Individual report for MBA at University of Nottingham

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
Nottingham University Business School
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CREATIVITY
(N14M90)
Individual Assignment:
The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving Process
LEA SZU, ONG
ID: 005813
COPY [1]

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
Content
1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3
2. Literature Review .................................................................................................................................. 4
3. The Whole Brain Approach ................................................................................................................... 5
4. Identifying and Recognizing Opportunities........................................................................................... 6
5. Phase One: Definition of Problem ........................................................................................................ 7
5.1 Define: Analyse the evidence; describe the symptoms ................................................................ 7
5.2 Discover: Explore the structure of the problem, find the root causes ......................................... 8
5.3 Determine: Decide how to attempt a solution ............................................................................. 8
6. Phase Two: Discovery ........................................................................................................................... 9
6.1 Define: Prepare to find solution.................................................................................................... 9
6.2 Discover: Generate multiple solutions.......................................................................................... 9
6.3 Determine: Realistic concepts begin to emerge ......................................................................... 10
7. Phase Three: Determination ............................................................................................................... 11
7.1 Define: Select and engineer potential solutions ......................................................................... 11
7.2 Discover: Investigating the alternatives; finding the best solution ............................................ 11
7.3 Determine: Looking to the future ............................................................................................... 11
8. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 12
9. Implications ......................................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 13
References .................................................................................................................................................. 14
Total Word Count: 2,360

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
1. Introduction
The objective of the paper is to develop an understanding of the Ingenuity Creative Problem
Solving Process. The paper will first look into the thinking styles and learning preferences in accordance
with the Herrmann Whole Brain Approach. We will next explore the Ingenuity processes (i.e. Define,
Discovery and Determine) to identify problem and discover opportunity, and then the idea generation
via the brainstorming method. With a lot of ideas, we will look at idea syntheses and then use relevant
criteria to determine which idea and solution to be implemented. The conclusion will highlight the
relevance of the divergent and convergent thinking in Ingenuity based on the literature introduced. The
Implications section will reveal some challenges and factors that contributed to the problem solving
process.

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
2. Literature Review
Due to the nature of the Ingenuity approach for clear thinking is deliberately on divergent and
convergent thinking, it is worthwhile to review the literature from Thompson (2003) that suggests
creative problem solving are related to divergent thinking while teamsrequires convergent thinking.
According to Thompson (2003), ideas can be categorize into four conceptual domains as shown
in Figure 1. Thompson suggested that the best idea is from the upper left quadrant called Creative
Realism because the ideas are highly imaginative and highly connected to current structures.He
mentioned that weshould strive to achieve creative ideas, which represent highly original and novel
ideas, as opposed to conservative, traditional ideas. The vertical continuum distinguishes new ideas that
are realistic (connected to current ideas and knowledge) from ideas that are idealistic (disconnected
from current knowledge). If new ideas are not connected to current ideas and knowledge, they are often
unimplementable.
Figure 1: Adapted from Thompson 2003: Four Conceptual Domains of New Ideas Classification

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
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3. The Whole Brain Approach
The team began with a simple survey to determine individual preferences for different learning
activities. With the result, we formed a group of six members with three from quadrant D, and each one
from quadrant A, B and C. The combination is ideal as we are having members from all the four
quadrants, with different career background and experiences so to be diverse with the broad range of
problem solving and learning strategies among us.
Figure 2: Adapted from hbdi.com (2012): Team members’ positioning in The Whole Brain®Model
The team diversity was proven effectiveas we observed how all the D thinkers (Elaine, Eric and
Phelicia) tend to contribute ideas based on the “big picture” context, defining visions and introducing
new concepts through brainstorming.Eric, who was acknowledged for his good presentation skill
introduced the mind-mapping tool during the brainstorming. The A thinker, Billy,resolvesarguments
during debates andJoe from the B quadrant ensures the team follows the Ingenuity process carefully
and sequentially.C thinker, Merly feedback when things not right and emphasized that decision making
has to be done as a group.Interestingly, although survey result showedPheliciais in the D quadrant, we
observed that she has stronger thinking preference in quadrant A justified by her excellent analytical
skill especially datafrom financial reports.

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
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4. Identifying and Recognizing Opportunities
During the brainstorming session to identify a problem and opportunity to be addressed in the
business idea,we listed few issues by looking at the environment around and observe the trend of the
current economic and social factors.The list includes issues on ageing population which will eventually
became a burden to the society and government, the negative effect from environmental Issues,
potential of the medical tourism, the inefficient of the child care centers and others societal related
issues. We have selected the ageing population as the primary issue to be addressed via a simple voting
system.
By doing a quick research over the Internet to verify on this problem, United Nation predicted
that Malaysia is likely to reach an ageing nation status by 2035 with the number of people above the age
of 60 reaching 15% of the population. Based on this fact, we have agreed that with more elderly citizen,
there would more society and economic impacts on the society and country. This is in accordance to
Barringer and Ireland (2006) that sometimes identifying business opportunities simply involve noticing a
problem and finding a way to solve it.

