Challenges and Constraints • 79
perspective, here are some ways to counter the aect and eect of poor
coordination:
• Clearly dene roles, responsibilities, and authorities.
• Develop reliable plans involving the participation of key stakeholders.
• Encourage greater integration and interdependence among team
members.
• Provide training on team building.
Leaping to Judgment
More oen than not, people jump to judgment before listening to someone
describe a problem. Instead of dening the problem, even understanding
it, some people oen develop a solution aer very little discussion. From
a time perspective, this behavior is advantageous; however, it does little to
enable developing a truly creative solution that addresses the root cause of
an issue or problem. Creativity is important to develop lasting solutions,
but it takes time and a willingness to discuss the positives and negatives of
each solution. Few people want to take the time to restrain this tendency
because they want a solution quickly, perhaps due to organizational or
peer pressure or personal frustration, rather than take the time to generate
multiple possible solutions.
22
From a creativity perspective, here are some
ways to counter the aect and eect of leaping to judgment:
• Apply brainstorming and other creativity techniques.
• Apply eective listening skills.
• Dene problems prior to developing solutions.
• Encourage giving and receiving feedback.
• Practice critical thinking.
• Seek outside perspectives.
Faster, Better, Cheaper Philosophy
Management style coupled with the current economic environment
requires just about everything being done faster, better, cheaper. is
philosophy more oen than not restricts time and eort devoted to cre-
ativity. Creativity requires overhead because it cannot be forced or handled
like something being built in a manufacturing line. Creativity requires
thought, discussion, experimentation, and evaluation, all of which in
80 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
theshort term are not necessarily faster or cheaper, or better. Ironically,
creativity is dicult under such circumstances. Allan et al. say this is
indicative of an emergency room environment where the stress is on
quick analysis, precision in thought, and immediate results. Little time is
available to explore ideas and experiment.
23
From a creativity perspective, here are some ways to counter the aect
and eect of a faster, better, cheaper philosophy:
• Emphasize the importance of addressing the cause and not the
symptoms of a problem or issue.
• Encourage team members to consult peers on key issues, concerns,
and problems.
• Implement change management.
• Take time to dene problems prior to developing solutions.
Stretching Resources Too Thin
Today, and for perhaps longer than realized, the emphasis in the work envi-
ronment is to operate with a minimum amount of resources to accomplish
the work. Management wants to keep the overhead low and at the same
time increase output. From an eciency standpoint, this perspective
makes sense. However, it can oen hinder creativity. People, resources too,
struggle to obtain other resources to accomplish their work; they may also
get overworked and burned out, thereby aecting their ability to create.
Creativity requires sucient resources, ranging from time to equipment,
to allow it to blossom.
On top of all of the above are the constant disruptions at work. ese
disruptions can range from multiple sources, from telephone calls to
ad hoc meetings with peers, allowing little time for creativity.
24
From a
creativity perspective, here are some ways to counter the aect and eect
of stretching resources too thin:
• Apply resource leveling to have more ecient and eective usage.
• Determine priorities.
• Encourage sharing of knowledge, experience, and expertise.
Silos
Large organizations, despite eorts over the past decade or so of atten-
ing, remain silos that restrict creativity within too-narrow disciplines.
Challenges and Constraints • 81
Manufacturing, nance, information systems, personnel, and many other
silos within organizations struggle for dominance. is situation impacts
creativity because it isolates the experiences of people and compartmen-
talizes them, making it dicult to become exposed to new ideas. Creative
people oen have a broad background, and working in a separate environ-
ment lled with silos makes that dicult.
Creative ideas can be threatening to organizations and individu-
als alike, particularly in bureaucratic organizations. According to
Eugene Raudsepp, silos aect receptivity toward creative thinking
because it may challenge the authority and purview of another per-
son or organization. In other words, creativity and the resulting idea
may result in dierences, even hostility, on the part of other people or
organizations.
25
From a creativity perspective, here are some ways to counter the aect
and eect of silos:
• Address conict early on and directly.
• Communicate continuously with stakeholders.
• Encourage greater integration and interdependence among key
stakeholders.
• Encourage sharing of data and information about project perfor-
mance and other activities.
• Enlarge the core team to include key stakeholders.
