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Public education often considers fine arts classes and programs expendable luxuries. This article explores how beneficial the fine arts are in education.

It is no secret that, when faced with recession pressures and budget cuts, most American public school systems decrease funding for fine arts programs or cut them entirely. Reasons cited for these decisions include fine arts do not generate much money for schools, nor are they part of the school’s core curriculum; therefore, they are expendable. Unfortunately, educational leaders are often not able to maximize the full educational and economic possibilities of the fine arts, and consequently, students’ learning opportunities suffer.

FINE ARTS PROGRAMS CAN GENERATE MONEY FOR SCHOOLS

Many American public schools sponsor annual plays and musicals, and despite performances being limited to a handful per semester, they do generate income for the school through ticket sales. Although they do require a considerable amount of time and practice to perfect these performances, as well as need a limited budget for props and supplies.

However, school drama performances can be increased to generate revenue and stay within budget by sponsoring ticketed events that do not require as much time or resources to produce. Such an example is orchestrating a comedy improv troupe, where only a few simple props and little preliminary preparation are necessary.

In addition, most schools completely neglect to showcase the talents of their budding visual artists. Sponsoring frequent school-wide art shows, auctions, and awards can generate additional funds for public schools, as well as provide enriching educational experiences for students.

For example, until visual art students reach college, few have opportunities to apply to an open call for entries or learn how to promote and set up an art exhibition. Learning these skills early gives visual arts students an edge over many art students who begin to navigate the exhibition circuit in their later college years. Furthermore, participating in art shows provides high school students who intend to study visual art with valuable experience to add to their college applications.

FINE ARTS PROGRAMS ARE BENEFICIAL TO STUDENTS’ LEARNING

Matthieu Comoy for Unsplash

Matthieu Comoy for Unsplash

Art education authorities Eric Oddleifson and Judith Simpson have analyzed numerous studies conducted in urban and suburban school systems involving increased integration of the arts into classrooms. These studies overwhelmingly found that when the arts are incorporated into daily curricula, positive results are observed which transcend all subject areas. Examples include increased student creativity, better problem-solving abilities, more options to express ideas, open-mindedness and tolerance for different people and ways of thinking, and increased joy and motivation to learn.

Oddleifson’s writing also references the theories of Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, who has conducted additional research advocating fine arts in schools. Gardner hypothesizes that there are seven total forms of intelligence: visual/spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, verbal, and logical. The first five intelligence forms are predominantly found in fine arts. However, most American school systems’ core curricula focus on subjects involving verbal and logical intelligence, such as English and science.

Removing fine arts from educational institutions not only deprives students of a well-rounded education but also denies students the ability to maximize their intellectual capacities. Just as art students require a scientific understanding of the natural world so they can render plants and animals with photo-realistic accuracy, wouldn’t science students benefit from creative stimulation to better generate ideas for hypotheses and experiments?

For students who are passionate about the fine arts, little is more devastating than extensive cutbacks or complete removal of fine arts classes. Furthermore, students who prefer other subjects do learn beneficial skills from fine arts, and the fine arts can contribute financially to public schools. Let us remember the true purpose of education and enrich students with a broad range of subjects so they may reach their full potential.

ART TEACHES MAKING JUDGMENTS ABOUT QUALITATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Martina_Bulkova for Pixabay

Martina_Bulkova for Pixabay

Through the development of qualitative intelligence, art teachers assist students to raise their consciousness and increase their capacity to interpret their world. Drawing on the work of Dewey, Eisner explains that the creation, appreciation, and understanding of visual form in general, and visual art in particular, is a mode of activity he considers to be a form of intelligence.

“The production and appreciation of visual art is a complex and cognitive-perceptual activity that does not simply emerge full-blown on its own.” [Eisner. 1972, p113]

DEFINITION OF QUALITATIVE INTELLIGENCE

Dewey advanced the idea that intelligence is the quality of an activity performed on behalf of inherently worthwhile ends. On this account, intelligence is a verb, a type of action, not a quantifiable noun, something that one possesses. For Dewey, intelligence is how a person copes with a problematic situation.

QUALITATIVE INTELLIGENCE AS PROBLEM SOLVING

When applying this notion of “intelligence” as problem-solving to the way students learn to make meaning through the modality of visual art, Eisner develops a descriptive argument [2002, p114]. He describes a process whereby students identify a problem, select qualities, and organize them so that they function expressively through a medium.

  • A student who sculpts paints or draws is solving a problem
  • He or she must find a way to transform, in some medium, an idea image, or feeling
  • They start with a blank piece of paper, a lump of material, or data in electronic form
  • The student uses this raw material to articulate a vision
  • During this process, they hope to be responsive to the consequences of personal actions when managing material so that it functions as a medium
  • When manipulating the media, the artist learns to be aware of the happy accident that is inevitable in the creation of artworks
  • Through this learning strategy, it is hoped that the student will develop an ability to manage anxiety, frustration, and tension. The ability to forestall closure allows for the possibility of openness to a moment of unity and cohesion
  • Students learn to recognize moments when the whole work comes together
  • During the process, students will develop an ability to cope with thousands of interactions among visual qualities. Moments of cohesiveness, clarity, and unity will emerge through the child’s use of material
  • Upon reflection students (perhaps in conversation with others) will conceive of her artistic purpose and recognize the meaning

Eisner calls the ability to problem solve in this way qualitative intelligence because it deals with the visualization of qualities expressed in images. The activity is directed at the creation and control of these qualities. It is generally recognized that artists work with seven elements of design.

MEDIATION THROUGH ARTISTIC THOUGHT

Rahul Jain for Unsplash

Rahul Jain for Unsplash

Qualities are mediated through thoughts, which are managed through the process, which terminates in a qualitative whole. A qualitative whole is an art form that expresses an idea or emotion by how those qualities have been created through the organization.

People use this form of intelligence throughout daily living. Artistic decision-making occurs when people select furnishings for the home, design a brochure, create a website layout, or decide upon what clothes to wear. The ability to do this is not simply given at birth, as one aspect of a genetic bundle of attributes. Rather, qualitative intelligence is an educable mode of expression that develops through experience and (hopefully) with guidance.

Intelligence, in this sense, is capable of expansion and through expansion, it expands the potential understanding of students. Through the arts, teachers assist students to raise their consciousness and increase their capacity to interpret their world.

The tendency to separate art from intellect and thought from feeling has been a source of difficulty for the field of art education. One of the results of this distinction is a lessening of the value of the creative arts fields of inquiry within the curriculum. Such a dichotomous distinction does not do justice to art or education.

For another presentation of this view see The Philosophy of a Creative Arts Educator Wisdom is the Legacy Left by Harry Broudy.

About the author : Kaylee Osuna is a professional writer at EssayWriterCheap.org , who loves to read and write about Psychology. She has participated in different conferences and presentations to gain more knowledge and experience. Her goal is to help people cope with their problems.

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What Is Creativity? – Understanding Imaginative Problem Solving

Avatar for Isabella Meyer

Creativity: Do you know what the meaning of this word is? Most people would respond with the simplest answer, being that it is something you create, such as art or music. However, is this the complete creativity definition? When delving into the subject, you will discover that this only covers the tip of the iceberg, and when you have to define creativity, there is a lot more involved. So, we are going to try and unravel the complex question, “What is creativity?”

Table of Contents

  • 1 Developing a Creativity Definition
  • 2.1 Various Sections of the Brain Involved in Creativity
  • 3.1.1 Being Creative Can Help to Stabilize Emotions
  • 3.1.2 Creating Is Stimulating
  • 3.1.3 Stress Relief
  • 3.1.4 Creativity Can Help to Improve Empathy
  • 3.1.5 Creativity Improves Brain Plasticity
  • 3.2 The Basic Stages of Creativity
  • 4.1 Set Goals
  • 4.2 Be a Risk Taker
  • 4.3 Build Confidence
  • 4.4 Brainstorm Ideas
  • 4.5 Keep a Journal
  • 4.6 Go Out and Find Inspiration
  • 4.7 Ask Others for Their Input
  • 4.8 Unwind and Relax
  • 5.1 What Is Creativity?
  • 5.2 Can You Describe Creativity as a Skill?
  • 5.3 Are There More Creative People Than Others?

Developing a Creativity Definition

You can define creativity by saying it is about rising above the conventional way of thinking, to improve and create unique approaches to ideas. Creativity can be seen as an ability; you can either have a natural ability to perform, or you can learn and improve on what you have, as everybody has something they can tap into.

There are also many facets to creativity, and it can be subjective as many might measure creativity differently and include things like imagination, gratification, the value of an idea, differences in the creative process, and how original the idea is.

Creativity Psychology Definition

The idea of creativity today means thinking out of the box, understanding there might be limits to what you can do, trying to overcome these, and improving on the results. Creativity involves more than just thinking things up, it is taking those ideas and developing them. For example, if it is an item you wish to make, then you have to imagine, design, and build it, or if it is a new concept or idea, you should be able to test it out and prove that it works.

The way we think of or define creativity today is something that has only recently come into being. This is because, in past cultures, any ideas were seen more as discoveries or reproductions of what already existed.

Creativity as we know it today only started evolving during the early parts of the 20th century when the focus was placed on the individual and the different types of personalities, which has since developed over the years.

Creativity and the Brain

With the development of science and technology, today you can visually see what happens in the brain. When it comes to creativity and any other skill, both mental and physical, all originate in the brain. When learning a skill, it is the neurons going off in a particular part of the brain, until what you are learning becomes second nature.

Creativity is a skill that rises above the more traditional ways of thought and new or unique ideas are formed.

Creativity Definition in Painting

Sometimes, this process is easier for some than others and it all depends on how the brain forms connections or a network in the brain. When these networks are highly active, the more creative you can be. Some of these networks have been identified and are as follows.

  • Executive attention : This helps the brain to focus and disregard other distractions and to control responses. Mainly situated in the brain’s prefrontal cortex.
  • Imagination network : The place where you daydream and imagine scenarios and ideas. This network can involve the prefrontal cortex and areas of the parietal lobe.
  • Salience network : Regions in the brain that is responsible for deciding which stimuli should be taken note of. For example, if you see something familiar and you form an appropriate response.
When all the networks are firing effectively, you could have an epiphany or a seemingly unexpected creative moment. A famous example is Archimedes in his bathtub, who coined the term “eureka”. However, this does not happen randomly and out of nowhere; there are thought processes in motion.
  • Convergent thinking : This is where you use a variety of different information and look for a single solution to the problem. For example, puzzles or multiple-choice questions, where you have one solution, but you need to sift through information to get to the correct answer.
  • Divergent thinking : This involves coming up with multiple ideas for a solution. For example, how many applications can you think of for a specific object? Some ideas can be conventional, while others are more original, which closely links this process to creative thinking as well as problem-solving.

When looking at a creativity psychology definition, does it mean that those who are more creative are also more intelligent? There has been a lot of research on the matter, but this subject is still relatively new, and the complete answer to this question is still pending.

