I am a particular fan of various matrix-oriented analyses -- the tools seem to communicate effectively and . The 'Fishbone' approach (which very specifically put me in mind of a consulting firm once hired by a past employer) seems useful for brainstorming and problem exploration.
One topic I don't fully understand is the McKinsey 7S approach. I understand each of the 'S' areas fairly well, but when it comes time to express alignment between each S, and to represent that as a 'before' and 'after', I get confused about the purpose of the analysis, and it seems like pieces are missing. There's no problem statement, goal statement, etc. For example, if our preliminary analysis indicates that our structure is "highly decentralized" and our strategy is "distributed control", what can we say if the change being made is to centralize operations (changing structure and changed our strategy) -- we've stayed 'aligned', but there's no articulation of the object of the change (e.g. cost reduction), and the change in strategy is not represented. If we sketch out the 'after' state in advance, it seems like there will be a tendency toward optimism -- which makes the 'after' state uninteresting. If investigate the 'after' state later, it's not much different than the exercise of the 'before' activity. It seems like the model needs to indicate what was changed and the intention of the change, not just the alignment of factors.
The many different approaches to developing creative ideas was very inspiring, and I'm eager to try them all out. It makes me think of the idea that problems are 'golden eggs' to Japanese companies. The TRIZ approach particularly resonated with me because there is a similar line of thinking in Computer Science, called Design Patterns. The basic idea here is that there is a set of repeated patterns in software architecture, and that these ideas are durable and useful independent of a given implementation. In fact, one of the leading minds for design pattern thinking is written entirely from a physical builder's perspective -- a traditional architectural view rather than a technology architecture angle. (Timeless Way of Building)
In the week 9 lecture, we discussed dimensions of creative activity -- an approach that reminds me of Costa's Habits of Mind approach to critical thinking. It seems like we can't discuss creativity very far without running into critical thinking, and vice versa. I suspect this theme will continue throughout the degree program. In the live lecture, we had an animated discussion about divergent thinking and creativity, including whether CPS or something similar is inherent in creativity. We defined creativity as being both useful and novel, originating from divergent thinking but ultimately convergent so that the results could be shared with others. The MindTools section drew a distinction between "artistic" creativity and "technical" creativity, and said that CPS activities are intended for the technical type of creativity. This seems wrong to me, but some students in the class felt that their own creative activities did not reflect any kind of CPS. To me this seems more like a lack of awareness or mindfulness in process, rather than the true lack of process.
I have heard many artists talk about their creative process, some in greater detail than others, but it does seem to me that there is a process underlying it all. CPS itself has become so flexibly defined that I think there's a "big tent" definition that can bring all creativity underneath such that awareness of CPS would help with any creative activity. It may become a semantic discussion after a while, in which certain people characterize their work as having process but not CPS, even though they can't define their process. But among those artists who I've heard describe their process in detail, it rather sounds like CPS, even if the words used are somewhat different. After all, CPS might just as well be described like this: "I started out just noodling around with this idea, and then I realized that I should explore A B C in more detail, and then I started doing these things, and now I'm finishing off by...".
It seems like the alternative to CPS is purely divergent activities -- but even the more avant garde types of art have a CPS within them, even if the CPS is entirely in the planning/setup activities while the execution is left to chance. Dadaist poetry strikes me this way, or modern pieces randomized by computer. Another example might be mind-challenging pieces like Gertrude Stein's tender buttons. She seems to string random words together, but they are not random -- there are puns and references and odd repeated refrains to "make the familiar seem strange". Dissecting language, whether with a wrecking ball or a scalpel, still requires that someone first think about how they might accomplish it, try to do so, assess their work, and so on.
Another subject we dug into more deeply in the lecture was the question of whether there are cases where CPS is not appropriate. There is an argument to be made for "just doing" things rather than analyzing them, although this is not the argument on which we focused. Primarily we talked about problem generation as a necessary catalyst for CPS. KT Ulrich in Design Thinking calls problem generation "sensing the gap" -- and he goes on to outline what ultimately is a particularly elegant case study of CPS activity. Perhaps in more "artistic" types of creativity this might be called inspiration, but a more elaborate definition might be "sensing a thing that needs to be expressed" or "finding a subject that one wishes to explore more deeply" -- in other words, the finding of a "problem".
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