Mental models are built up over
many years of education, training, experience
and work (Cannon-Bowers, Salas & Converse,
1993; Kim, 1993; Mohammed & Dumville,
2001); they become ingrained with a very deep
understanding of the specialized line of work
and enable people to carry out their work effec-
tively and efficiently. But mental models cover
not only thought activities and frameworks,
but also action patterns. In particular, routine
behaviour is considered to be part of, and inte-
grated with, the knowledge structures residing
in the mental models (Kim, 1993).
The dredging company is aiming to imple-
ment a disruptive innovation that requires
the R&D actors and the shipyard workers
to develop a new way of reasoning around a
new framework of knowledge that comes with
mimicking the drilling qualities of the Poly-
dora. This biological world is totally new to
them in terms of knowledge and logic, and
therefore requires the actors to develop a new
or additional mental model. It is not unthink-
able that the actors even have to unlearn some
of their knowledge and routines related to the
existing dredging technology. The process of
acquiring such an additional mental model
with profound understanding is time consum-
ing and therefore needs careful attention and
monitoring by the management at any time,
not just at the beginning of any creative
process, but also during the later stages of
the innovation process (Hultink & Atuahene-
Gima, 2000; Smulders, 2006, 2007). The further
away the new logics and behaviour are from
the existing situation, the longer it will take.
Managers must be able to ‘read’ the transition
that the actors are involved in, in order to
prevent mistakenly perceiving the slow and
inconsistent behaviour of the actors for resis-
tance to change. This could very well have
been the situation for the shipbuilders because,
in order to build the prototypes, they needed
to adapt their way of working by understand-
ing the logic of the totally new concept of the
Bio-excavator. Thus, it is not surprising that
these shipbuilders made mistakes during con-
struction and might not have been adequately
briefed regarding the testing of these proto-
types. It is suggested by Smulders, Lousberg
and Dorst (2008) that actors with different
mindsets and viewpoints within a collabora-
tive design project need to be able to engage in
different forms of communication as opposed
having to more communication.
Besides resistance-to-change and the not-
invented-here syndrome, another aspect of
Acceptance finding is the selection of the people
who are to become participants in the Content
finding process. In the Bio-case the shipbuild-
ing engineers were not asked to participate,
because their knowledge was believed not
to be of any use at that stage. However, this
proved later to be an important undervaluation
of their future role in the innovation process,
because they were essential for building the
prototypes! Getting these people involved
can be seen as an Acceptance finding activity
outside the core CPS process.
We can argue now that the task appraisal
of the Acceptance finding process was underes-
timated, and that the search for relevant par-
ticipants for the session was limited to only a
handful of people.
Information Finding
We make a strict distinction between Con-
tent finding and Information finding. Content
finding is the result of the thinking process
that takes place among the participants
during the CPS sessions itself. The knowl-
edge, experiences and ideas that are shared
are based on the direct information they have
in their memories. It is instant knowledge
sharing, based on their existing mental
models.
As soon as one of the participants starts his
laptop to google something, e.g., the sizes of
dredging ships, we call this Information finding.
Information finding is the process of adding
external information to the CPS process. It is
external in the sense that it is outside of the
direct memories and mental models of the
participants.
External information can be divided into
four categories:
1. Existing information which is publicly
available and more or less free to get, e.g.,
books, journals or patents (easy to find on
Google).
2. Existing information which is publicly
available and which you have to pay for,
e.g., trend analysis reports or industry
reports of banks and government agencies
(the providers of such information are also
easy to find on Google).
3. Existing information which is classified,
e.g., market research reports of the compe-
tition or memberships of private clubs
(even Google does not have this kind of
information).
4. New information and knowledge which
does not yet exist, e.g., the investigation of
marine life that is making holes or doing an
ethnographic study into the behaviour of
the future users of your new product.
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Sometimes this Information finding can be
quick and will be easily fed into the Content
finding process, e.g., when googling some
external information during the creative
session (type 1 and 2 information). Other times
it may take years to get the results of type 4
information. Remember the one and a half
years it took to complete the investigation of
the ‘drilling’ sea animals. And type 3 informa-
tion will always be nearly impossible to get,
if at all.