However, some research has indicated a few links between intelligence as well as creativity. You can say that intelligence can be categorized as a type of creativity, but you can also say that creativity is a type of intelligence.

Creativity Definition Activity

These two aspects of the human mind can both overlap and have a lot of things in common. They both process information, which is then formulated into a solution. Intelligence can easily be measured, while creativity is more difficult to define and measure. Generally, those that have high intelligence are more creative.

Also, those that are highly creative, can have high intelligence. However, even though there is research in favor of both ideas, it is not absolute and there is no definitive research that proves either case.

Creativity and intelligence are more parts of the same process, and the skills tend to overlap, but they are not dependent on one another. So, technically, you can be either of these or both. As you can already see, creativity is a complex topic. Research has discovered that it can include several thought processes. Besides what we have already discussed, research has indicated that more processes go into creativity, including the following.

In the end, coming up with a creativity definition is difficult as it is such a complex subject that involves multiple brain processes, which use different parts of the brain. So, creativity cannot be limited to a single part of the brain.

For example, scientists believed creativity was generated by the right side of the brain, or the right hemisphere. However, recent discoveries point to more areas involved than a single section or half of the brain.

Various Sections of the Brain Involved in Creativity

There are various sections of the brain that play a part in the creative process. These include the hippocampus, frontal cortex, basal ganglia, and white matter of the brain. White matter is what connects the different brain structures. So, if the connections between the brain structures work more efficiently, the more effective the brain can process information. This could mean better, faster, and more creative ideas.

  • Hippocampus : This is a part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, which involves storing and retrieving these memories. By retrieving various memories and experiences you may have had, you can use your imagination and use these memories to create new and different ideas.
  • Frontal cortex : This structure has been seen as playing a central role in creativity, as we depend on it for various functions related to creative thinking. For example, short-term memory
  • Basal ganglia : This can be found deep within the brain and is responsible for processing how to do tasks. Many times, these tasks will seem automatic, for example, riding a bike. When developing and practicing, creative tasks can become easier.

There has been some research into the various functions of different parts of the brain, especially in those who have difficulty or who have sustained an injury. Scientists can then measure the differences between a normal brain versus a damaged brain. For example, research has discovered a direct association between creative thinking and the hippocampus.

Where participants who had some form of damage to the area, showed they had lower scores when given a test that measures divergent thinking. Specifically, the Torrance Test of Creativity, which evaluates the potential for creativity.

Brain Areas that Define Creativity

Today, we also have access to things like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans or EEG (electroencephalogram) images. The MRI creates a detailed image of the brain, while the EEG tests the electrical activity within the brain. Using these tools, scientists can study the brain more effectively. Studies done this way have shown that for participants who had these scans done while performing creative tasks, scientists can observe where in the brain the activity is processed.

From these tests, it can be determined that creativity originated from more than one section of the brain but requires a network of processes from different parts of the brain, depending on the task at hand.

Is Creativity Important?

Some people say that they are simply not creative, and in many cases in schools, the creative subjects are placed below other subjects deemed more important. So, why should we look closer at creativity? We all want to be good at something, and this requires a lot of time and dedication to develop new skills. But we all cannot be everything at once, so why should you consider spending a bit more time developing your creativity?

In this day and age of development and technology, there is always a place for unique thinking to help grow business ideas.

Creativity Definition in Fashion Design

Many companies and businesses appreciate creative qualities and are searching for those who can apply lateral thinking. A survey that was done by IBM showed that creativity is seen as the main quality needed for a successful business.

Various other surveys also show how creativity can be important. Even though the surveys might not be scientific and are more opinions of individuals, they are still something that should be taken into account. If you combine it with scientific research, this just proves that creativity plays an important role in everyday life.

A creative person is someone who can come up with good, original ideas, and can bring them into reality, something any business can successfully utilize.

Benefits of Creativity

The studies concerning creativity might only be beginning, and there is a lot still to learn and discover about the brain. However, there have been quite a few discoveries concerning the benefits of creativity, even though how it all works is still in process.

Creativity Psychology Definition Example

Being Creative Can Help to Stabilize Emotions

 Many therapies involve creative tasks such as art, dance, and music. These activities and creative activities can help those who suffer from mental disorders like depression, anxiety, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Working through difficult emotions can be done through various creative outlets.

Creating Is Stimulating

When you are in the process of creating something, not only are you more relaxed, but it can also be energizing and stimulating, as well as help you to focus. Your attention is on the current task, and there is some excitement about what the outcome will be.

Creative Definition in Pottery

Stress Relief

This is one of the more apparent advantages of focusing on creative activities or tasks. When participating in a creative task, you bring more awareness to the here and now, while momentarily putting aside thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow. This helps to reduce stress and can bring about a feeling of calm and accomplishment.

If you are doing something you enjoy, you are also freer in the creative process, without deadlines and other stressors that could hold you back.

Creativity Can Help to Improve Empathy

It has been proven that certain forms of creativity can help to improve a person’s feelings of empathy. By viewing other people’s art and forms of creativity, it can develop a certain understanding of others, their culture, and their situations.

Define Creativity of the Brain

Creativity Improves Brain Plasticity

Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to modify or change the activity in response to whatever stimuli and then reorganize the connections. For example, in the way we form a new habit. Being creative can help to stimulate the various connections in the brain.

This is said to help improve the way we live. 

The Basic Stages of Creativity

You might have come across someone that says that they do not possess any creativity, however, all of us possess a certain degree of creativity. The only main difference is how you display your creativity. For some, it might be in art or music, while others use their creativity in work or simply in the way they look at the world.

Whatever the case, creativity ultimately originates from the way we think.

Activities That Define Creativity

Since creativity is such a complex subject, there are various methods people can use during the creative process. However, there are a few stages that are common, and which were first expressed by a social psychologist, Graham Wallas. He made known these stages in a book in the early 20th century called, The Art of Thought . Below is a short description of these five stages.

Ways to Improve Creativity

Is there a way to become more creative? Some people have a natural talent for certain things, but even they can benefit from improving their skills. So, yes you can always improve on creativity, and it is a useful skill that anybody can learn, no matter where you are in life.

Creativity definition: is being able to come up with unique ideas that can help solve problems, aid in better communication, or simply entertain. If you want to improve your creative abilities, there are a few things you can do.

For anything to work, you need to commit yourself to the process, and setting goals is a way to do this. Do not put off what you want to do, decide to do it, and set yourself a time for developing new skills. As with all things, to get good at something, you need to practice.

You also need to know everything about whatever you are interested in. As you learn and understand a subject, it will become easier and better for you to come up with more novel and unique ideas.

Be a Risk Taker

To advance in certain areas, there is always a certain amount of risk involved. For example, sharing a painting in a class might be daunting, but the positive critique will make you a better painter in the future. You might not succeed every time, but nothing is wasted as you also learn from your mistakes. So, next time you try, it may be even better than you anticipated.

What is Creativity in Art

Build Confidence

When it comes to a lack of confidence, this can be something that is quite debilitating and stops you from doing what you want. Insecurity is something that can stifle creativity, so try to work on building your confidence by rewarding yourself or being less critical of your work.

Try to avoid negative thoughts, even if you do not do well, to begin with, see it as a learning curve, and move on.

Brainstorm Ideas

Brainstorming is used in schools and is a way to help develop creativity. Again, the main thing is to let go of any negative thoughts and criticism, and to write down any ideas. The point is to come up with a lot of ideas in as little time as possible.

Creativity Definition

You can then look at all the ideas and improve on them, and so work your way to a possible solution. This is a great method for problem-solving and utilizing creative thinking skills. There are other methods or techniques you can try.

  • Mind maps : This as well as flow charts are a great way to help connect ideas and it is an original way to find answers to challenging questions.
  • Six thinking hats technique : This is a way to incorporate the various ways people think to come up with the best solution. For example, there are six colored hats each connected to a different thinking process to help form a solution more cohesively as a group.
  • Thought experiments : Creating hypothetical situations where you have to think through the consequences of an idea or theory.

Keep a Journal

An effective way to help with the creative process is to keep a journal. Whenever you have an idea, make sure to write it down, even if it is not relevant to your current project. This is a great way to keep track of ideas and also look back on what you have already achieved, and maybe come up with more possible ideas.

This can also be a way to challenge yourself in the future, to continually grow from what you have done in the past. Make sure you try new things, instead of falling back on old ideas and using the same solution all the time.

Go Out and Find Inspiration

Going out to find inspiration can be just what you need to come up with new ideas. You can visit a museum, travel, listen to music, and read a book you would not normally choose. Engage in activities you would not normally do, to get out of your comfort zone and experience new things. You should also love and enjoy what you are doing because this is the best way to boost creativity. If you love something, then it is easier to do, and you will commit to it without having problems or making excuses.

What is Creativity in Design

Ask Others for Their Input

Take your ideas and bounce them off others and get their input and advice. You do not have to be alone in the process, while others might have the answer to your problem. Learning from others can only help to improve your creative abilities and outcomes.

Asking for help should not be seen as a weakness, as everyone has their own knowledge base and experience, it can only help. A fresh perspective might just be what is needed.

Unwind and Relax

Sometimes, things can get overwhelming and nothing is coming to mind. This might be a good time to simply stop what you are doing and do something else. Go and run, walk, or simply relax and read a book. Your mind needs to relax as well, and in so doing, the answer you were looking for might just appear.

Creativity Definition in Reading

In the end, creativity is something we all possess, it is just a matter of how we express it. Creativity is a skill that helps you to better understand the world we live in and to take make observations, use and compare them with existing knowledge, and then form new ideas and applications others have not thought of. It is proof of how wonderful and complex our minds are.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is creativity.

The creativity psychology definition describes it as an ability to produce original and unique thoughts, ideas, and possibilities, to help solve problems, aid in communication, and can also be a form of entertainment.

Can You Describe Creativity as a Skill?

Some individuals seem to have a natural-born talent; however, creativity is a skill that can be developed. Creativity starts with the basis of knowledge and learning and then can be enhanced by practicing the way you think. Being creative can mean experimenting, imagining, exploring, and questioning things around us.

Are There More Creative People Than Others?

As mentioned, some people have a natural talent for performing certain tasks, but everybody can be creative – it just takes a little more practice and dedication to develop creativity. A lot more research must still be done in this field.

isabella meyer

Isabella studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English Literature & Language and Psychology. Throughout her undergraduate years, she took Art History as an additional subject and absolutely loved it. Building on from her art history knowledge that began in high school, art has always been a particular area of fascination for her. From learning about artworks previously unknown to her, or sharpening her existing understanding of specific works, the ability to continue learning within this interesting sphere excites her greatly.

Her focal points of interest in art history encompass profiling specific artists and art movements, as it is these areas where she is able to really dig deep into the rich narrative of the art world. Additionally, she particularly enjoys exploring the different artistic styles of the 20 th century, as well as the important impact that female artists have had on the development of art history.

