Design Criticism and the Creative Process - Cassie McDaniel - A List Apart

At a project’s start, the possibilities are endless. That clean slate is both lovely and terrifying. As designers, we begin by filling space with temporary messes and uncertain experiments. We make a thousand tiny decisions quickly, trying to shape a message that will resonate with our audience. Then in the middle of a flow, we must stop and share our unfinished work with colleagues or clients. This typical halt in the creative process begs the question: What does the critique do for the design and the rest of the project? Do critiques really help and are they necessary? If so, how do we use this feedback to improve our creative output?

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How Aha! Really Happens - Booz&Co - William Duggan

More and more companies are starting to appreciate that creativity tools simply don't work in an organizational context. The Creative Leadership Forum discovered this in 2008 in their major research project "Is Australian management creative and innovative?" . This Booz&Co article entitled "How Aha! Really Happens re-affirms our findings.

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How artforms can address business issues - Tim Stockil - Arts and Business UK

This 45 comprehensive report analyses the characteristics and attributes of a number of different art forms and evaluates what each art form offers to business in the field of creative training and development. It provides a model to show how arts-based training and development can make a significant impact on a wide range of business issues. Although it is not an academic paper, the report draws on a range of academic publications as well as the experience of practitioners in the field.

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10 Steps To Susccessful Brainstorming - Paul Williams Circa 1957 - How Something Old is A New Again

10 Steps to Successful BrainstormingI found these great brainstorming tips in the June 1957 issue of The Rotarian magazine via Google Books. The original article was entitled: “Got A Problem? Brainstorm It!” by Lyman Judson. It is no surprise that what we read about in 1957 is what practice today. As Judson’s article points out – even though brainstorming dates back to Plato, much of what they did in 1957 and what we do today is based on work by Alex Osborn.

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Environmental Stimulants to Creativity - Research Results - Teresa Amabile, Harvard Business School

In Chapter 8 of Creativity in Context, Teresa Amabile presents her research on characteristics work environments that foster creativity. The research method was to ask groups of employees (research scientists, bank employees and railroad employees) to describe two critical work incidents, one involving high creativity and the other involving low creativity. The incidents did not necessarily feature the person responding; that is, they could describe incidents not involving themselves. The surprising result was that the descriptions did not involve the characteristics of the creative or non-creative person, but instead focused on the general work environment. Here are the most important characteristics listed by Amabile, in rank order (most important first) for the research scientists. (Amabile writes that the members of the list were the same for bank and railroad employees, although the order was sometimes different.)

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