1 Enhancing Innovative Capabilities Developing creative thinking approaches with tomorrow’s project managers

Developing creative thinking approaches with tomorrow’s project managers Project managers need to adopt creative approaches to problem solving in order to deal with difficult management challenges posed by complex projects. Both the pressure of time and a pedagogical emphasis on analytical thinking may inhibit creative solution finding. There is also evidence of a generally tendency towards premature solution finding and validation structuring activities accompanied by an inclination to justify solutions once they have been developed rather than explore further. The danger is that solutions obtained using traditional analytical methods may be sub-optimal. Particularly in complex projects, project managers use creative thinking to find new ways around problem situations, facilitate creative problem solving within the project team or with various stakeholder groups and provide an integrating function to assist others in arriving at appropriate and agreed ways forward. This paper combines thinking and research from two separate disciplines, project management and design education. The results of recent controlled trials, which test ways of enhancing the quality of problem structuring and the quality of resulting solutions, are discussed as a key competence for the project manager. The approach tested aims at assisting the problem solver to emulate the processes used by expert designers when solving complex design problems. As design problems exhibit similar characteristics to some complex projects the approach may also be helpful with project teams and stakeholder groups when they are exploring options and developing solutions.