Learn more about Isabella Meyer and the Art in Context Team .

Cite this Article

Isabella, Meyer, “What Is Creativity? – Understanding Imaginative Problem Solving.” Art in Context. May 16, 2022. URL: https://artincontext.org/what-is-creativity/

Meyer, I. (2022, 16 May). What Is Creativity? – Understanding Imaginative Problem Solving. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/what-is-creativity/

Meyer, Isabella. “What Is Creativity? – Understanding Imaginative Problem Solving.” Art in Context , May 16, 2022. https://artincontext.org/what-is-creativity/ .

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What Is Creative Problem-Solving & Why Is It Important?

Business team using creative problem-solving

  • 01 Feb 2022

One of the biggest hindrances to innovation is complacency—it can be more comfortable to do what you know than venture into the unknown. Business leaders can overcome this barrier by mobilizing creative team members and providing space to innovate.

There are several tools you can use to encourage creativity in the workplace. Creative problem-solving is one of them, which facilitates the development of innovative solutions to difficult problems.

Here’s an overview of creative problem-solving and why it’s important in business.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Creative Problem-Solving?

Research is necessary when solving a problem. But there are situations where a problem’s specific cause is difficult to pinpoint. This can occur when there’s not enough time to narrow down the problem’s source or there are differing opinions about its root cause.

In such cases, you can use creative problem-solving , which allows you to explore potential solutions regardless of whether a problem has been defined.

Creative problem-solving is less structured than other innovation processes and encourages exploring open-ended solutions. It also focuses on developing new perspectives and fostering creativity in the workplace . Its benefits include:

  • Finding creative solutions to complex problems : User research can insufficiently illustrate a situation’s complexity. While other innovation processes rely on this information, creative problem-solving can yield solutions without it.
  • Adapting to change : Business is constantly changing, and business leaders need to adapt. Creative problem-solving helps overcome unforeseen challenges and find solutions to unconventional problems.
  • Fueling innovation and growth : In addition to solutions, creative problem-solving can spark innovative ideas that drive company growth. These ideas can lead to new product lines, services, or a modified operations structure that improves efficiency.

Design Thinking and Innovation | Uncover creative solutions to your business problems | Learn More

Creative problem-solving is traditionally based on the following key principles :

1. Balance Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Creative problem-solving uses two primary tools to find solutions: divergence and convergence. Divergence generates ideas in response to a problem, while convergence narrows them down to a shortlist. It balances these two practices and turns ideas into concrete solutions.

2. Reframe Problems as Questions

By framing problems as questions, you shift from focusing on obstacles to solutions. This provides the freedom to brainstorm potential ideas.

3. Defer Judgment of Ideas

When brainstorming, it can be natural to reject or accept ideas right away. Yet, immediate judgments interfere with the idea generation process. Even ideas that seem implausible can turn into outstanding innovations upon further exploration and development.

4. Focus on "Yes, And" Instead of "No, But"

Using negative words like "no" discourages creative thinking. Instead, use positive language to build and maintain an environment that fosters the development of creative and innovative ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving and Design Thinking

Whereas creative problem-solving facilitates developing innovative ideas through a less structured workflow, design thinking takes a far more organized approach.

Design thinking is a human-centered, solutions-based process that fosters the ideation and development of solutions. In the online course Design Thinking and Innovation , Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar leverages a four-phase framework to explain design thinking.

The four stages are:

The four stages of design thinking: clarify, ideate, develop, and implement

  • Clarify: The clarification stage allows you to empathize with the user and identify problems. Observations and insights are informed by thorough research. Findings are then reframed as problem statements or questions.
  • Ideate: Ideation is the process of coming up with innovative ideas. The divergence of ideas involved with creative problem-solving is a major focus.
  • Develop: In the development stage, ideas evolve into experiments and tests. Ideas converge and are explored through prototyping and open critique.
  • Implement: Implementation involves continuing to test and experiment to refine the solution and encourage its adoption.

Creative problem-solving primarily operates in the ideate phase of design thinking but can be applied to others. This is because design thinking is an iterative process that moves between the stages as ideas are generated and pursued. This is normal and encouraged, as innovation requires exploring multiple ideas.

Creative Problem-Solving Tools

While there are many useful tools in the creative problem-solving process, here are three you should know:

Creating a Problem Story

One way to innovate is by creating a story about a problem to understand how it affects users and what solutions best fit their needs. Here are the steps you need to take to use this tool properly.

1. Identify a UDP

Create a problem story to identify the undesired phenomena (UDP). For example, consider a company that produces printers that overheat. In this case, the UDP is "our printers overheat."

2. Move Forward in Time

To move forward in time, ask: “Why is this a problem?” For example, minor damage could be one result of the machines overheating. In more extreme cases, printers may catch fire. Don't be afraid to create multiple problem stories if you think of more than one UDP.

3. Move Backward in Time

To move backward in time, ask: “What caused this UDP?” If you can't identify the root problem, think about what typically causes the UDP to occur. For the overheating printers, overuse could be a cause.

Following the three-step framework above helps illustrate a clear problem story:

  • The printer is overused.
  • The printer overheats.
  • The printer breaks down.

You can extend the problem story in either direction if you think of additional cause-and-effect relationships.

4. Break the Chains

By this point, you’ll have multiple UDP storylines. Take two that are similar and focus on breaking the chains connecting them. This can be accomplished through inversion or neutralization.

  • Inversion: Inversion changes the relationship between two UDPs so the cause is the same but the effect is the opposite. For example, if the UDP is "the more X happens, the more likely Y is to happen," inversion changes the equation to "the more X happens, the less likely Y is to happen." Using the printer example, inversion would consider: "What if the more a printer is used, the less likely it’s going to overheat?" Innovation requires an open mind. Just because a solution initially seems unlikely doesn't mean it can't be pursued further or spark additional ideas.
  • Neutralization: Neutralization completely eliminates the cause-and-effect relationship between X and Y. This changes the above equation to "the more or less X happens has no effect on Y." In the case of the printers, neutralization would rephrase the relationship to "the more or less a printer is used has no effect on whether it overheats."

Even if creating a problem story doesn't provide a solution, it can offer useful context to users’ problems and additional ideas to be explored. Given that divergence is one of the fundamental practices of creative problem-solving, it’s a good idea to incorporate it into each tool you use.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a tool that can be highly effective when guided by the iterative qualities of the design thinking process. It involves openly discussing and debating ideas and topics in a group setting. This facilitates idea generation and exploration as different team members consider the same concept from multiple perspectives.

Hosting brainstorming sessions can result in problems, such as groupthink or social loafing. To combat this, leverage a three-step brainstorming method involving divergence and convergence :

  • Have each group member come up with as many ideas as possible and write them down to ensure the brainstorming session is productive.
  • Continue the divergence of ideas by collectively sharing and exploring each idea as a group. The goal is to create a setting where new ideas are inspired by open discussion.
  • Begin the convergence of ideas by narrowing them down to a few explorable options. There’s no "right number of ideas." Don't be afraid to consider exploring all of them, as long as you have the resources to do so.

Alternate Worlds

The alternate worlds tool is an empathetic approach to creative problem-solving. It encourages you to consider how someone in another world would approach your situation.

For example, if you’re concerned that the printers you produce overheat and catch fire, consider how a different industry would approach the problem. How would an automotive expert solve it? How would a firefighter?

Be creative as you consider and research alternate worlds. The purpose is not to nail down a solution right away but to continue the ideation process through diverging and exploring ideas.

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Whether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer, or business leader, learning the ropes of design thinking can be an effective way to build your skills and foster creativity and innovation in any setting.

If you're ready to develop your design thinking and creative problem-solving skills, explore Design Thinking and Innovation , one of our online entrepreneurship and innovation courses. If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart to determine which best aligns with your goals.

problem solving definition art

About the Author

Creative Problem Solving

problem solving definition art

Students will examine Remington’s The Cheyenne and identify the challenges he faced in creating a horse that appears to be airborne. They will then work with a partner and go through a similar problem-solving process to create their own airborne sculpture.

Students will be able to:

  • explain the problems Remington faced when he started sculpting in bronze and how he worked with others to solve these problems;
  • overcome challenges faced when making an airborne sculpture; and
  • work with others to complete a task.
  • Warm-up: Divide students up into small groups of three or four. Have them use the materials provided to build a free-standing structure that is as tall as possible. You have two minutes to brainstorm with the people in your groups and four minutes to build the structure. Debrief the problem-solving activity with the students. What worked and what didn’t? How did working together help you build the tallest structure possible?
  • Show students The Cheyenne and share with them key points from the About the Art section about the problem-solving Remington engaged in with the foundry. Define “airborne” and discuss the challenge Remington faced in making his airborne horse sculpture. Remington cleverly used a cape to balance the weight of his sculpture. Brainstorm other objects he could have used instead. Have students compare their problem solving strategies from the warm-up to Remington’s process.
  • Tell students that they are going to make their sculpture of an airborne animal. Allow students to work with a partner. Have them start by looking through books and/or magazines to choose an airborne animal. Have them decide on a support, just as Remington chose to include a cape on The Cheyenne .
  • Give them a choice of recycled materials, some Model Magic (or other sculpting product). The sculpture will be more abstract and less detailed than The Cheyenne but the primary goal is for them to take the problem of having to make a sculpture from recycled materials and to make their animal appear to be airborne.
  • Debrief the experience. First compare the similarities and differences of their process to Remington’s. What limitations did they have?
  • One set of the following for every three to four students: three paper cups, 10 index cards, four clothespins
  • An assortment of recycled materials, including bottles, food containers, etc.
  • Model Magic, Sculpey, or clay for each student to make a sculpture (amounts will vary based on plastic containers used)
  • Books and/or magazines with pictures of airborne animals ( National Geographic is a great resource)
  • About the Art section on The Cheyenne
  • One color copy of the painting for every four students, or the ability to project the image onto a wall or screen
  • Invent and Discover to Create
  • Observe and Learn to Comprehend
  • Relate and Connect to Transfer
  • Envision and Critique to Reflect
  • Oral Expression and Listening
  • Collaboration
  • Critical Thinking & Reasoning
  • Information Literacy
  • Self-Direction

The Cheyenne

Frederic Remington was born in Canton, New York, and attended the Yale School of Art, where he studied drawing and played football. When he was twenty years old, he traveled west for a vacation and mailed a rough sketch to Harper’s Weekly magazine, kicking off his career as an illustrator. He had tried his hand at sheep ranching in Kansas, but after a couple of years returned to New York, making trips west from his home in the East. Most of his work was created in his studio in New Rochelle, New York. Remington’s artistic career began with painting and drawing, but a friend encouraged him to try his hand at sculpture in 1895. He made 24 sculptures in his last 14 years as an artist. Remington liked the permanence of bronze sculpture: “My water colors will fade—but I am to endure in bronze,” he said. He died at age 48 at the height of his career.

