Creative Decision Making - Finding Alternative Solutions

Your objective is to accumulate a number of alternative decisions and their consequences for evaluation at Stage 6. Hopefully, you already have some from your activities at previous stages. To be sure you have a good assortment, here are some suggestions for finding alternative solutions.

Intuition

We all make many decisions intuitively every day. They are based on our store of knowledge in working memory, past experiences, recognition of patterns, and other factors. In complex decision making, you should write down your intuitive decision solutions. They should be considered tentative and evaluated along with others you generate.

Rational Decision Making Requires Logical Solutions

Many decisions can be arrived at by using gradual, systematic, steady, analytical, judicial reasoning and logic. Gather all the data and fit it together.

Creative Decision Making - Use Innovative Solutions - Find Existing Ideas

An innovator loves ideas, new things. An innovator does not necessarily create these ideas or new things but uses curious observation to seek out existing ones suitable for his/her use and purpose. By using a little ingenuity, innovators adapt these ideas, processes, strategies, or new things to fit their personal or job-related management decisions. There are many good ideas that are not being used. Millions of ideas are buried in the literature. Seek them out! Look internationally as well as at home.

You Can Produce Ideas by Using Triggers

Triggers are things that stimulate your mind's store of stocked memories and cause recall and new train of thought. It's best to load your mind with data pertinent to your current problem. It is the prepared or loaded mind that can best be triggered. At that point, you then:

While you are doing all these things, you are reflecting on your problem as you acquire more information. Then, EUREKA - suddenly ILLUMINATION comes - or more gradual insight climaxes! Something has triggered your mind and you have an idea, lead, discovery, or a tentative solution. This may be a small or very big idea.

Creative Destruction

Remember, the creation of new inventions and innovations cause the destruction of old markets, technologies, ideas, etc. Be prepared for this. Look ahead to make the right decisions.

Reflective, Critical,  or Speculative thinking:

• Talk to yourself in both language and images.
• Daydream about your problem, even while doing other things.
• Jump back and forth between logical and creative, imaginative and wild, thinking.

In Creative Decision Making Produce Ideas and Solutions with Rest-Illumination or Rest-Reflective Gradual Insight

First Load your mind with (in relation to your problem):

• Information
• Concepts
• Theories
• Basic principles
• Data
• Needs

Next - Rest your mind by:

• Sleep or preparation for sleep
• Vacation, travel, hobby
• Exercise, shower, grooming
• Work on a different project

After rest . . . the KEY is Do not wait!
You must start to think reflectively about your problem again.

Eureka! A flash of illumination . . . Or, more often, a gradual insight to an:

IDEA

SOLUTION DECISION

LEAD

CLUE

THEORY

CONCEPT

Write it down immediately! Don't depend on memory!

Great Information on Creativity

The Creative Education Foundation has many books and holds seminars on creativity. Write to them at 289 Bay Road, Hadley, MA 01035.

The SM-14 model name is short for Scientific Method = 11 stages of mental activity and 3 supporting ingredients that are used at all the stages to actually solve the problem or arrive at a decision. Having a short name makes it easier to teach or write about this model.

Remember. At Stages 4 and 5 you have accumulated a lot of data, information, and knowledge about your decision problem. You have watched for a number of possible decisions you could make. Now you sort through them and select a number of them you think have the most possibilities. At the next stage you will evaluate and compare them in more detail.