186 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
GROUNDWORK FOR INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY
e organizing process should result in establishing an infrastructure that
enables success. Project managers should seek to minimize bureaucracy
and the degree of aggravation that accompanies the organizing process
while completing their activities. Hence, the organizing process should
center on supporting people operating with little or no oversight.
Some actions that project managers can take to allow people to be
creative are outlined in Table9.4.
TABLE9.3
Organizing Process and Groundwork for Creative Environment
Action Example
Aligning individual and
project goals and
objectives
Arranging team organization in a way that brings people’s
goals and objectives in line with those of a project
Allowing time for issue
denition
Taking the time to dene dierences of opinion, such as the
content of reports, before trying to come up with a solution
Bringing people on board
with fresh knowledge and
experience
Assigning people on a team who have a wide background
entailing a breadth of experience working on dierent
projects
Broadening people’s
knowledge and
experience
Grouping people on a team in a manner that causes them
to share knowledge, expertise, and experience with others
having dierent backgrounds
Countering groupthink Arranging teams that encourage people with dierent
backgrounds to work together
Emphasizing coordination Setting up a fully equipped control room that stakeholders
can be regularly use to enable them to work together
Establishing a receptive
audience
Encouraging stakeholders to contribute articles to a
project’s newsletter or website
Granting access to data to
do their job
Setting up a work area, frequently in a control room, that
enables people to use their electronic equipment to obtain
the data and information needed to perform their
responsibilities
Granting access to
necessary tools
Setting up a work area that enables team members to use
their tools (e.g., laptops) to access data
Making training available Using a control room as a learning center to train team
members on new tools or processes
Stress communications Working with key stakeholders to develop a
communications plan
Support people’s growth Using a control room as a training center
Creativity and the Organizing Process • 187
GROUNDWORK FOR TEAM CREATIVITY
e organizing process should provide opportunities for people to work
as a team by setting up an infrastructure that encourages collaborating,
communicating, and sharing of data, information, and other resources.
Some actions that project managers can take to allow a team to be cre-
ative are shown in Table9.5.
RELEVANT TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
Tools and techniques should assist stakeholders, especially team members,
in accomplishing the goals and objectives of their project. e emphasis
should not be on reinventing the wheel, so to speak, but using existing
supporting infrastructures from a parent organization or identied in les-
sons learned in other projects.
Some common creativity tools and techniques that project managers
can apply for this process are shown in Table9.6.
TABLE9.4
Organizing Process and Groundwork for Individual Creativity
Action Example
Be spontaneous Granting the people the freedom to express
their thoughts and speak frankly without
fear of reprisal
Conceptualize Encouraging people to use their critical
thinking to determine how the major
components (e.g., processes, inputs,
outputs, etc.) t together
Have a diverse background Encouraging people to work with others
having a background or knowledge
dierent from their own
Have the capacity to “break set” Providing training opportunities that
enhance people’s abilities to look at a
problem or issue from a dierent
perspective
See outside the box Providing people with training on creative
tools and techniques that encourage
looking from the outside, in
188 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
TRADITIONAL CREATIVITY LIFE CYCLE MODEL
Within the organizing process, project managers can apply the ve phases
of the creativity life cycle model. Each phase plays an instrumental role in
clarifying and resolving an issue or problem.
Preparation Phase
e purpose of the preparation phase is to learn as much information
as possible about a topic and to compile any necessary information that
will prove useful in coming up with creative ideas. is phase is largely
focused on people and process.
TABLE9.5
Organizing Process and Groundwork for Team Creativity
Action Example
Avoid noncontributory activities Reducing the number and frequency of meetings that
do not contribute to the deliverable on a project
Emphasize relationship building Arranging the work area so that people have an
opportunity to communicate and coordinate more
oen
Improve the physical
environment but not too much
Providing enough comfort in a work area that frees
people from excess noise and other distractions
Keep the team small Restricting the number of people that are assigned to
a project or at least the quantity assigned to a
subteam
Obtain diverse membership Hiring people from dierent elds and experiences to
encourage alternative viewpoints about issues or
solutions
Reduce the fear of the unknown Providing people with training on tools and
techniques for developing and evaluating ideas
Seek balance among creating,
planning, and implementing
Placing people on the team who have experiences
and knowledge in coming up with new ideas,
determining what must be done to make them a
reality, and nally to put them in the real world
Seek people who are unafraid to
push boundaries
Hiring people who have enough courage to challenge
people’s assumptions and beliefs about a particular
topic
Share tangible and intangible
assets
Setting up a work area that provides a common set of
tools to access data and information residing in a
repository
Creativity and the Organizing Process • 189
For example, a project manager faces one of the hardest challenges when
addressing the communications requirements of a project with a large
number of stakeholders. His diculty is providing all stakeholders with
common information, while at the same time meeting their specic needs
or wants. Some stakeholders are interested only in nancial performance;
others in schedule; still others in technical quality. edanger is that
providing narrow information, such as only nancial, may simply be
tunnel vision and may lose participation of other stakeholders. However,
putting in information that someone else deems unimportant may have
the same eect. e key is balance. e project manager decides to meet
with the stakeholders and collect needs and wants regarding project
information. He also decides to see what ideas for information distribu-
tion currently exist outside his organization or on other projects.
Concentration Phase
e purpose of the concentration phase is to focus on exactly dening a
problem or issue to address. Project managers need to distinguish between
what is and is not relevant, and just as importantly, what is and is not
signicant.
TABLE9.6
Organizing Process and Tools and Techniques
Tool and Technique Example
Checklists Developing a list of data and information to populate a repository
Field trip Taking select team members to other locations to see how other
projects populate and use their control rooms
Idea bulletin board Putting up a wall panel in a control room with the purpose of
collecting ideas for improving communications on a project
Interviewing Meeting in one-on-one sessions with key stakeholders to obtain
their thoughts about what should go into the management plans
Matrices Using matrices to capture data and information to populate
management plans
Modeling Developing owcharts to complement or supplement
management plans
Observation Visiting other projects to see how their work areas are set up, such
as a control room
Osite Taking team members to a remote location to design the work
area for a project
Role playing Taking the perspective of certain stakeholders to try to
understand what they would like to see in a control room
190 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
Continuing with communications requirements as an example, the
project manager realizes he has to dene exactly what each stakeholder
needs and somehow determine some commonalities among the requests.
en he can determine the specic needs and requirements of each
signicant stakeholder. He then obtains their answers by going through
the information collected during the preparation phase. A lingering
question concerns how to record those requirements.
Incubation Phase
e purpose of the incubation phase is to allow the subconscious part of
the mind to work by suspending judgment and avoiding concentration on
a conscious level.
Continuing with communications requirements as an example, the
project manager elects to do something else, such as work on another task
or support another project, to free his mind. is available time allows the
subconscious to work and also allows time for him to discover other ways
to communicate information.
Illumination Phase
e purpose of the illumination phase is to allow an idea to rise to the
conscious level of its creator. is phase involves coming up with solutions
to diculties identied earlier.
Continuing with communications requirements as an example, the
project manager discusses with core team members what another project
team did and then creates what is known as a communications manage-
ment plan. Some core team members oer suggestions on the type of con-
tent to include in a communications management plan.
Verification and Production Phase
e purpose of the verication and production phase is to test and imple-
ment an idea. It is when thought turns to action.
Continuing with communications requirements as an example, the project
manager with the core team prepares a dra of a communications manage-
ment plan. He prepares a straw horse to review with the core team and then
eventually presents it to signicant stakeholders for review and approval.
Finally, aer receiving concurrence, the project manager publishes it.
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