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5. Phase One: Definition of Problem
5.1 Define: Analyse the evidence; describe the symptoms
We started by identifying who are these elderly citizens who has causes the problem. We
specified them based on few dimensions which include those who are knowledgeable and retired, and
healthy and capable of taking care of their own self.
Everyone see this as a problem as we observepeople around us who have become the burden of
their children and family starting from the moment they retired and eventually grow old and became
unhealthy and leaving only bad memories to the next generation.
We looked at the reason why there are more elderly citizens in the future. One reasonis that life
expectancy at birth has showed an upward trend, an improvement attributed to the extensive network
of health care services in Malaysia and the advances of medical technology. There isalso significant
decreased of fertility among Malaysian, as they often emphasize on financial stability and quality life
style than having childrenwhich causes more commitments.
Wedescribes the impact of these senior citizenswith a series of ‘So’.
‘So what if they are aged?’ - ‘When they are a lot of them in the society, they will become a
burden to their children and society’.
‘So what if they became burden?’ ‘Our society will become non-productive.’
‘So what if the society became non-productive?’ ‘So our country image, Gross Domestic Product
(GDP)and happiness index level willdrop’.
‘So what if country’s GDP dropped?’ ‘So our government will start to allocate more budgets to
take care of these unproductive citizens and that is indirectly from us the tax payer’.

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5.2 Discover: Explore the structure of the problem, find the root causes
Looking at the big picture of the problem, we investigate how do the elderly citizens became
unproductive and eventually became burden to society. One possiblereason was thatthey are not
leading a healthy and meaningful lifestyle after retiredandas they get older although they are still able to
contribute to the society. They became lonely, not engaged sociallyand lead a non-meaningful
life.Theyhave no channel to contribute back to the society and there is no way the society can “find” and
help them. They eventually led an unhealthy lifestyle and became more susceptible to poorer health
status with long-term illness and eventually lead to healthcare burdens.
Inactive elderly citizens in the society area complex problem due to the large population of the
group and there are many variablesthat will influence the solution in term of culture and health
conditions: whether they are physically capable, emotionally healthy, the level of education and being
financially independent and if they have support from their children.
5.3 Determine: Decide how to attempt a solution
We defined the criteria that the final solution must be able to fulfill. The solution must be able to
change the long existed institutional belief and social stigma about the elderly. The society must accept
them so that they can contribute to the society and country, and that they are not burden.Since this is
an issue requires social reengineering, we must design a solution that will be supported by policy
makers including government, non-governmental organizations (NGO) to recognize this as a country
wide activity. The solution must include strategy to encourage public awareness and acceptance.Also,
the solution must not be too high in cost so that it is affordable by the elderly citizens within their
savings from Employee Provident Fund (EPF).It must not be a solution that will take more than 10 to 20
years to build.

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6. Phase Two: Discovery
6.1 Define: Prepare to find solution
The team had problem putting the analysis into a problem statement. The process requires
convergent thinking and as Thompson said, team can do this better than individual. In our case, it was
Billy, the A thinker who had derived the final problem statement, which everyone agreed although we
have problem composing it earlier.One factoris that the majority of the members in the team are D
thinkers andthey tend to reiterate the findings in Phase One to ensure the team is moving towards the
same vision.
The final problem statement was, “Senior citizens are currently lack of channel or having no
access to healthcare information, withoutparticipating in social network activities, any form of society
give back contributions and information on financial services. This group of people is being left out by
the society, lonely at home and without proper health treatment and eventually affects their health
conditions.”
6.2 Discover: Generate multiple solutions
We were using the classic brainstorming method – verbal brainstorm developed by Alex Osborn
to gain as many business ideas as we can. The strength of brainstorming as a team is that ideas from one
member would often stimulate more ideas from others.Ideas were written on whiteboard and team
focused on the same screen to ensure we are all at the same conversation.
“Find Me A Lazy Job” is about getting a job for those who had retired but still capable of working
and it should be an easy job so that it will not be stressful.Setting up an organic restaurant which will be
run by the senior citizens based on the organic products produced by another group of citizens. There
are wild ideas such as organizing party; karaoke and setting up a ‘nightclub’ only for the senior citizens
are based on what we know every young generation would like to do.Idea about speed-dating or match-
making of the elderly was an attempt to answer the question on why the elderly feel lonely and what
they could do if there are still young.

