A Process* for Improved Creativity,
Innovation and Quality
Don Ermer, Ph.D., P.E., & CmfgE
Procter & Gamble Professor Emeritus in Total Quality
Departments of Industrial & Systems Engineering
and Mechanical Engineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison
608-262-2557
ermer@engr.wisc.edu
“Inspiration from Usual Sources: Integrating Innovation Into Your
Work”
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Memorial Union
November 9, 2006
*Who said “Every Activity, Every Job is Part of a Process”?
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Creativity, Innovation and Improved Quality
November 9, 2006
Prof. D.S. Ermer
Table of Contents
Topic
Page
I.
Introduction
a. Product/Service Quality
b. Proactive Prevention
c. Directed Creativity
II. Four Phases of Directed Creativity: Similar to PDCA Cycle
a. First Step – Preparation by Changing Your Mental Attitude
b. Second Step – Stimulating the Imagination
c. Third Step – Development
d. Fourth Step – Action
III. Summary
3
4
5
9
10
11
15
16
18
2
I. INTRODUCTION
a. Product/Service Quality
• Need to deliver a quality product/service
• Need to improve process productivity
• Need to prevent production/service problems and
product defects
• Need to join your daily work and improvement
work
• Need to stress that improvement of the process is
everyone’s job, and not focus on the results
3
I. INTRODUCTION
b. Proactive Prevention
• Process Improvement and Control by Statistical Process
Control (SPC)
• Product and/or Process improvement by Design of
Experiments (DOE)
• Product and Process Design by Robust Parameter Design
(RPD):
1.
2.
3.
Product and Process Designed Together
Design insensitive to manufacturing variation
Product insensitive to user’s misapplication
4
I. INTRODUCTION
c. Directed Creativity
• “Creativity is the connecting and rearranging of existing
knowledge to generate new, often surprising, ideas that
others judge to be useful.” (Paul E. Plsek, Creativity,
Innovation, and Quality, 1997, American Society for
Quality (ASQ), Milwaukee, WI)
• Creative thinking requires that we focus our attention to do
something different (for example, the Apple mouse was
innovative – a practical application of a creative idea –
because it significantly improved the user interface – not
computing speed or power)!
5
I. INTRODUCTION
c. Directed Creativity, Continued
•
Plsek defines three fundamental principles as the basis
for creative thinking
1. Attention (new mental model) – something different: cellular phones
for photos, activity-based costing, “I-pod”, etc.
2. Escape (new mental process) – e.g. mental escape by affinity process:
forces you to diverge your ideas and then converge them; also change
seating arrangement, or put your head down
3. Movement (new location) – for example, the use of “Retreats”: getting
away from the usual workplace for dialogue (note – not discussion).
Another example is brainstorming – keep moving.
6
I. INTRODUCTION
c. Directed Creativity, Continued
•
New Mental Model
–System Thinking
1. A conceptual framework of the whole
a. Connections
b. Relationship
c. Interactions
2. Studying the whole to understand the parts
3. Understanding the system
7
I. INTRODUCTION
c. Directed Creativity, Continued
–
New Approach
(Use “Pictures”)
–
Silence
(What’s Your New Mental Picture)
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II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Similar to PDCA Cycle
1
Preparation
4
Action
2
Imagination
Development
3
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II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
First Step – PREPARATION: CHANGE YOUR
MENTAL FRAMEWORK
–
–
–
Most significant step for innovations is the result of much
thought over a long time.
Involves a change in our personal lifestyles, so that we observe
more.
The absence of purposeful preparation is why it’s difficult to be
creative and innovative.
•
•
•
Affinity Diagram (Diverge and then Converge)
Retreats (Change Venue)
Silent Time (Heads Down For Two Minutes)
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II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Second Step – STIMULATING THE IMAGINATION
–
By analogies. Some examples:
•
•
•
Pringles potato chips came about in a search for an analogy to solve
the problem of broken chips – leaves in a scrapbook must be moist
when pressed.
Benchmarking by Xerox of L.L. Bean’s warehousing operations,
where they learned something useful by exploring the common area
between the two companies – warehousing – while temporarily
setting aside the differences.
Plsek describes the use of excursions to generate creative analogies
– a health care organization sending team members to visit the Mall
of America in Minneapolis looking for customer service and
communication ideas.
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II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Second Step – STIMULATING THE IMAGINATION Continued
–
Need to every once in a while break out of our everyday patterns
•
•
•
•
•
Different way to work
Different time for break, lunch or exercise
Different leisure activity
What personal patterns can you change to be more creative and
innovative?
What can your organization change in the management system to
help you be more creative and innovative?
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II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Second Step – STIMULATING THE IMAGINATION Continued
–
By visualization (Travel Agency example):
•
•
•
–
Skit (part of cinematics or role playing)
Christmas Card
Moving up the “corporate ladder”
By Picture
13
II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Second Step – STIMULATING THE IMAGINATION Continued
–
By reversals – Plsek’s “Accounting Firm”:
•
•
How to decrease customer satisfaction.
