Create in a Flash Online Course

1. Purchase Create in a Flash

2. Welcome to the Course

3. Intro to Creative Problem Solving

​This is a brief description of the Creative Problem-Solving process and how to use Create in a Flash: A leader’s recipe for breakthrough innovation along with the downloadable PDFs that accompany these videos.

4. How to do a warm-up

In Create in a Flash, “How to do a warm-up” is video 7. We moved it up earlier in this training program because, just as athletes have to warm-up before a physical workout, participants in Creative Problem-Solving session need to warm-up before they start working on their goal or wish or challenge. Have fun with this one.

5. Identify your Goal/Wish/Challenge

Download the PDF 21st Century Creative Problem-Solving. We will be referring to this throughout the rest of the video series.

Then download the PDF Identify Goal/Wish/Challenge. It will help you identify what you want to create, invent, solve or improve. This is where we start the creative process.

6. Gather data

Download the PDF Gather Data. Follow along with me to identify the background data on your situation.

7. Clarify the Problem: Creative Questions

In this video you are introduced to the roles in a Creative Problem-Solving session. You will meet our client Tamara and the resource group. Watch as many creative questions are generated to help Tamara identify the best problem to solve.

Using the PDF Clarify the Problem, generate creative questions about your goal/wish/challenge. You might want to get a few people to help you come up with many creative questions. Just like the resource group did for Tamara.

8. Clarify the Problem: Why? What’s stopping me?

The “Why? What’s stopping me?” technique is a powerful tool to help you generate creative questions that really challenge your initial impression of the problem.

There are two PDFs for you to download with this video, the blank “Why? What’s Stopping Me?” PDF and the PDF that shows Tamara’s responses. Use the blank PDF to generate creative questions for your situation.

9. Selecting the Best Problem

Now, it’s time to converge and pick the creative question that you really want to get some ideas for. Use the back side of the PDF Clarify the Problem. You downloaded it when you watched Video 4 on clarifying the problem using creative questions. Watch as Tamara uses the Highlighting technique to select the best problem to solve.

10. Generate Ideas: Sticky Notes and Forced Connections

No, you didn’t miss Video 7. Remember, we moved it to the second video in this training program so you would be warmed-up to generate ideas just like you see in this video.

Look for the forced connections technique to help you get un-stuck when you are generating ideas.

Download the PDF Generate Ideas, then defer judgment and generate lots of ideas for solving your creative question. Once again, if you want to get some friends to be your resource group go ahead. You will be glad you did.

11. Brainwriting

​Brainwriting is a great technique for generating ideas without having to talk to each other or to even be in the same place at the same time. Keep those friends with you to generate even more ideas for your creative question. Just like the resource group did for Tamara.

For this step, download The Brainwriting Worksheet.

12. Selecting the best idea

You probably have lots of ideas for solving your creative questions. Now, just like we used the highlighting technique to select creative questions we can use the highlighting technique to select ideas.

Watch Tamara as she selects the best ideas to move forward and then use the back side of the Generate Ideas PDF that you downloaded for video 8 to help you select your best ideas.

13. Develop Solutions PPCo

(Pluses, Potentials concerns – PPCo)

Now that you have identified your best ideas and formed them into clusters, it’s time to develop and refine those solutions. Download the PDF Pluses, Potentials, Concerns – Overcome Concerns (PPCo) and follow along with Tamara as she refines her solution using the PPCo technique. You can also use your own resource group to help overcome your concerns.

14. Generating Action Steps

Get ready to put your solution into action. Watch as Tamara and the resource group generate all the potential action steps to put Tamara’s solution into action. Then use the PDF Plan for Action to generate the action steps to implement your solution.

15. Create your action plan

Let’s build a plan. Now, using all of the potential actions you generated to implement your plan, follow along with Tamara as she develops her Plan for Action. Use the back side of the Plan for Action PDF to create your plan.

16. CPS: The Whole Process

Sit back and relax as we review the entire Creative Problem-Solving process from beginning to end. Congratulations. You have done it!