In particular, the long duration time of
Information finding can have a great influence
on Acceptance finding. The Bio-excavator case
illustrates this nicely. For the people inside the
dredging company the research into marine
life was not only invisible (because it was
carried out at the University of Groningen),
but it was also outside their domain of knowl-
edge and expertise. And when the needed
information was finally delivered, only a few
people in the dredging company remembered
the reason why they asked this strange profes-
sor to do this even stranger investigation.
Nobody was waiting for this information any
more. They were busy with other projects, and
they had now other priorities. And if they
were reminded of the Bio-excavator project,
they had to fit this new and strange informa-
tion into their mental models of shipbuilding.
Neglecting the influence of this long-lasting
Information finding on Acceptance finding is
surely also a reason for the failure of the
Bio-case.
Towards a More Realistic
CPS Approach
The three parallel processes of Content finding,
Acceptance finding and Information finding not
only influence each other, they are also mutu-
ally dependent. In fact, one could see Content
finding as a process of sharing the knowledge
that resides within the existing mental models
of the participants of the sessions. Information
finding then becomes the process of deliber-
ately enriching the existing mental models
by bringing in new information. Acceptance
finding is a process of sharing knowledge by
focusing on the change process that all session
actors and especially the non-session stake-
holders have to go through in order to be able
to bring the new idea further towards comple-
tion. The final result of creativity and inno-
vation processes is to be seen as a new or
changed socio-technical reality that not only
includes the content in terms of the new arti-
fact, but also includes the network of comple-
mentary mental models belonging to all the
actors involved (Smulders, 2006). Project man-
agement is a process of acting as an overall task
appraisal for the total CPS and innovation
project, as well as managing all activities in
this project (including the selection of the
participants).
We think that the basic module for Content
finding (CF) (Figure 12) is also applicable
for the processes of Acceptance finding (AF) and
Information finding (IF). All three processes
start with their own specific task appraisal,
followed by the divergence, clustering and
convergence steps and end with a reflection
on what has been achieved. And the same is
true for the Project management process. So this
leads to our idea for a new model of the total
CPS approach (see Figure 13). Given our way
of visualizing only in the three CPS-related
sub-processes (CF, AF and IF), the modular
approach (Figure 11) is shown. But also
the project management process is struc-
tured according to this standard module. In
Figure 13, however, it is now shown as an
embracing element, in which the results of
the sub-processes are reported back and after
reflection can act as starting points for
re-doing certain steps, stages or complete
sub-processes.
This new model fits with the ideas of
Donald Schön about the reflective practitioner
(1983). Schön argues that, based on their
knowledge, professionals will evaluate a situ-
ation, and based on that judgement (=task
appraisal) will start relevant actions. After
these actions (always the full cycle of diver-
gence, clustering and convergence), they will
reflect on the results of those actions. Depend-
ing on the qualities of the results, they will
decide to go on to a next step (if the results
Figure 13. The Proposed Model for the Creative
Problem Solving Process. The project management
process is organizing the three parallel sub-
processes of Content finding, Acceptance finding
and Information finding.
TOWARDS A MORE REALISTIC CPS APPROACH 295
Volume 18 Number 4 2009
© 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

are okay), to redo the action, or to reframe
the original situation (in both situations if the
results are not okay).
For instance, if the facilitator has started
with the Content finding process and the results
are poor, he can decide to stop and to take up
the Acceptance finding and select extra partici-
pants or to start an Information finding process
to get external information to clarify the origi-
nal situation. After finishing this, the Content
finding process can be restarted.
We deliberately did not include in
Figure 13 the labels of the three interdepen-
dent processes (CF, AF or IF), because you
can start with any of the three, and that the
theoretical order is not necessarily what will
happen in reality. The facilitator uses the
reflections of each module to steer his project
management module and vice versa. In
addition to the countless sequences of the
three CPS sub-processes in version 6.1 (see
Figure 3), we see countless sequences of all
our four processes.
All different sequences are equally likely to
be encountered in real-life problem solving
situations, but in our opinion it should always
start with the Project management process. If
the facilitator starts talking with the problem
owner about budget and time, it is project
management. If he then asks who are other
relevant stakeholders and invites them to join
the session, the Acceptance finding process has
been started. But he could also have opted to
get some extra information about the problem-
as-given, and an Information finding process
has been started. And in another situation
he could have started right away with Con-
tent finding, because he is familiar with the
problem. So we think that not only all possible
sequences will take place, but that sequences
will also vary and change because of the
achieved (partial) content and the qualities of
the participants. For instance, finding analogy
experts is, on the one hand, an extra Informa-
tion finding process, but it could also lead to an
extra Acceptance finding process, and using
them will definitely change the content of the
Content finding process.