Remington felt compelled to record an American West that he believed to be disappearing. He loved to portray the action and energy of the West and did not feel confined by what were considered the limits of the bronze medium. In this sculpture, Remington has defied the traditional means of supporting sculpture, making the falling robe a part of the action. The horse and rider are full of energy and appear to be moving quickly. Remington often worked from photographs to achieve this authentic image of motion. To create this bronze sculpture, Remington used a method called lost wax casting. A “cast” is a form that is created by pouring liquid metal into a mold. Although it is over 6000 years old, the lost wax method had been newly introduced in the United States during Remington’s time. The process involves six different steps—during each step a new model of the sculpture is made. Lost wax casting allows the artist to make quick changes and fine-tune the wax model before each pour. Remington took advantage of this opportunity for experimentation, and often visited the foundry that produced his casts at this stage. His additional artistic input is evident in the Denver Art Museum’s sculpture, especially in the textures and color of the piece.

problem solving definition art

Different Textures

Compare the smooth skin of the Indian to the rippled musculature of the horse’s flank to the high relief texture of the buffalo robe. This sculpture shows the texture variation that was possible using the lost wax method, and it is evidence that this cast received a great deal of personal attention from the artist.

problem solving definition art

The golden honey color of this particular cast is much lighter than other casts of The Cheyenne , which may be evidence that Remington himself was involved in selecting it. He usually preferred a blue-black patina, so this was probably an experiment.

problem solving definition art

Four Hooves Off the Ground

In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge’s (MY-bridge) photos of racehorses in motion proved that all four hooves leave the ground at one time. Wanting to show this in bronze, Remington added a buffalo robe falling toward the ground as a support for the flying horse.

problem solving definition art

Accurate Leg Position

Muybridge’s photos also revealed another misconception: in their off-the-ground position, the horse's legs were bunched together under the belly, rather than in the “hobbyhorse attitude,” with front legs stretched forward and hind legs backward, which was traditional in painting. In using this pose for The Cheyenne , Remington was one of the first artists to take advantage of this new information.

problem solving definition art

Mane & Tail

The horse’s mane and tail add to the sculpture’s sense of motion—they appear to be blown back by the wind.

problem solving definition art

The Artist’s Signature

Remington’s signature changes location from cast to cast. On ours, it appears on the base.

Related Creativity Resources

Rolled up yellow rain jacket tied to the back of a saddle on a horse.

Possible Perspectives

Students will look at and discuss Coen’s painting Yellow Rain Jacket and write stories from the perspective of either the horse or the champion rider, exploring how the same details can be communicated differently.

problem solving definition art

Clothing Conversations

In this lesson, students will explore the symbols, patterns, and colors that are important to the Osage people. Students will compose a written reflection on the messages that their clothing communicates about them, just as the Ribbon Appliqué Wearing Blanket communicated messages about the person who wore it.

problem solving definition art

Say It with Flowers

Students will examine the artistic characteristics of Three Young Girls ; explain the meaning and significance of the flowers in the painting and other well-known flowers.

problem solving definition art

A Triumphant Message

Students will examine the sequencing of events in the paintings and create a six-part story of sequential “triumphs” that ends with an important message.

problem solving definition art

Poetry with Natural Similes and Metaphors

Students will examine the artistic characteristics of Summer ; make comparisons between physical features of the figure portrayed in Summer with items from the natural world; and create poems using similes and metaphors comparing a person’s physical appearance with items from the natural world.

problem solving definition art

Making the Commonplace Distinguished and Beautiful

Students will learn how William Merritt Chase aimed to portray commonplace objects in ways that made them appear distinguished and beautiful. They will then create a written description of a commonplace object that makes it appear distinguished and beautiful.

Funding for object education resources provided by a grant from the Morgridge Family Foundation. Additional funding provided by the William Randolph Hearst Endowment for Education Programs, and Xcel Energy Foundation. We thank our colleagues at the University of Denver Morgridge College of Education.

The images on this page are intended for classroom use only and may not be reproduced for other reasons without the permission of the Denver Art Museum. This object may not currently be on display at the museum.

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problem solving definition art

Design Thinking, Essential Problem Solving 101- It’s More Than Scientific

The term “ Design Thinking ” dates back to the 1987 book by Peter Rowe; “Design Thinking.” In that book he describes the way that architects and urban planners would approach design problems. However, the idea that there was a specific pattern of problem solving in “design thought” came much earlier in Herbert A Simon’s book, “The Science of the Artificial” which was published in 1969. The concept was popularized in the early 1990s by Richard Buchanan in his article “ Wicked Problems in Design Thinking”.

Ralph Caplan, the design consultant, sums up the need for design thinking with; “Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous.”

problem solving definition art

Author/Copyright holder: Christine Prefontaine. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

A simple overview of design thinking as a problem solving process.

Problem-Solving and Two Schools of Thought

Design thinking is concerned with solving problems through design. The idea being that the future output of the process will provide a better answer than the one already available or if nothing is available – something entirely new.

It is an unconstrained methodology where it is possible that the designer (or design team) will work on many possible solutions at once. It enables designers to consider the problem in many different ways and speculate on both the past and future of the problem too.

This is in contrast to the scientific method of problem solving which requires a highly-defined problem which focuses on delivering a single solution.

This difference was first noted by Brian Lawson, a psychologist, in 1972. He conducted an experiment in which scientists and architects were asked to build a structure from colored blocks. He provided some basic rules for the project and observed how they approached it. The scientists looked to move through a simple series of solutions based on the outcome and entire rule set. The architects, in contrast, simply focused on the desired end-state and then tested to see if the solution they had found met the rules.

This led to the idea that scientists solve problems by a process of analysis, whilst designers solve problems by synthesis. However, later evidence suggests that designers apply both forms of problem solving to attain “design thinking”.

They do this via a process of divergent thinking . A designer will examine as many possible solutions at the beginning of a process as they can think of – then they will apply the scientific side ( convergent thinking ) to narrow these solutions down to the best output.

problem solving definition art

Design thinking can be as simple or as complex as the business and users require. This IDEO process can be seen as a 3 part process or a 9 part process .

The Design Thinking Process

Design thinking is essentially a process which moves from problem to solution via some clear intermediate points. The classic approach, as proposed by Herbert A Simon, is offered here:

  • Definition – where the problem is defined as best as possible prior to solving it
  • Research – where the designers examine as much data as they feel necessary to be able to fully contribute to the problem solving process
  • Ideation – where the designer commences creating possible solutions without examining their practicality until a large number of solutions has been proposed. Once this is done, impractical solutions are eliminated or played with until they become practical.
  • Prototyping – where the best ideas are simulated in some means so that their value can be explored with users
  • Choosing – where the best idea is selected from the multiple prototypes
  • Implementing – where that idea is built and delivered as a product
  • Testing – where the product is tested with the user in order to ensure that it solves the original problem in an effective manner

There are many other design thinking processes outlined in literature – most of which are a truncated version of the above process combining or skipping stages.

problem solving definition art

Here we see a more complex interpretation of the design thinking process and how it fits into the larger business sphere.

The Principles of Design Thinking

In the book, Design thinking: Understand, Improve Apply, Plattner and Meinel offer four underlying principles for design thinking:

  • Human – all design is of a social nature
  • Ambiguity – design thinking preserves and embraces ambiguity
  • Re-design – all design processes are in fact re-design of existing processes
  • Tangibility – the design process to make something tangible will facilitate communication of that design

It is also worth noting that design thinking functions independently of the design methods employed in any given design process. Design methods are the tools employed (such as interviews, user research , prototypes, etc.) and the assumption is that there are many paths that may be used (e.g. different sets of methods applied) to reach the same “best” result.

Visuals and Design Thinking

Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that design thinking is not about graphic design per se. However, designers are often used to communicating their thinking visually and drawings, sketches, prototypes, etc. are often used to convey the ideas created within a design thinking process.

In fact, ideas which are hard to express easily in words are often given shape in the form of visual metaphors. Design thinking thus easily incorporates abstract thought processes – something that scientific thinking may find more challenging to accommodate.

problem solving definition art

Visual representations of how those involved in the design process might be thinking about a problem.

The Take Away

Design thinking is a process by which designers approach problem solving. It incorporates analytical, synthetic, divergent and convergent thinking to create a wide number of potential solutions and then narrow these down to a “best fit” solution. There are many ways to use a design thinking process to incorporate different methodologies to still reach the same end point. Designers must solve problems in order to add value through design.

Richard Buchanan’s original article "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking," was published in Design Issues , vol. 8, no. 2, Spring 1992.

Peter Rowe’s book from 1987 Design Thinking was published byCambridge: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-68067-7.

Herbert A Simon’s book from 1969 The Sciences of the Artificial . Was published by Cambridge: MIT Press.

Plattner, Hasso; Meinel, Christoph; Leifer, Larry J., eds. (2011). Design thinking: understand, improve, apply . Understanding innovation . Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. pp. xiv–xvi.doi:10.1007/978-3-642-13757-0. ISBN 3642137563.

This fascinating case study looks at how IBM plans to bring design thinking to large scale businesses - http://www.wired.com/2016/01/ibms-got-a-plan-to-bring-design-thinking-to-big-business/

See how Pepsi’s CEO, Indra Nooyi, implemented design thinking in her organization - https://hbr.org/2015/09/how-indra-nooyi-turned-design-thinking-into-strategy

Harvard Business Review examines design thinking and how it translates into action here - https://hbr.org/2015/09/design-for-action

Hero Image: Author/Copyright holder: Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services

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Can art make us better problem solvers?

Géricault’s juggernaut.

In the search for novel ways to hone our problem-solving skills , spending time with a work of art may be the simplest and most effective training, according to the art historian Amy Herman.

Herman has been teaching professionals —homicide detectives, medical students, lawyers, and engineers—to read paintings as a way to improve their analytical faculties. “Art provides a safe space outside of ourselves to analyze our observations and convert those observable details into actionable knowledge,” Herman writes in the introduction to her new book, Fixed. How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem-Solving .

Doing so can help us understand how and why things go wrong and, more importantly, how to fix them, she explains.

Putting the lesson into practice

In her book, Herman explains how to navigate a complex composition, step by step.

Consider Théodore Géricault’s grisly painting, The Raft of the Medusa .

The Raft of the Medusa by Gericault

Herman writes:

Take in its scope, notice its details, count things, catalog what you think might be going on. Then, take a breath and let your mind wander. What did the chaos of the preceding scene bring to mind? A natural disaster? A human-made catastrophe? The current state of your country? Maybe you were reminded of more personal scenarios: office drama, an argument at home that got out of hand, Zoom Thanksgiving.
No matter who you are or where you live, chances are you can relate to the desperation depicted above.

A crucial skill in Herman’s approach is the art of noticing—the ability to quell the impulse to pick up our mobile devices and to pause long enough to ruminate on the details of a visual spectacle before us. This is particularly salient in the age of short attention spans , where the average museum-goer spends less than 30 seconds looking at a work of art .

