Transcript No Slide Title

The Creative Group
Mind-Innovative
Genius or Teamwork
Dummy?
“The challenge is clear:
Innovate or evaporate!”
The Performance Group
CREATIVITY LEVELS
INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY
GROUP/TEAM CREATIVITY
ORGANIZATIONAL
INNOVATION/SUCCESS
CMMI Questions
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Is it better to work alone or in
groups for creativity tasks?
Is it helpful to work with individuals
from other disciplines?
What is the ideal group size for
creativity activity?
What is the best way to
communicate in an innovative
team—electronically or face to face?
CMMI Survey Percent Agreement
Somewhat agree or higher
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Brainstorming is effective--89
People from outside disciplines
hinder—6
Suspending constraints during
ideation—51
Avoid criticism—66
Design teams can be more effective
than individuals—69
“Cultural Truths”
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Group collaboration enhances
creativity/innovation/learning
Teamwork enhances productivity
Diversity enhances benefits of
collaboration
Teamwork in Education
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Criteria three of the Accreditation
Board for Engineering and
Technology
Skill in teamwork is a program
outcome requirement
Book Titles
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Mining Group Gold (Kayser, 1995)
Building Team Power: How to Unleash
the Collaborative Genius of Work Teams
(Kayser, 1994)
Diverse Teams at Work: Capitalizing on
the Power of Diversity (Gardenswartz
&Rowe, 2003)
Swarm Creativity (Gloor, 2006)
“Scientific Truths”
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Group interaction tends to inhibit
creativity
Group interaction tends to lower
productivity
Illusion of productivity
Diversity in groups often leads to
negative emotions
No consistent evidence for the
benefits of diversity in teamwork
Creativity Dilemmas
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Need domain expertise for creativity
Examples or information can inhibit
creativity
Need collaboration for innovations
Group interaction may inhibit creativity
Need diverse talents/knowledge in teams
Groups tend to focus on commonalities
rather than differences
Inhibitory Effect of Examples
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Providing examples produces fixation
on features of the example
Need change of context or multiple
perspectives to overcome
Auguste Kekule
James Crocker
Benzene
Hubble Repair
Kary Mullis
PCR
Experimental Studies of
Fixation, Incubation & Insight
Henri Pioncare
Fuschian Functions
Beethoven
Canon for piano
Archimedes
Displacement Principle
Idea Generation: Conceptual Extension
Imagine another planet similar to Earth…
…What sort of life forms evolve there?
Creature Ideas: From Smith et al. (1993)
Spill-Proof Cup from Jansson & Smith
(1991)
Create, sketch, and
label the parts of a
new inexpensive
spill-proof coffee
cup. Do not use
drinking straws or
mouthpieces.
Results
Seeing the example design greatly
increased the number of designs
that:
Have a straw or mouthpiece.
Leak.
Conclusion
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Implicit knowledge can produce
invisible impasses when you try to
think creatively
Have to find a way to overcome
this impasse or get outside the
box
Osborn Brainstorming Rules
1. Don’t judge
2. Say what comes to mind
3. The more ideas, the better
4. Build on ideas from others
Osborn Predictions
Rules help increase creativity in
groups
Groups will be more creative
than individuals
Typical Research Paradigm
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Experiments
Short sessions
College students
Measures
• number of unique ideas
• quality of ideas
Typical Research Paradigm
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Baseline comparison is critical
Compare number of ideas of
interacting groups with that of same
number of solitary individuals
Real groups versus nominal groups
Brainstorming Findings
• Groups: more creative ideas
than individuals
• Groups: fewer creative ideas
than same number of individuals
• The larger the group, the more
discrepancy
• Pairs of brainstormers most
productive “group”
• More ideas, more good ideas
The Productivity Gap
No. of Ideas
100
80
60
Nominal Groups
Real Groups
40
20
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Group Size
7
8
Number of Unique Ideas Generated
30
25
DATA FROM
20
COMPANY
15
EMPLOYEES
10
5
0
Alone
Group
Social Context
Brainstorming Findings
• Average quality not different
between groups and individuals
• Group members think that they
are more productive and creative
•
Illusion of group productivity
Rating of Number of Ideas
Generated
high 6
5
4
3
2
1
low 0
Alone
Group
Social Context
Beliefs about number of ideas in
brainstorming
90
80
70
more alone
the same
more in groups
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Company Data
Lab Data
Group Dummy Model
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Group Dummy Principle
+
=
<
Implies production losses of working in
groups
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Groups less efficient than individuals
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50% less productive
Group Dummy Model
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Cognitive Interference
• distraction
• time competition
• multiple task interference
Group Dummy Model
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Social Interference
• social apprehension
• social loafing
• move in direction of low
performers
Implication for Meetings
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Kill all your meetings—interruption is
the biggest enemy of productivity.
