Creative Problem Solving
This domain tests whether you can run a group through a disciplined creative process: frame the problem, diverge widely, converge on evidence, and commit to a testable action. Items often give a stuck team and ask what the facilitator should do next, or ask you to spot why a brainstorming session produced nothing usable.
Separate divergence from convergence
The single most tested rule: never generate and judge in the same phase. Divergence aims for quantity, wildness and building on others' ideas with deferred judgement. Convergence applies explicit criteria and only then kills options. Mixing the two shuts down the quietest and most junior participants first.
Tools worth knowing
- Osborn-Parnes CPS - clarify, ideate, develop, implement; the problem statement is revisited before ideation.
- SCAMPER - Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse.
- Six Thinking Hats - parallel thinking that assigns a mode (facts, feelings, caution, benefit, creativity, process) to everyone at once.
- Root cause - 5 Whys or fishbone before ideation; otherwise you solve the symptom.
- Convergence - criteria matrix (impact, effort, cost, risk) or dot voting, with the criteria agreed before voting.
Worked example
A team is asked to cut new-joiner time-to-productivity from six weeks to four. Instead of brainstorming immediately, the facilitator reframes: 'How might we make a new joiner productive on real work within two weeks?' SCAMPER yields pre-boarding paperwork before day one (Substitute), a buddy plus checklist (Combine), a borrowed sales-bootcamp format (Adapt), and removing three approval steps (Eliminate). Convergence then scores each on impact, effort and risk; the pre-boarding and buddy options win on impact-to-effort and are piloted for one cohort. Reasoning: the reframe widened the solution space beyond 'shorter training', and criteria agreed in advance stopped the most senior voice from simply picking its favourite.
Traps that cost marks
- Evaluating ideas during ideation, which is the most common facilitator error.
- Accepting the first plausible problem statement without root-cause work.
- Voting before agreeing the criteria, which invites the HiPPO (highest-paid person's opinion).
- Running a brainstorm with no defined problem owner or next step.
- Treating silence as agreement; use written idea generation to offset groupthink.