Fixed book cover.

Looking at art also attunes us to nuance and ambiguity, explains Herman. It’s a skill that’s critical for hostage negotiators to managers trying to read the room.

“The optimal way to look at art, whether alone or with others, is to look at the object first, speak after looking, and only then, read the label,” Herman tells Quartz. “My hope is that by learning to look at art in a structured way inspires and refreshes critical inquiry and that same model will be applied to when confronting problems in need of solutions.”

Herman, who once led the education department at the Frick Collection in New York City, insists that there’s no shame in “using art to study ourselves and the problems we face every single day.”  “Art can be many different things to many different viewers,” she argues. “If the power of a work of art can be channeled to enable a viewer who does not have a background in art or art history to approach their vocation in a different and more expansive way, why not unleash that?”

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Weaving Influence

How to Improve Your Problem-Solving with Art

by Elizabeth Johnson | Mar 15, 2016 | Inspiration | 4 comments

How to Improve Your Problem-Solving with Art

Have you followed the recent adult coloring book trend? From mandalas and zentangles, to everyday nature scenes or inspirational word art, adults are rediscovering the joy of tuning in to the creative side of their brains. Coloring provides a relaxing, low-cost way to retreat from the pressures of everyday. Plus, breaking out all the old-school art supplies is just plain fun!

After spending some time coloring with friends over Christmas, I started wondering what it might take to create my own coloring book. I gathered books about learning to sketch flowers, creating my own zentangles, and designing my own typography. I watched videos about sketch-noting and creative lettering. And I quickly remembered how hard it is to transfer a picture from the brain onto paper! Even my best attempts looked rather amateurish.

But I was determined not to give up easily! I kept scouring the library shelves and picked up this art textbook on a whim… and it completely changed how I see things.

Instead of teaching you how to draw , it teaches you how to see things differently.  Rather than simply giving step-by-step instructions for sketching faces and flowers, it teaches you how to notice edges, relationships, and shadows. It’s the difference between just seeing a hand or a tree – and noticing the specific shapes that make up the whole, the negative spaces that provide definition, the shadows that add depth, and the overall gestalt that makes the sketch seem comforting or menacing or humorous.

The best part is, as I learn to slow down and notice the details, my sketches are improving – without any innate talent or formal training. As I learn to see things differently, I’m able to describe them better, whether that’s with words or with pictures.

The interesting thing is how all of this relates to “the rest of life.” Learning any form of artistic expression (music, photography, poetry, sculpture, pottery, etc.) can have real-world application in the areas of problem-solving, team-building, and just thinking in general.

Why? Because it teaches you how to erase your preconceived ideas of how something looks, and shift your approach to observe the underlying connections and overall sense of a situation. It changes your perception of things, people, or situations.

For instance: have you ever tried drawing a realistic-looking nose? It’s hard to move past how you learned to draw noses back in fifth grade. But in order to draw a realistic-looking nose, you have to forget those preconceived ideas and look for the lines and the shadows and the relationship to other parts of the face.

That principle translates over to the rest of life. We approach challenging situations at work or in our personal lives with preconceived ideas of how to fix them – but how often does that approach actually work?

In life, as in drawing, we must look carefully to discover the shadows, connections, and boundaries.

In art, one way to train yourself to do that is by sketching an upside-down picture. That forces you to focus on the lines, spaces, and proportions rather than approaching it with preconceived ideas of “this is how a face should look.”

In the rest of life, that could mean taking a step back to consider the areas around a given problem:

  • What underlying factors might there be (the “edges and spaces”)?
  • How is it affecting other people or other situations (the “relationships”)?
  • How “gray” of an issue is it really (the “shadows”)?

Here’s an exercise for you:

Consider a specific situation that’s been weighing you down. Approach it as though it were an art exercise. Observe the overall gestalt of the situation, notice the edges and negative spaces that define it, perceive the underlying shadows and connections that give it depth and relevance. Use an artistic medium as your guide – whether it’s drawing, scrapbooking, sculpting, writing poetry, or even composing music. The only limit is your creativity!

Now consider how that artistic medium helped you see the situation with fresh eyes. Did you discover some nuances that you weren’t aware of before? Did you identify some connections that brought the whole problem into focus? Did you realize a surprising depth to the circumstances that aided your understanding?

Tell me something! What’s your favorite artistic medium? Have you ever used it to help you solve a problem?

Image credit: feelphotoz

problem solving definition art

Elizabeth Johnson loves the color yellow, strong {black} coffee, editing, and exploring the mountains in rural Wyoming and Utah, where she and her husband serve as church planters. In her free time, she enjoys learning new things, hand-lettering and acrylic painting, and gaming with her husband.

Elizabeth Mercer

Hey Elizabeth so glad you liked the journal. I love colored pencils and doing calligraphy as well the two of them combined have enjoyed the two for years. I am not to good at portraits I tend to make people look like someone else. And I do have the adult coloring books they are quite fun sometimes just to relax a bit. I have really never used it to solve a problem but the thought of using it to sort through a problem is a great idea. I always pray about it and ask God for His wisdom and strength through issues. Love Liz and the boys

Elizabeth Johnson

Thanks Liz! I definitely still have a LOT to learn when it comes to drawing, but it’s been intriguing to make some connections like this to other areas of life.

Paula Kiger (Big Green Pen)

I loved this post, Elizabeth – wonder if I’ll ever pick up a grown up coloring book myself!

You should! Although it’s pretty easy to find free printable pages on Pinterest – might let you get a better idea what styles you enjoy coloring before you go out and buy something.

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How to master the seven-step problem-solving process

In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , Simon London speaks with Charles Conn, CEO of venture-capital firm Oxford Sciences Innovation, and McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin about the complexities of different problem-solving strategies.

Podcast transcript

Simon London: Hello, and welcome to this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , with me, Simon London. What’s the number-one skill you need to succeed professionally? Salesmanship, perhaps? Or a facility with statistics? Or maybe the ability to communicate crisply and clearly? Many would argue that at the very top of the list comes problem solving: that is, the ability to think through and come up with an optimal course of action to address any complex challenge—in business, in public policy, or indeed in life.

Looked at this way, it’s no surprise that McKinsey takes problem solving very seriously, testing for it during the recruiting process and then honing it, in McKinsey consultants, through immersion in a structured seven-step method. To discuss the art of problem solving, I sat down in California with McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin and also with Charles Conn. Charles is a former McKinsey partner, entrepreneur, executive, and coauthor of the book Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything [John Wiley & Sons, 2018].

Charles and Hugo, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Hugo Sarrazin: Our pleasure.

Charles Conn: It’s terrific to be here.

Simon London: Problem solving is a really interesting piece of terminology. It could mean so many different things. I have a son who’s a teenage climber. They talk about solving problems. Climbing is problem solving. Charles, when you talk about problem solving, what are you talking about?

Charles Conn: For me, problem solving is the answer to the question “What should I do?” It’s interesting when there’s uncertainty and complexity, and when it’s meaningful because there are consequences. Your son’s climbing is a perfect example. There are consequences, and it’s complicated, and there’s uncertainty—can he make that grab? I think we can apply that same frame almost at any level. You can think about questions like “What town would I like to live in?” or “Should I put solar panels on my roof?”

You might think that’s a funny thing to apply problem solving to, but in my mind it’s not fundamentally different from business problem solving, which answers the question “What should my strategy be?” Or problem solving at the policy level: “How do we combat climate change?” “Should I support the local school bond?” I think these are all part and parcel of the same type of question, “What should I do?”

I’m a big fan of structured problem solving. By following steps, we can more clearly understand what problem it is we’re solving, what are the components of the problem that we’re solving, which components are the most important ones for us to pay attention to, which analytic techniques we should apply to those, and how we can synthesize what we’ve learned back into a compelling story. That’s all it is, at its heart.

I think sometimes when people think about seven steps, they assume that there’s a rigidity to this. That’s not it at all. It’s actually to give you the scope for creativity, which often doesn’t exist when your problem solving is muddled.

Simon London: You were just talking about the seven-step process. That’s what’s written down in the book, but it’s a very McKinsey process as well. Without getting too deep into the weeds, let’s go through the steps, one by one. You were just talking about problem definition as being a particularly important thing to get right first. That’s the first step. Hugo, tell us about that.

Hugo Sarrazin: It is surprising how often people jump past this step and make a bunch of assumptions. The most powerful thing is to step back and ask the basic questions—“What are we trying to solve? What are the constraints that exist? What are the dependencies?” Let’s make those explicit and really push the thinking and defining. At McKinsey, we spend an enormous amount of time in writing that little statement, and the statement, if you’re a logic purist, is great. You debate. “Is it an ‘or’? Is it an ‘and’? What’s the action verb?” Because all these specific words help you get to the heart of what matters.

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Simon London: So this is a concise problem statement.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah. It’s not like “Can we grow in Japan?” That’s interesting, but it is “What, specifically, are we trying to uncover in the growth of a product in Japan? Or a segment in Japan? Or a channel in Japan?” When you spend an enormous amount of time, in the first meeting of the different stakeholders, debating this and having different people put forward what they think the problem definition is, you realize that people have completely different views of why they’re here. That, to me, is the most important step.

Charles Conn: I would agree with that. For me, the problem context is critical. When we understand “What are the forces acting upon your decision maker? How quickly is the answer needed? With what precision is the answer needed? Are there areas that are off limits or areas where we would particularly like to find our solution? Is the decision maker open to exploring other areas?” then you not only become more efficient, and move toward what we call the critical path in problem solving, but you also make it so much more likely that you’re not going to waste your time or your decision maker’s time.

How often do especially bright young people run off with half of the idea about what the problem is and start collecting data and start building models—only to discover that they’ve really gone off half-cocked.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah.

Charles Conn: And in the wrong direction.

Simon London: OK. So step one—and there is a real art and a structure to it—is define the problem. Step two, Charles?

Charles Conn: My favorite step is step two, which is to use logic trees to disaggregate the problem. Every problem we’re solving has some complexity and some uncertainty in it. The only way that we can really get our team working on the problem is to take the problem apart into logical pieces.

What we find, of course, is that the way to disaggregate the problem often gives you an insight into the answer to the problem quite quickly. I love to do two or three different cuts at it, each one giving a bit of a different insight into what might be going wrong. By doing sensible disaggregations, using logic trees, we can figure out which parts of the problem we should be looking at, and we can assign those different parts to team members.

Simon London: What’s a good example of a logic tree on a sort of ratable problem?

Charles Conn: Maybe the easiest one is the classic profit tree. Almost in every business that I would take a look at, I would start with a profit or return-on-assets tree. In its simplest form, you have the components of revenue, which are price and quantity, and the components of cost, which are cost and quantity. Each of those can be broken out. Cost can be broken into variable cost and fixed cost. The components of price can be broken into what your pricing scheme is. That simple tree often provides insight into what’s going on in a business or what the difference is between that business and the competitors.