We realize that our new model will not
make professional life easier, but it will pro-
bably make it more realistic. To be more
precise, in executing one (sub)- process the
need for starting one of the other processes is
embedded. In the paper on being a leader of
innovation processes, Buijs (2007) used the
yin-yang symbol to imagine this embed-
dedness. Now with the suggested modular
approach for all four processes, we can add
another image: the so-called Droste effect.
According to (the English version) Wikipedia,
the Droste effect is a Dutch term for a recur-
sive (visual) picture, which means that in
seeing one picture another smaller version
of that same picture is already visible (the
Dutch artist Escher is well known for this).
So our integrated CPS approach does not
only show the embeddedness of all processes
in themselves, but with the modular
approach it also shows that each module
has a Droste effect on the other (see
Figure 14).
Further Research
In this article we propose to change the present
CPS models into a more realistic model
with four interdependent processes: Content
Figure 14. The Two Inspirational Images of our Proposed Creative Problem Solving Approach. On the left,
the yin-yang symbol to show the embeddings of one (sub)-process in the other; and on the right, the Droste
effect to show the modular approach in each of the modules.
296 CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
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finding,Acceptance finding,Information finding
and Project management. We suggest a modular
approach for all four processes, including for
the overarching Project management process. By
doing so, we challenge the strict separation
between the traditional CPS activities and the
total corporate innovation process.
We argued that Acceptance finding is more
than just an agreement on an implementation
plan, and suggested that actors really get the
time to co-create new and additional mental
models that help them to bring the innovation
into good currency. As nobody has ever seen
a mental model, further research aimed at
describing the social processes at the inter-
subjective level is needed. Another direction of
research could be aimed at building models
of the interdependencies among the three pro-
cesses and the way to organize the interfaces
between the processes. This could lead to char-
acterizing certain problem situations in such
a way that more efficient process sequences
could be chosen and applied. Also special
attention is needed for both task appraisal as
well as the reflection step within the proposed
standard module. A particular problem is how
to get the right quality in these two steps
(which are the two embedded starting points
of the yin-yang process).
Conclusion
The proposed approach of three simultaneous
processes for CPS and one overarching project
management process allows us to see the equal
importance of content, information and accep-
tance finding under one project management
umbrella. Our main message is to realize
that any CPS activity should be focused
on managing all three symbiotically linked
sub-processes simultaneously. For successful
innovation to happen, one process cannot do
without the other.
In this paper we have also pleaded for
seeing creativity and innovation as processes
that are aiming at creating a new social-
technical reality that is constructed by the
interactions among all actors involved and that
resides within their new mental models. In our
opinion, it is the responsibility of all stake-
holders to play an active role in managing the
human side of CPS. This perspective will help
us to design innovation projects in a more bal-
anced way, resulting in more implemented dis-
continuous innovations.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Tudor Rick-
ards for his positive reactions immediately
after the Buffalo 2008 conference and his
stimulation to use the rich story of the Bio-
excavator case, the three anonymous reviewers
for their useful comments and Lobke van Erve
for her help in finalizing this paper.
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Jan Buijs (j.a.buijs@tudelft.nl) is professor
and chair in Product Innovation and Cre-
ativity at the Faculty of Industrial Design
Engineering at the Delft University of Tech-
nology. He has been active for more than 30
years as a teacher, researcher and consult-
ant. His current research interests include
the behaviour of multidisciplinary innova-
tion and creativity teams and the relation-
ship between branding and New Product
Development.
Frido Smulders (PhD) (f.e.h.m.
smulders@tudelft.nl) is assistant professor
of Innovation Management at the Faculty of
Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft
University of Technology. He has been
active in the field of creativity and innova-
tion for 20 years, the first part of his career
as an innovation and creativity manage-
ment consultant, and the last 10 years
mainly as an academic focusing on research
and teaching. His current research focuses
on the socio-interactive dimension during
the early phases of (product) innovation.
Han van der Meer (j.d.vandermeer@
tudelft.nl) works as lecturer in innovative
entrepreneurship at Saxion University, as
assistant professor in Innovation Manage-
ment at the Delft University of Technology,
and has his own consulting firm (Van der
Meer & van Tilburg).
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