Episode 170 – Integrating Creative Problem Solving and Project Management

The podcast by project managers for project managers. The creative problem-solving process is far beyond simply generating ideas, and the project manager’s role is critical in the process. Dr. Amy Climer shares how to increase creativity to maximize innovation. Hear how to facilitate the clarify/ideate/develop stages of the creative problem-solving process to a successful implementation.

Table of Contents

02:43 … Meet Amy04:00 … “I’m Not Creative!”05:29 … Practice Creativity06:42 … Strengthen Problem Solving Skills07:46 … Solving the Right Problem11:30 … Be Willing to Change Your Mind12:26 … Facing Resistance15:59 … Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process17:38 … Creative Problem Solving and The PM22:05 … Kevin and Kyle23:25 … Divergent and Convergent Thinking27:49 … Initiating Ideas28:48 … Suspend Judgement29:30 … Seek Wild Ideas30:09 … Going For Quality31:51 … Convergent Thinking33:06 … Be Deliberate33:53 … Be Affirmative34:31 … Consider Novelty35:01 … Common Mistakes Made in the Process37:51 … Associations and Climer Cards41:27 … Get in Touch with Amy43:42 … Closing

AMY CLIMER: ...an important skill of being more creative is being willing to change your mind.  And if you get so fixated on like this is the solution and you ignore all the data that might be coming in, or you don’t want to pay attention to this conversation, then you’re not open to this possibility.  So being open-minded to different perspectives, different solutions is a huge piece of being able to be more creative.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hello, and welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and in the studio with me is Bill Yates Just a quick thanks to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website or on social media.  We always love hearing from you.  We know you’re also looking for opportunities to acquire PDUs, your Professional Development Units, towards recertifications.  And you can still claim PDUs for all our podcast episodes.  Listen up at the end of the show for information on how you can claim those PDUs.

Our guest today is Dr. Amy Climer, and we’re very excited to talk with her.  She teaches teams and organizations how to increase their creativity so they can maximize innovation.  She works with organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  She has a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University, and she’s developed the Deliberate Creative Team Scale to help teams understand how to increase their creativity.  Amy lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and she’s also the host of The Deliberate Creative Podcast, and we recommend you check that one out.  She shares practical device and strategies to help leaders build innovative teams.

BILL YATES:  Wendy, we are so excited to have Dr. Climer on this episode because I think all project managers are looking for a process, a set of steps to go through problem solving.  A creative problem-solving process is what she’s going to walk through with us.  Problems just occur.  They’re going to happen probably every day on our project.  We’ll have some really full risk register, and then one of those risks will occur, and we’ll look at our plan, and we’ll say, “Hey, we thought that was going to happen, and it happened.  We’ll start following that plan.”  And then the plan fails.  And we’re like, okay, all hands meeting.  The team has to get together.  We’ve got another problem to solve.  We need a process to go about that, and Amy’s got great advice for us.  I’m excited about this.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Hi, Amy.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you for joining us.

AMY CLIMER:  Thank you.  I’m very excited about our conversation.

Meet Amy

WENDY GROUNDS:  I know.  We’re looking forward to this.  This is a topic I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time.  So I’m glad we found you.  And I first want to find out how you got into this whole...