If we add the leg, which is “What’s the asset base or investment element?”—so profit divided by assets—then we can ask the question “Is the business using its investments sensibly?” whether that’s in stores or in manufacturing or in transportation assets. I hope we can see just how simple this is, even though we’re describing it in words.

When I went to work with Gordon Moore at the Moore Foundation, the problem that he asked us to look at was “How can we save Pacific salmon?” Now, that sounds like an impossible question, but it was amenable to precisely the same type of disaggregation and allowed us to organize what became a 15-year effort to improve the likelihood of good outcomes for Pacific salmon.

Simon London: Now, is there a danger that your logic tree can be impossibly large? This, I think, brings us onto the third step in the process, which is that you have to prioritize.

Charles Conn: Absolutely. The third step, which we also emphasize, along with good problem definition, is rigorous prioritization—we ask the questions “How important is this lever or this branch of the tree in the overall outcome that we seek to achieve? How much can I move that lever?” Obviously, we try and focus our efforts on ones that have a big impact on the problem and the ones that we have the ability to change. With salmon, ocean conditions turned out to be a big lever, but not one that we could adjust. We focused our attention on fish habitats and fish-harvesting practices, which were big levers that we could affect.

People spend a lot of time arguing about branches that are either not important or that none of us can change. We see it in the public square. When we deal with questions at the policy level—“Should you support the death penalty?” “How do we affect climate change?” “How can we uncover the causes and address homelessness?”—it’s even more important that we’re focusing on levers that are big and movable.

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Simon London: Let’s move swiftly on to step four. You’ve defined your problem, you disaggregate it, you prioritize where you want to analyze—what you want to really look at hard. Then you got to the work plan. Now, what does that mean in practice?

Hugo Sarrazin: Depending on what you’ve prioritized, there are many things you could do. It could be breaking the work among the team members so that people have a clear piece of the work to do. It could be defining the specific analyses that need to get done and executed, and being clear on time lines. There’s always a level-one answer, there’s a level-two answer, there’s a level-three answer. Without being too flippant, I can solve any problem during a good dinner with wine. It won’t have a whole lot of backing.

Simon London: Not going to have a lot of depth to it.

Hugo Sarrazin: No, but it may be useful as a starting point. If the stakes are not that high, that could be OK. If it’s really high stakes, you may need level three and have the whole model validated in three different ways. You need to find a work plan that reflects the level of precision, the time frame you have, and the stakeholders you need to bring along in the exercise.

Charles Conn: I love the way you’ve described that, because, again, some people think of problem solving as a linear thing, but of course what’s critical is that it’s iterative. As you say, you can solve the problem in one day or even one hour.

Charles Conn: We encourage our teams everywhere to do that. We call it the one-day answer or the one-hour answer. In work planning, we’re always iterating. Every time you see a 50-page work plan that stretches out to three months, you know it’s wrong. It will be outmoded very quickly by that learning process that you described. Iterative problem solving is a critical part of this. Sometimes, people think work planning sounds dull, but it isn’t. It’s how we know what’s expected of us and when we need to deliver it and how we’re progressing toward the answer. It’s also the place where we can deal with biases. Bias is a feature of every human decision-making process. If we design our team interactions intelligently, we can avoid the worst sort of biases.

Simon London: Here we’re talking about cognitive biases primarily, right? It’s not that I’m biased against you because of your accent or something. These are the cognitive biases that behavioral sciences have shown we all carry around, things like anchoring, overoptimism—these kinds of things.

Both: Yeah.

Charles Conn: Availability bias is the one that I’m always alert to. You think you’ve seen the problem before, and therefore what’s available is your previous conception of it—and we have to be most careful about that. In any human setting, we also have to be careful about biases that are based on hierarchies, sometimes called sunflower bias. I’m sure, Hugo, with your teams, you make sure that the youngest team members speak first. Not the oldest team members, because it’s easy for people to look at who’s senior and alter their own creative approaches.

Hugo Sarrazin: It’s helpful, at that moment—if someone is asserting a point of view—to ask the question “This was true in what context?” You’re trying to apply something that worked in one context to a different one. That can be deadly if the context has changed, and that’s why organizations struggle to change. You promote all these people because they did something that worked well in the past, and then there’s a disruption in the industry, and they keep doing what got them promoted even though the context has changed.

Simon London: Right. Right.

Hugo Sarrazin: So it’s the same thing in problem solving.

Charles Conn: And it’s why diversity in our teams is so important. It’s one of the best things about the world that we’re in now. We’re likely to have people from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and national backgrounds, each of whom sees problems from a slightly different perspective. It is therefore much more likely that the team will uncover a truly creative and clever approach to problem solving.

Simon London: Let’s move on to step five. You’ve done your work plan. Now you’ve actually got to do the analysis. The thing that strikes me here is that the range of tools that we have at our disposal now, of course, is just huge, particularly with advances in computation, advanced analytics. There’s so many things that you can apply here. Just talk about the analysis stage. How do you pick the right tools?

Charles Conn: For me, the most important thing is that we start with simple heuristics and explanatory statistics before we go off and use the big-gun tools. We need to understand the shape and scope of our problem before we start applying these massive and complex analytical approaches.

Simon London: Would you agree with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: I agree. I think there are so many wonderful heuristics. You need to start there before you go deep into the modeling exercise. There’s an interesting dynamic that’s happening, though. In some cases, for some types of problems, it is even better to set yourself up to maximize your learning. Your problem-solving methodology is test and learn, test and learn, test and learn, and iterate. That is a heuristic in itself, the A/B testing that is used in many parts of the world. So that’s a problem-solving methodology. It’s nothing different. It just uses technology and feedback loops in a fast way. The other one is exploratory data analysis. When you’re dealing with a large-scale problem, and there’s so much data, I can get to the heuristics that Charles was talking about through very clever visualization of data.

You test with your data. You need to set up an environment to do so, but don’t get caught up in neural-network modeling immediately. You’re testing, you’re checking—“Is the data right? Is it sound? Does it make sense?”—before you launch too far.

Simon London: You do hear these ideas—that if you have a big enough data set and enough algorithms, they’re going to find things that you just wouldn’t have spotted, find solutions that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of. Does machine learning sort of revolutionize the problem-solving process? Or are these actually just other tools in the toolbox for structured problem solving?

Charles Conn: It can be revolutionary. There are some areas in which the pattern recognition of large data sets and good algorithms can help us see things that we otherwise couldn’t see. But I do think it’s terribly important we don’t think that this particular technique is a substitute for superb problem solving, starting with good problem definition. Many people use machine learning without understanding algorithms that themselves can have biases built into them. Just as 20 years ago, when we were doing statistical analysis, we knew that we needed good model definition, we still need a good understanding of our algorithms and really good problem definition before we launch off into big data sets and unknown algorithms.

Simon London: Step six. You’ve done your analysis.

Charles Conn: I take six and seven together, and this is the place where young problem solvers often make a mistake. They’ve got their analysis, and they assume that’s the answer, and of course it isn’t the answer. The ability to synthesize the pieces that came out of the analysis and begin to weave those into a story that helps people answer the question “What should I do?” This is back to where we started. If we can’t synthesize, and we can’t tell a story, then our decision maker can’t find the answer to “What should I do?”

Simon London: But, again, these final steps are about motivating people to action, right?

Charles Conn: Yeah.

Simon London: I am slightly torn about the nomenclature of problem solving because it’s on paper, right? Until you motivate people to action, you actually haven’t solved anything.

Charles Conn: I love this question because I think decision-making theory, without a bias to action, is a waste of time. Everything in how I approach this is to help people take action that makes the world better.

Simon London: Hence, these are absolutely critical steps. If you don’t do this well, you’ve just got a bunch of analysis.

Charles Conn: We end up in exactly the same place where we started, which is people speaking across each other, past each other in the public square, rather than actually working together, shoulder to shoulder, to crack these important problems.

Simon London: In the real world, we have a lot of uncertainty—arguably, increasing uncertainty. How do good problem solvers deal with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: At every step of the process. In the problem definition, when you’re defining the context, you need to understand those sources of uncertainty and whether they’re important or not important. It becomes important in the definition of the tree.

You need to think carefully about the branches of the tree that are more certain and less certain as you define them. They don’t have equal weight just because they’ve got equal space on the page. Then, when you’re prioritizing, your prioritization approach may put more emphasis on things that have low probability but huge impact—or, vice versa, may put a lot of priority on things that are very likely and, hopefully, have a reasonable impact. You can introduce that along the way. When you come back to the synthesis, you just need to be nuanced about what you’re understanding, the likelihood.

Often, people lack humility in the way they make their recommendations: “This is the answer.” They’re very precise, and I think we would all be well-served to say, “This is a likely answer under the following sets of conditions” and then make the level of uncertainty clearer, if that is appropriate. It doesn’t mean you’re always in the gray zone; it doesn’t mean you don’t have a point of view. It just means that you can be explicit about the certainty of your answer when you make that recommendation.

Simon London: So it sounds like there is an underlying principle: “Acknowledge and embrace the uncertainty. Don’t pretend that it isn’t there. Be very clear about what the uncertainties are up front, and then build that into every step of the process.”

Hugo Sarrazin: Every step of the process.

Simon London: Yeah. We have just walked through a particular structured methodology for problem solving. But, of course, this is not the only structured methodology for problem solving. One that is also very well-known is design thinking, which comes at things very differently. So, Hugo, I know you have worked with a lot of designers. Just give us a very quick summary. Design thinking—what is it, and how does it relate?

Hugo Sarrazin: It starts with an incredible amount of empathy for the user and uses that to define the problem. It does pause and go out in the wild and spend an enormous amount of time seeing how people interact with objects, seeing the experience they’re getting, seeing the pain points or joy—and uses that to infer and define the problem.

Simon London: Problem definition, but out in the world.

Hugo Sarrazin: With an enormous amount of empathy. There’s a huge emphasis on empathy. Traditional, more classic problem solving is you define the problem based on an understanding of the situation. This one almost presupposes that we don’t know the problem until we go see it. The second thing is you need to come up with multiple scenarios or answers or ideas or concepts, and there’s a lot of divergent thinking initially. That’s slightly different, versus the prioritization, but not for long. Eventually, you need to kind of say, “OK, I’m going to converge again.” Then you go and you bring things back to the customer and get feedback and iterate. Then you rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. There’s a lot of tactile building, along the way, of prototypes and things like that. It’s very iterative.

Simon London: So, Charles, are these complements or are these alternatives?

Charles Conn: I think they’re entirely complementary, and I think Hugo’s description is perfect. When we do problem definition well in classic problem solving, we are demonstrating the kind of empathy, at the very beginning of our problem, that design thinking asks us to approach. When we ideate—and that’s very similar to the disaggregation, prioritization, and work-planning steps—we do precisely the same thing, and often we use contrasting teams, so that we do have divergent thinking. The best teams allow divergent thinking to bump them off whatever their initial biases in problem solving are. For me, design thinking gives us a constant reminder of creativity, empathy, and the tactile nature of problem solving, but it’s absolutely complementary, not alternative.