We could:
–
–
–
–
–
•
Raise our prices
Make clients wait longer
Make a lot of errors
Insult our clients
Embezzle funds from our clients
Embezzlement is actually a common problem in small start-up
firms, so we’ll offer special assessment and a consulting service to
install checks and balances to reduce their exposure to potential 14
fraud.
II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Third Step – DEVELOPMENT
–
–
–
–
–
Face the test of practicality
Hopefully based on quantifiable data
If a creative idea is really innovative, then there is no way to
really evaluate it with complete objectivity
New ideas are also usually uncomfortable, since they are
proposing a new paradigm.
At least half of the Battelle research staff thought xerography,
which was invented by Chester Carlson in 1937, was a stupid
idea. “It just goes to prove that if you’ve got something unique,
you don’t take a poll.” said Russell Dayton, Battelle Engineer in
1944. This year, trillions of copies! Reference: “Making
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Copies,” pp. 91-97, August 2004, Smithsonian.
II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Fourth Step – ACTION
–
–
–
–
–
The bridge between mere creativity and the rewards of
innovation
Creative ideas have no value until they are put into action
Hard to accurately imagine something that has never been done
before – need the physical experience
In real estate it is location, location, location; in adopting new
ideas it is communication, communication, communication
Use Cinematics – role playing, to act out the new proactive
process of product quality and process productivity
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II. Four Phases of Directed
Creativity (Innovation versus
Creativity Alone)
•
Fourth Step – ACTION, CONTINUED
–
Challenge
Parameters
Variations
Idea Box Exercise (see limitations in third step)
Idea Design a New Quality Improvement Tool
Approach Analysis
Criteria
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Use I.T.
Use Colors
Use Pictures
Data Driven
Analytical
Effective
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III. SUMMARY
•
•
•
Four Phases – preparation, imagination, development
and implementation – are a model for Directed Creative
Thinking.
Directed Creativity is a powerful and purposeful process
for generating new ideas for product quality and process
productivity when it’s consciously applied.
The underlying process of directed creativity involves
finding something to pay attention to, escaping the usual
way of thinking, and continued mental movement.
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III. SUMMARY, Continued
•
Analogies can be very effective in directed creativity, but
they are hard mental work for some, and a few minutes
of silent time for people to reflect can be very productive
and lead to creative innovations.
Innovative ideas are a product of our mental processes,
and when improving product/service quality we need to
understand these mental processes:
•
–
Understanding the mechanisms of our mind is critical to
successful application of directed creativity for improved
product/service quality.
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III. SUMMARY, Continued
–
–
We have the ability to temporarily break out of our everyday
pattern to make the creative mental connections required for
innovative thinking.
Creative thinking for increased product/service quality is a
balance of analysis and imagination for which we can prepare
through:
•
•
•
Attention – increased mental focus
Escape – more observations
Movement – additional mental movement (of the world around us)
–
The nine-dot problem
–
The challenge is to connect the nine dots with four straight lines
without lifting your pencil from the paper once you’ve begun.
Repeat the challenge with 3 lines; again without lifting the pencil.
Then do it with one line.
–
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III. SUMMARY, Continued
–
Plsek’s Solution to Nine-Dot Problem
Puzzle is source of the expression “Thinking Outside the Box”
•
•
•
–
There is no solution if we confine our thinking (and our lines) to
remain inside the box.
The key point is that the box that confines us is not even real.
We assumed it – there was no law that mandated it, no instruction
that required it.
Correct Graphical Solutions:
3
4
1
2
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III. SUMMARY, Continued
•
•
•
In the four-line solution we escape the imaginary box
restriction.
In the three-line solution we escape both the box
restriction and the assumed restriction that the lines had
to pass through the centers of the dots.
In the one-line solution we escaped the assumed
restriction of a skinny line.
22
III. SUMMARY, Continued
•
CCI Pledge
I (insert your name), pledge to consciously apply the ideas of collaboration
and creativity to generate an innovative quality improvement process for
my organization’s management system, where at least 85% of the quality
and productivity problems reside. I will practice continued mental
movement by trying new ways of thinking, for as Deming said, “It’s not
working/thinking harder, but working/thinking smarter that leads to
continuous improvement.” SO DO IT!
•
Results of “survey” – your style
Communicator (C)
Director (D)
Integrator (I)
Thinker (T)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
•
•
•
•
•
Deming, W.E., The New Economics, MIT Center for
Advanced Engineering Study, 1993.
Nadler, Hibino and Farrell, Creative Solution Finding,
Prima Publishing, Rocklin, CA, 1991.
Plsek, P.E., Creativity, Innovation, and Quality, ASQ
Quality Press, Milwaukee, WI, 1997.
Senge, P., The Fifth Discipline, Doubleday, NY, 1990.
Wycoff, T., Mindmapping: Your Personal Guide to
Exploring Creativity and Problem Solving, Barkley, NY,
1991.
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