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
In this process, it is very important that team members must be able to communicate freely, no
bias, no inactive participations, and no feeling of inferior due to language barrier or perception that
members with more working experience will have better ideas.There shouldn’t be any member who will
try to convince another member of an idea by means of influence.
6.3 Determine: Realistic concepts begin to emerge
At the end of the generating ideas phase, we had a total of 24 ideas. Team went through each of
the ideas and sorts those that have the same concept.

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Process
7. Phase Three: Determination
7.1 Define: Select and engineer potential solutions
Based on the ideas generated, we sort and siftideas into categories, i.e. devices,
communications, activities, job or re-employment and support services. Most of the ideas can be fitted
into more than one category.The final selected ideas are:
- One stop solution in a community based retirement village
- Mobile clinic that can provide healthcare services plus devices for daily health-monitoring
7.2 Discover: Investigating the alternatives; finding the best solution
We agreed that the solution of a mobile clinic has resources issues in term of budget. We also
compare the alternatives that market currently already hasincludingold folks home, and premium health
care services. We analyse the problems with these services, and what are the potential bottlenecks in
such businesses.
The next process was to choose the optimal solution. In this case, the final selected idea was the
one stop solution in a community based retirement village with additional comprehensive services such
as healthcare services, job re-employments, and other activities in-village.We have use the WIN2
evaluation tool to access the idea about. Although WIN2rates as cautious and limited development but
we believe the business potential is high. See Appendix 1.
7.3 Determine: Looking to the future
The final solution is within expectation. We foresee the barriers to acceptance from the society
because sending elderly to old folk’s home or nursing home had been a long existed social stigma. To
overcome this, the business will have to convince policy makers to change the society perception about
ageing population.
We target to sell the business idea to investor to build the retirement village on a build, lease
and transfer term, in which if the solution didn’t work out, it can be transformed into housing
development.Our goal is for the business to be able to generate good return of investment for investors
and predicts it would be able toself-sustain financially by 2035.

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
8. Conclusions
The Ingenuity guide for clear thinking focuses on the creative thinking and problem skills needed
to succeed in our rapidly changing, high tech world.The nature of the Ingenuity approach based on
divergent and convergent thinking can highly produces ideas that lands in the Creative Realism quadrant
from Thompson.And this is part of the entrepreneurial thinking thatempowers us to cope with
uncertainty and behave with greater flexibility.
9. Implications
One of the challenges is that the team tends to jump to the final solution at the problem
definition stage.This can be done better by asking more open-ended questions or assesses more
opposing scenarios of the answers given thus encouraging divergent thinking.According to Thompson
(2003), once we are exposed to divergent thinking, we can prevent people from jumping to the most
obvious (and most often the most expensive) solution.
Towards the end of the of the course work, the team had presented the idea as a business plan
and as we spent more time to research and find references for implementation, we agreed that the idea
could be more creative. One implication here is that if the same team were to repeat the Ingenuity
processes, the result would be much better since the developed bond within the team would improve
the environment for creativity.
Thompson (2003)pointed the paradox that teams excel at convergent thinking but individuals
excel at divergent thinking and this is paradoxical because most people strongly believe that teams are
more creative than individuals, when in fact they aren’t.
As per Thompson (2003), if team excels at convergent thinking, perhaps the Discovery Phase to
generate a lot of ideas would be more effective if done individually since individual are better at
divergent thinking leading more ‘Out of the box” ideas. However, team brainstorming isappropriate for
convergent thinking at the Determine phase to evaluate ideas.

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
Appendix

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The Ingenuity Creative Problem Solving
Process
References
1) Bruce R. Barringer and Duane R. Ireland (2006), Entrepreneurship: Successfully
Launching New Ventures, Pearson Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Inc.
2) HBDI, “Overview Of The HBDI®”, Downloaded from
http://www.hbdi.com/WholeBrainProductsAndServices/thehbdi.cfm as at 10th April
2012.
3) Kirkham P, Mosey S, Binks M (2009), “Ingenuity in Practice: A Guidefor Clear Thinking”,
UNIEI.
4) Lumsdaine, E. and Blinks, M, (2007). Entrepreneurship, from Creativity to Innovation;
Effective Thinking Skills for a Changing World. Trafford Publishing.
5) Thompson L. (2003), Improving the creativity of organizational work groups. Academy of
Management Executive.
6) World Health Organization (2010), “Senior Citizens and Population Ageing in Malaysia,
Department of Statistics, 1998”. Downloaded
fromhttp://www.who.int/countries/mys/eng