Simon London: I think, in a world of cross-functional teams, an interesting question is do people with design-thinking backgrounds really work well together with classical problem solvers? How do you make that chemistry happen?

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah, it is not easy when people have spent an enormous amount of time seeped in design thinking or user-centric design, whichever word you want to use. If the person who’s applying classic problem-solving methodology is very rigid and mechanical in the way they’re doing it, there could be an enormous amount of tension. If there’s not clarity in the role and not clarity in the process, I think having the two together can be, sometimes, problematic.

The second thing that happens often is that the artifacts the two methodologies try to gravitate toward can be different. Classic problem solving often gravitates toward a model; design thinking migrates toward a prototype. Rather than writing a big deck with all my supporting evidence, they’ll bring an example, a thing, and that feels different. Then you spend your time differently to achieve those two end products, so that’s another source of friction.

Now, I still think it can be an incredibly powerful thing to have the two—if there are the right people with the right mind-set, if there is a team that is explicit about the roles, if we’re clear about the kind of outcomes we are attempting to bring forward. There’s an enormous amount of collaborativeness and respect.

Simon London: But they have to respect each other’s methodology and be prepared to flex, maybe, a little bit, in how this process is going to work.

Hugo Sarrazin: Absolutely.

Simon London: The other area where, it strikes me, there could be a little bit of a different sort of friction is this whole concept of the day-one answer, which is what we were just talking about in classical problem solving. Now, you know that this is probably not going to be your final answer, but that’s how you begin to structure the problem. Whereas I would imagine your design thinkers—no, they’re going off to do their ethnographic research and get out into the field, potentially for a long time, before they come back with at least an initial hypothesis.

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Want better strategies? Become a bulletproof problem solver

Hugo Sarrazin: That is a great callout, and that’s another difference. Designers typically will like to soak into the situation and avoid converging too quickly. There’s optionality and exploring different options. There’s a strong belief that keeps the solution space wide enough that you can come up with more radical ideas. If there’s a large design team or many designers on the team, and you come on Friday and say, “What’s our week-one answer?” they’re going to struggle. They’re not going to be comfortable, naturally, to give that answer. It doesn’t mean they don’t have an answer; it’s just not where they are in their thinking process.

Simon London: I think we are, sadly, out of time for today. But Charles and Hugo, thank you so much.

Charles Conn: It was a pleasure to be here, Simon.

Hugo Sarrazin: It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Simon London: And thanks, as always, to you, our listeners, for tuning into this episode of the McKinsey Podcast . If you want to learn more about problem solving, you can find the book, Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything , online or order it through your local bookstore. To learn more about McKinsey, you can of course find us at McKinsey.com.

Charles Conn is CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation and an alumnus of McKinsey’s Sydney office. Hugo Sarrazin is a senior partner in the Silicon Valley office, where Simon London, a member of McKinsey Publishing, is also based.

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Five routes to more innovative problem solving

Critical thinking definition

problem solving definition art

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

  • Developing technical and problem-solving skills
  • Engaging in more active listening
  • Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
  • Seeking out more diversity of thought
  • Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

  • What information should be included?
  • Which information resources should the author look to?
  • What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
  • What is the most effective way to show information?
  • How should the report be organized?
  • How should it be designed?
  • What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

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problem solving definition art

What Is Problem Solving?

You will often see beach clean-up drives being publicized in coastal cities. There are already dustbins available on the beaches,…

What Is Problem Solving?

You will often see beach clean-up drives being publicized in coastal cities. There are already dustbins available on the beaches, so why do people need to organize these drives? It’s evident that despite advertising and posting anti-littering messages, some of us don’t follow the rules.

Temporary food stalls and shops make it even more difficult to keep the beaches clean. Since people can’t ask the shopkeepers to relocate or prevent every single person from littering, the clean-up drive is needed.  This is an ideal example of problem-solving psychology in humans. ( 230-fifth.com ) So, what is problem-solving? Let’s find out.

What Is Problem-Solving?

At its simplest, the meaning of problem-solving is the process of defining a problem, determining its cause, and implementing a solution. The definition of problem-solving is rooted in the fact that as humans, we exert control over our environment through solutions. We move forward in life when we solve problems and make decisions. 

We can better define the problem-solving process through a series of important steps.

Identify The Problem: 

This step isn’t as simple as it sounds. Most times, we mistakenly identify the consequences of a problem rather than the problem itself. It’s important that we’re careful to identify the actual problem and not just its symptoms. 

Define The Problem: 

Once the problem has been identified correctly, you should define it. This step can help clarify what needs to be addressed and for what purpose.

Form A Strategy: 

Develop a strategy to solve your problem. Defining an approach will provide direction and clarity on the next steps. 

Organize The Information:  

Organizing information systematically will help you determine whether something is missing. The more information you have, the easier it’ll become for you to arrive at a solution.  

Allocate Resources:  

We may not always be armed with the necessary resources to solve a problem. Before you commit to implementing a solution for a problem, you should determine the availability of different resources—money, time and other costs.

Track Progress: 

The true meaning of problem-solving is to work towards an objective. If you measure your progress, you can evaluate whether you’re on track. You could revise your strategies if you don’t notice the desired level of progress. 

Evaluate The Results:  

After you spot a solution, evaluate the results to determine whether it’s the best possible solution. For example, you can evaluate the success of a fitness routine after several weeks of exercise.

Meaning Of Problem-Solving Skill

Now that we’ve established the definition of problem-solving psychology in humans, let’s look at how we utilize our problem-solving skills.  These skills help you determine the source of a problem and how to effectively determine the solution. Problem-solving skills aren’t innate and can be mastered over time. Here are some important skills that are beneficial for finding solutions.

Communication

Communication is a critical skill when you have to work in teams.  If you and your colleagues have to work on a project together, you’ll have to collaborate with each other. In case of differences of opinion, you should be able to listen attentively and respond respectfully in order to successfully arrive at a solution.

As a problem-solver, you need to be able to research and identify underlying causes. You should never treat a problem lightly. In-depth study is imperative because often people identify only the symptoms and not the actual problem.

Once you have researched and identified the factors causing a problem, start working towards developing solutions. Your analytical skills can help you differentiate between effective and ineffective solutions.

Decision-Making

You’ll have to make a decision after you’ve identified the source and methods of solving a problem. If you’ve done your research and applied your analytical skills effectively, it’ll become easier for you to take a call or a decision.

Organizations really value decisive problem-solvers. Harappa Education’s   Defining Problems course will guide you on the path to developing a problem-solving mindset. Learn how to identify the different types of problems using the Types of Problems framework. Additionally, the SMART framework, which is a five-point tool, will teach you to create specific and actionable objectives to address problem statements and arrive at solutions. 

Explore topics & skills such as Problem Solving Skills , PICK Chart , How to Solve Problems & Barriers to Problem Solving from our Harappa Diaries blog section and develop your skills.

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Our next-generation model: Gemini 1.5

Feb 15, 2024

The model delivers dramatically enhanced performance, with a breakthrough in long-context understanding across modalities.

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A note from Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai:

Last week, we rolled out our most capable model, Gemini 1.0 Ultra, and took a significant step forward in making Google products more helpful, starting with Gemini Advanced . Today, developers and Cloud customers can begin building with 1.0 Ultra too — with our Gemini API in AI Studio and in Vertex AI .

Our teams continue pushing the frontiers of our latest models with safety at the core. They are making rapid progress. In fact, we’re ready to introduce the next generation: Gemini 1.5. It shows dramatic improvements across a number of dimensions and 1.5 Pro achieves comparable quality to 1.0 Ultra, while using less compute.

This new generation also delivers a breakthrough in long-context understanding. We’ve been able to significantly increase the amount of information our models can process — running up to 1 million tokens consistently, achieving the longest context window of any large-scale foundation model yet.

Longer context windows show us the promise of what is possible. They will enable entirely new capabilities and help developers build much more useful models and applications. We’re excited to offer a limited preview of this experimental feature to developers and enterprise customers. Demis shares more on capabilities, safety and availability below.

Introducing Gemini 1.5

By Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, on behalf of the Gemini team

This is an exciting time for AI. New advances in the field have the potential to make AI more helpful for billions of people over the coming years. Since introducing Gemini 1.0 , we’ve been testing, refining and enhancing its capabilities.

Today, we’re announcing our next-generation model: Gemini 1.5.

Gemini 1.5 delivers dramatically enhanced performance. It represents a step change in our approach, building upon research and engineering innovations across nearly every part of our foundation model development and infrastructure. This includes making Gemini 1.5 more efficient to train and serve, with a new Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture.

The first Gemini 1.5 model we’re releasing for early testing is Gemini 1.5 Pro. It’s a mid-size multimodal model, optimized for scaling across a wide-range of tasks, and performs at a similar level to 1.0 Ultra , our largest model to date. It also introduces a breakthrough experimental feature in long-context understanding.

Gemini 1.5 Pro comes with a standard 128,000 token context window. But starting today, a limited group of developers and enterprise customers can try it with a context window of up to 1 million tokens via AI Studio and Vertex AI in private preview.

As we roll out the full 1 million token context window, we’re actively working on optimizations to improve latency, reduce computational requirements and enhance the user experience. We’re excited for people to try this breakthrough capability, and we share more details on future availability below.

These continued advances in our next-generation models will open up new possibilities for people, developers and enterprises to create, discover and build using AI.

Context lengths of leading foundation models

Highly efficient architecture

Gemini 1.5 is built upon our leading research on Transformer and MoE architecture. While a traditional Transformer functions as one large neural network, MoE models are divided into smaller "expert” neural networks.

Depending on the type of input given, MoE models learn to selectively activate only the most relevant expert pathways in its neural network. This specialization massively enhances the model’s efficiency. Google has been an early adopter and pioneer of the MoE technique for deep learning through research such as Sparsely-Gated MoE , GShard-Transformer , Switch-Transformer, M4 and more.

Our latest innovations in model architecture allow Gemini 1.5 to learn complex tasks more quickly and maintain quality, while being more efficient to train and serve. These efficiencies are helping our teams iterate, train and deliver more advanced versions of Gemini faster than ever before, and we’re working on further optimizations.

Greater context, more helpful capabilities

An AI model’s “context window” is made up of tokens, which are the building blocks used for processing information. Tokens can be entire parts or subsections of words, images, videos, audio or code. The bigger a model’s context window, the more information it can take in and process in a given prompt — making its output more consistent, relevant and useful.

Through a series of machine learning innovations, we’ve increased 1.5 Pro’s context window capacity far beyond the original 32,000 tokens for Gemini 1.0. We can now run up to 1 million tokens in production.

