What do you do if your engineering team lacks creative solutions for decision-making?

1 Identify the root causes

To improve your team's creativity, it is essential to understand why it is lacking in the first place. This could be due to a lack of clarity or alignment on the goals, expectations, and constraints of the problem, a lack of diversity or inclusion in the team leading to groupthink or conformity, a lack of trust or psychological safety inducing fear of failure or criticism, a lack of motivation or engagement causing boredom or burnout, or a lack of resources or support resulting in frustration or stress. To diagnose the sources of your team's creative block, you can use surveys, interviews, feedback sessions, or root cause analysis and address them accordingly.

2 Encourage divergent thinking

Divergent thinking, the ability to generate many different and novel ideas for a problem without judging or filtering them, is essential for creativity. To encourage divergent thinking in your team, you should provide them with adequate time and space to brainstorm and experiment. Additionally, challenging them with open-ended, provocative, or hypothetical questions can stimulate creative thought. Furthermore, exposing them to diverse sources of inspiration, such as other domains, industries, or cultures can spark new ideas. Rewarding them for their quantity and quality of ideas (not just outcomes) can further motivate them to think divergently. Techniques such as mind mapping, SCAMPER, brainstorming, or lateral thinking can also be used to stimulate divergent thinking in your team.

3 Facilitate convergent thinking

Convergent thinking is the ability to evaluate, refine, and select the best ideas for a problem, based on criteria and logic. It is also essential for creativity, as it enables you to turn your ideas into feasible and effective solutions. To facilitate convergent thinking in your team, provide them with clear and relevant criteria and constraints for the problem. Involve them in the decision-making process and explain the rationale behind it. Additionally, solicit and give constructive feedback and criticism, as well as test and validate their ideas with data and evidence. Techniques such as prioritization matrices, SWOT analysis, prototyping, or A/B testing can also be used to encourage convergent thinking in your team.

4 Promote collaboration and communication

Creativity is not a solo activity but a collective one, and you can enhance your team's creativity by promoting a culture of collaboration and communication. To do this, you should establish a common vision and purpose for the problem and solution, foster a sense of belonging and trust among the team members, encourage diversity and inclusion in the team, and value different perspectives and strengths. Additionally, providing effective tools such as online whiteboards, chat apps, or video conferencing can help promote collaboration and communication. You can also use methods such as agile, scrum, or design thinking to further facilitate collaboration.