Focusing on the Past or Future, Not the Present
Success in the past and present is excellent for leveraging knowledge and
experience to create a new product, process, service, and so on. Sometimes,
however, people rest on successes of the past and present, and disregard
any need for innovation in the future. ey rest, in other words, on their
laurels, and by doing so, become complacent, comfortable, and condi-
tioned to not upset the status quo. Naturally, under such circumstances,
creativity becomes dicult to exercise. Aer all, why change anything if
the circumstances are quite good right now?
From a creativity perspective, here are some ways to counter the aect
and eect of focusing on the past or present, not the future:
• Conduct planning with team members.
• Perform contingency planning with team members.
82 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
• Perform risk management with team members.
• Perform visioning with team members.
Lack of Sharing
When people stop sharing ideas or resources, a degree of mistrust exists.
People oen do not share when they feel it will jeopardize their interests.
Sharing usually occurs when the gain is mutual, either for selsh reasons
to increase synergy or for encouraging a symbiotic relationship. People
not sharing makes creativity dicult because they will not reveal their
ideas to others for fear of retribution, the, or someone else taking credit.
Creativity, especially on a team, requires sharing; otherwise, the probabil-
ity of its occurrence decreases dramatically.
From a creativity perspective, here are some ways to counter the aect
and eect of a lack of sharing:
• Build a common data repository.
• Encourage sharing of data, information, knowledge, and experiences.
• Provide a common set of tools.
• Use media, such as le shares and email, to share data, information,
knowledge, and experiences.
Compliant Workforce
Ideally, organizations want people who can think creatively while at the
same time follow orders and maintain the status quo. Most jobs gener-
ally fulll the former requirements; few do the latter. Creativity, unless
sanctioned by management, can threaten sacred cows. In addition, most
work does not require creative thinking but rather applied, procedural
mental applications that are almost robotic in nature.
26
Eugene Raudepp
agrees, observing that management oen prefers order over innova-
tion, which means subordinates who are copiers rather than creative
innovators. Naturally, this preference can be detrimental to surviving
in a highly dynamic competitive environment.
27
To no one’s surprise,
highly creative people will take ight to somewhere else to exercise their
creativity rather than work, as most people do, in a routine environment
maintaining existing products, processes, and services. A compliant, as
opposed to a creative, workforce will be likely not to take chances that
will upset the status quo because it is not in its character or interests to
Challenges and Constraints • 83
do so. Whatorganizations need to do is to produce what Peter Senge
refers to as “creative tension” by clearly articulating the mission and its
relationship to the discrepancies that exist in reality.
28
Consequently,
management oen embraces doing everything “by the book” because
of the advantages. It provides predictability. It reduces anxiety because
the outcome, if negative, absolves a person from responsibility. It can
also provide a roadmap for trekking through the unknown. Rules and
regulations for any organization are important for its survival because
they oer order in place of chaos.
However, if rules and regulations are taken to the extreme, they will
greet ideas with hostility through displays of intolerance and inexibility.
29
From a creativity standpoint, it can mean horror. A by-the-book attitude
makes it dicult to challenge assumptions, principles, concepts, and so on
when creating, thereby inhibiting a questioning perspective and relying
on intuition—two critical abilities for being creative. Allan etal. recognize
that such constraints restrict our ability to come up with creative and
innovative ideas.
30
Fortunately, failure from adopting a by-the-book
philosophy can, ironically, lead to greater creativity by seeing through the
failure to new ideas.
31
In the end, the desire for a compliant workforce
and adherence to a by-the-book philosophy results in methodism with
overemphasis being placed on compliance with a process, procedure, or
technique, at the expense of experimenting with something new. Pressure,
in other words, is to conform to the current way of doing business, almost
in a manufacturing-like setting. Naturally, any eort to break with the
process, procedure, or technique can bring retribution upon the person
or organization. Methodism is reective of what omas Kuhn refers to
as normal science, which is essentially puzzle-solving that does not exactly
encourage creativity. Kuhn says that normal science does whatever it can
to suppress novel ideas by requiring the use of accepted, known rules
and procedures. Under such conditions, creativity and creative output
are dicult to achieve due to conditioning of our thinking through
knowledge and experience, reinforced through the application of recog-
nized methods and procedures proven by past success.
32
From a creativ-
ity perspective, here are some ways to counter the aect and eect of a
compliant workforce:
• Allow for exibility when applying standards, procedures, and
techniques.
• Encourage team members to think outside the box.
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