This means 1.5 Pro can process vast amounts of information in one go — including 1 hour of video, 11 hours of audio, codebases with over 30,000 lines of code or over 700,000 words. In our research, we’ve also successfully tested up to 10 million tokens.

Complex reasoning about vast amounts of information

1.5 Pro can seamlessly analyze, classify and summarize large amounts of content within a given prompt. For example, when given the 402-page transcripts from Apollo 11’s mission to the moon, it can reason about conversations, events and details found across the document.

Reasoning across a 402-page transcript: Gemini 1.5 Pro Demo

Gemini 1.5 Pro can understand, reason about and identify curious details in the 402-page transcripts from Apollo 11’s mission to the moon.

Better understanding and reasoning across modalities

1.5 Pro can perform highly-sophisticated understanding and reasoning tasks for different modalities, including video. For instance, when given a 44-minute silent Buster Keaton movie , the model can accurately analyze various plot points and events, and even reason about small details in the movie that could easily be missed.

Multimodal prompting with a 44-minute movie: Gemini 1.5 Pro Demo

Gemini 1.5 Pro can identify a scene in a 44-minute silent Buster Keaton movie when given a simple line drawing as reference material for a real-life object.

Relevant problem-solving with longer blocks of code

1.5 Pro can perform more relevant problem-solving tasks across longer blocks of code. When given a prompt with more than 100,000 lines of code, it can better reason across examples, suggest helpful modifications and give explanations about how different parts of the code works.

Problem solving across 100,633 lines of code | Gemini 1.5 Pro Demo

Gemini 1.5 Pro can reason across 100,000 lines of code giving helpful solutions, modifications and explanations.

Enhanced performance

When tested on a comprehensive panel of text, code, image, audio and video evaluations, 1.5 Pro outperforms 1.0 Pro on 87% of the benchmarks used for developing our large language models (LLMs). And when compared to 1.0 Ultra on the same benchmarks, it performs at a broadly similar level.

Gemini 1.5 Pro maintains high levels of performance even as its context window increases. In the Needle In A Haystack (NIAH) evaluation, where a small piece of text containing a particular fact or statement is purposely placed within a long block of text, 1.5 Pro found the embedded text 99% of the time, in blocks of data as long as 1 million tokens.

Gemini 1.5 Pro also shows impressive “in-context learning” skills, meaning that it can learn a new skill from information given in a long prompt, without needing additional fine-tuning. We tested this skill on the Machine Translation from One Book (MTOB) benchmark, which shows how well the model learns from information it’s never seen before. When given a grammar manual for Kalamang , a language with fewer than 200 speakers worldwide, the model learns to translate English to Kalamang at a similar level to a person learning from the same content.

As 1.5 Pro’s long context window is the first of its kind among large-scale models, we’re continuously developing new evaluations and benchmarks for testing its novel capabilities.

For more details, see our Gemini 1.5 Pro technical report .

Extensive ethics and safety testing

In line with our AI Principles and robust safety policies, we’re ensuring our models undergo extensive ethics and safety tests. We then integrate these research learnings into our governance processes and model development and evaluations to continuously improve our AI systems.

Since introducing 1.0 Ultra in December, our teams have continued refining the model, making it safer for a wider release. We’ve also conducted novel research on safety risks and developed red-teaming techniques to test for a range of potential harms.

In advance of releasing 1.5 Pro, we've taken the same approach to responsible deployment as we did for our Gemini 1.0 models, conducting extensive evaluations across areas including content safety and representational harms, and will continue to expand this testing. Beyond this, we’re developing further tests that account for the novel long-context capabilities of 1.5 Pro.

Build and experiment with Gemini models

We’re committed to bringing each new generation of Gemini models to billions of people, developers and enterprises around the world responsibly.

Starting today, we’re offering a limited preview of 1.5 Pro to developers and enterprise customers via AI Studio and Vertex AI . Read more about this on our Google for Developers blog and Google Cloud blog .

We’ll introduce 1.5 Pro with a standard 128,000 token context window when the model is ready for a wider release. Coming soon, we plan to introduce pricing tiers that start at the standard 128,000 context window and scale up to 1 million tokens, as we improve the model.

Early testers can try the 1 million token context window at no cost during the testing period, though they should expect longer latency times with this experimental feature. Significant improvements in speed are also on the horizon.

Developers interested in testing 1.5 Pro can sign up now in AI Studio, while enterprise customers can reach out to their Vertex AI account team.

Learn more about Gemini’s capabilities and see how it works .

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IMAGES

  1. Introduction to Problem Solving Skills

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  2. 8 Steps For Effective Problem Solving

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  4. The 5 Steps of Problem Solving

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  6. The Art of Problem Solving / Faculty of Engineering and Built

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VIDEO

  1. 20 PROBLEM SOLVING DEFINITION AND STEPS

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  4. Art of Problem Solving: 2012 AMC 10 A #21

  5. What is Art

  6. The Art of Problem Solving: Applicable Principles for a Successful Career

COMMENTS

  1. What exactly do we mean by the term 'problem solving'?

    Just like creativity, problem solving is a key skill required across all sectors and at all levels. However, while the word 'creativity' can seem to refer to a very broad range of meanings, the term 'problem solving' can, in contrast, seem overly narrow. A well-defined problem can be understood, agreed upon and then solved, often using approaches that are familiar or well-practiced.

  2. Creative Arts Develop Problem Solving Skills

    Creative Arts Develop Problem Solving Skills. Public education often considers fine arts classes and programs expendable luxuries. This article explores how beneficial the fine arts are in education. It is no secret that, when faced with recession pressures and budget cuts, most American public school systems decrease funding for fine arts ...

  3. Creativity

    creativity, the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form. Individual qualities of creative persons A number of personality characteristics have been shown to be associated with creative productivity.

  4. Design Thinking: Artists Solve Problems

    How do artists solve problems? Use these activities and videos at home, online, or in the classroom to spark curiosity, conversation, and critical thinking. Web Quest includes: Object Gallery Wedding Headdress Tom Haukaas

  5. How Can Students Use Art to Learn Problem Solving?

    beyond art-making itself to help them develop as independent problem solvers. As an action research study, this study also allowed the researcher to reflect on her own journey as an art teacher and examine how she could improve her teaching methods to facilitate the practical application of art learning into problem solving.

  6. What Is Creativity?

    The idea of creativity today means thinking out of the box, understanding there might be limits to what you can do, trying to overcome these, and improving on the results. Creativity involves more than just thinking things up, it is taking those ideas and developing them. For example, if it is an item you wish to make, then you have to imagine ...

  7. What Is Creative Problem-Solving & Why Is It Important?

    Creative problem-solving primarily operates in the ideate phase of design thinking but can be applied to others. This is because design thinking is an iterative process that moves between the stages as ideas are generated and pursued. This is normal and encouraged, as innovation requires exploring multiple ideas.

  8. Creative Problem Solving

    Standards Area Visual Arts Lesson Length One 45 minute lesson Objectives Students will be able to: explain the problems Remington faced when he started sculpting in bronze and how he worked with others to solve these problems; overcome challenges faced when making an airborne sculpture; and work with others to complete a task. Lesson Materials

  9. Design Thinking, Essential Problem Solving 101- It's More Than

    The term "Design Thinking" dates back to the 1987 book by Peter Rowe; "Design Thinking." In that book he describes the way that architects and urban planners would approach design problems. However, the idea that there was a specific pattern of problem solving in "design thought" came much earlier in Herbert A Simon's book, "The Science of the Artificial" which was published ...

  10. Art can sharpen our problem-solving skills. Here's how.

    Published February 10, 2022. In the search for novel ways to hone our problem-solving skills, spending time with a work of art may be the simplest and most effective training, according to the art ...

  11. Problem solving

    Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business and technical fields. ... I was standing in an art gallery, looking at the paintings on the wall. As I ...

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    / Quality Resources / Problem Solving What is Problem Solving?. Quality Glossary Definition: Problem solving Problem solving is the act of defining a problem; determining the cause of the problem; identifying, prioritizing, and selecting alternatives for a solution; and implementing a solution. The problem-solving process Problem solving resources

  13. How to Improve Your Problem-Solving with Art

    Here's an exercise for you: Consider a specific situation that's been weighing you down. Approach it as though it were an art exercise. Observe the overall gestalt of the situation, notice the edges and negative spaces that define it, perceive the underlying shadows and connections that give it depth and relevance.

  14. How to master the seven-step problem-solving process

    To discuss the art of problem solving, I sat down in California with McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin and also with Charles Conn. Charles is a former McKinsey partner, entrepreneur, executive, and coauthor of the book Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything [John Wiley & Sons, 2018].

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    Art of Problem Solving offers two other multifaceted programs. Beast Academy is our comic-based online math curriculum for students ages 6-13. And AoPS Academy brings our methodology to students grades 2-12 through small, in-person classes at local campuses. Through our three programs, AoPS offers the most comprehensive honors math pathway ...

  16. Using Critical Thinking in Essays and other Assignments

    Critical thinking definition. Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or ...

  17. Art of Problem Solving

    The definition usually taught first is the right triangle definition, for its ease of access. An intermediate to olympiad geometry course usually uses the unit circle definition of trigonometry. Beyond the scope of contest math, the Taylor series definition of trigonometry is preferred in order to extend trigonometry to a complex domain.

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    The intersection of two or more sets is the set of elements that are common to all of them. Thus, the intersection of the sets and is the set . Intersection is denoted by the symbol , so the preceding example could be written . One can also use the symbol for intersection in the way one uses a capital sigma () for sums, i.e. is the intersection ...

  19. What is Problem Solving

    What Is Problem-Solving? At its simplest, the meaning of problem-solving is the process of defining a problem, determining its cause, and implementing a solution. The definition of problem-solving is rooted in the fact that as humans, we exert control over our environment through solutions.

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    Rigorous Definition. Let , be sets and let be a subset of , which denotes the Cartesian product of and . (That is, is a relation between and .)We say that is a function from to (written ) if and only if . For every there is some such that , and; if and then . (Here is an ordered pair.); Introductory Topics Domain and Range. The domain of a function is the set of input values for the argument ...

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    The center of the universe for students who love math.

  22. Introducing Gemini 1.5, Google's next-generation AI model

    Relevant problem-solving with longer blocks of code. 1.5 Pro can perform more relevant problem-solving tasks across longer blocks of code. When given a prompt with more than 100,000 lines of code, it can better reason across examples, suggest helpful modifications and give explanations about how different parts of the code works.

  23. A Problem-Solving Approach to Language Arts

    Good language arts problems come from a process of recognizing and rooting out this assumption at every turn. 2. Let reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary work together. We often think of language arts as a set of subjects, each with its own chunk of class time.

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    Help us out by expanding it. Biology is the scientific field concerned with the study of life. Sciences known collectively as "biology" include botany, the study of plants; ornithology, the study of birds; zoology, the study of animals; ecology, the study of the ecosystem; entomology, the study of insects; and other sciences. Biology concerns ...