Jason Fried, founder of 37signals,
a company that creates programs
to facilitate teamwork
Teamwork Literature
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Benefits of self-managing teams
Lot of data on factors enhancing
teamwork
Assume teams beneficial for
innovation
Intellectual Puzzle
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Teamwork and collaboration are
great
Group work is bad
Different methods, paradigms,
populations
Different focus
Teamwork Literature
Real groups in organizations
 Compare impact of variables in teams
 Self-management/training important
 Typically no non-team controls
 Often measures of perception by
participants, outsiders
 Many complex tasks are feasible only
with teams of diverse skills
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Synchronous
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Individuals interacting in a limited
time period on one task
• Meetings
• Lab sessions
• Brainstorming sessions
• Problem solving sessions
Asynchronous
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Individuals interacting over a period
of time on one or more tasks.
• As needed
• Alone/group sequences
• In person and electronic interactions
• Teamwork
• Periods of synchronicity
Relevance of Groups Research
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Synchronous group interaction
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Asynchronous patterns
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Tasks which only teams can do
Group Wisdom
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Basic Principle
+
=
>
Example: Obvious benefits of teamwork
and collaboration.
May involve the benefits of
complementarity of skills and knowledge
Production of Knowledge
Wuchty et al. 2007, Science
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Over the span of 5 decades, no. of
authors
Almost all fields increase in team size
Teams more highly cited
Effect is increasing over time
Especially for highly cited papers
Teams papers 6.3 more likely to be
cited 1000 times than individual
papers in science and engineering
The Search for Synergy
The Holy Grail
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Performance of groups better than a
similar number of individuals
No evidence with face-to-face
groups
So far no evidence with work teams
Group Genius or Synergy
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Group Genius Principle
+
=
>
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Implies synergy
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Groups generate more and/or better ideas
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Teams more than sum of their parts
Semantic network
Hat
Violin
Pants
Banjo
Gloves
Guitar
Mittens
Clarinet
Flute
A Cognitive Model for Group
Genius
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Categories of knowledge
Diversity
Attention
Associational stimulation
Memory
Incubation/deeper processing
Limiting the Genius Factor
in Groups
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Need to multi-task
generate, attend, process,
coordinate
lack of opportunity to generate
lack of opportunity to process
Optimizing the Genius Factor
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Efficient interaction paradigms
• Writing
• Electronic brainstorming
• Efficient communication
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Alternating group and individual
ideation
Task focus
Brainwriting
Brainwriting Study
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Two Sessions/Same Task
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Alone or Group in Session 1
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Write/Exchange Ideas
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Alone in Session 2
Brainwriting Task
90
80
70
60
50
Session 1
Session 2
40
30
20
10
0
Group
Nominal
Number of Ideas
Electronic Brainstorming
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Exchanging idea on computers
Group decision support systems
Access to others ideas during
brainstorming
Electronic Brainstorming
Electronic Brainstorming
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Groups equal to or better than
similar number of individuals
Larger groups—more productive
Small groups—productive if
emphasize attention to others’ ideas
Benefit of exchange in subsequent
solitary brainstorming session
No. of Ideas
Productivity Gains Electronic Groups
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Nominal
Interacting
1
3
5
7
9
Group Size
11
13
15
Individual and Group
Sequence
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Individual to group?
Group to individual?
Indiv/Group/Indiv
Time/activity between
sessions may be critical
Individual and Group
Sequence
350
300
250
200
Overall Performance
150
100
50
0
Alone-Group
Group-Alone
Number of Ideas
Keys To Effective Group
Creativity
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Task Focus
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Task Motivation
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Effective Information Processing
Task Focus
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Clear instructions/rules/minimize irrelevant talk
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Attending to others
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Brief breaks
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Task decomposition
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Training
Task Motivation
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Competition
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High goals
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High performance norms
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Selected group members
Effective Information
Processing
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Writing/electronic
Efficient communication
Periodic priming
Incubation opportunities
• Alternating individual and group ideation
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Brief breaks
Diversity
Future Directions
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Collaborative team grant
• Develop model of the group
creative mind
• Group dynamics, cognitive
science, computational
modeling
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Immersive reality
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Brain imaging
Future Directions
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Translational research in real world
settings
• Meetings
• Work teams
• Collaborative learning
• Innovation in science and engineering
• Intelligence analysis
Using Our Innovative Potential
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We use only 10% of our brains?
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We tap only __% of our group brains
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We tap only __ % of our collective
innovative potential
Executive MBA students
Using Our Innovative Potential
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Research on collaborative creativity
can increase our ability to tap our
individual and collective creative
potential
Collaboration can then enhance the
innovative impact of individuals
Can lead to lead to creative group
synergy
Conclusions
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Collaborative teamwork for
innovation makes sense in terms of
simple addition of talent
Collaborative teamwork may tap only
a fraction of the innovative potential
of the team
Applying our understanding of the
creative group mind may suggest
ways to tap this potential
“They who most effectively
tap their collective potential
will win the innovation
race!”
The UTA Group Creativity
Lab