Creative Team Thinking on Unknowns and Uncertainties; Use of Basic Verbal Problem Solving Tools

ÖZET

Ar-Ge, teknoloji yönetimi, inovasyon, yeni ürün geliştirme ve girişimcilik, yeni bilgilerin insan hayatını iyileştiren ürün ve hizmetlere dönüşme sürecinin aşamalarıdır. Bilgi en başta yüksek düzeyde bir bilinmezlikten adım adım daha düşük bir bilinmezlik düzeyine geçerek, sırasıyla spekülasyon, sorun tanımı, olasılık, gözlem, ölçme, modelleme, test, doğrulama, tasarım, geliştirme, üretim, dağıtım, aşamalarından geçerek faydaya dönüşür.

Bilginin ürüne dönüşme etkinliği, yaratılacak katma değer ve yaratıcılık düzeyi bilgi işleme etkinliğinin bir sonucudur. Sürece katılanların zihinsel yetenek ve birikimlerini düşünme sürecine tam olarak katabilmesi ile değer artışı sağlanır. Problemleri ele alırken, yeni tasarımlar yaparken insanların

birlikte düşünme sürecini şansa bırakmaması ve problem çözme tekniklerini beceri ile doğru kullanması farkı yaratmaktadır.

Temel, ileri ve sözel problem çözme teknikleri 1940’larda Amerika’nın önde gelen üniversitelerinde bulunmuş olsa dahi, bu yöntemler Edwards Deming’in liderliğinde 30 yıl boyunca JUSE üyesi firmalarda uygulanıp, etkinliğini kanıtladıktan sonra batı dünyasının dikkatini 1980’lerden sonra çekmiştir. Teknikleri kullanmadan gurup olarak düşünmek, inovasyon, verim ve kalite konusunda ki çalışmaların verimsiz kalmasına neden olmuş ve olmaya da devam edecektir.

Bu makalenin amacı bu durumu ortaya koymak, ekip çalışmalarının başarı olasılığını yükseltmek isteyen, problem çözme tekniklerini doğru ve etkin kullanıp, çok daha yaratıcı toplantıları, hızlı ve kolay hale getirmek isteyenlere ip uçlarını özetlemektir. Çalışmada insanların birlikte düşünmeleri ile ilgili sıklıkla yaptıkları hatalarla ilgili bir anket çalışmasının sonuçları da paylaşılacaktır. Böylelikle bundan sonra yapılacak araştırmalar için bir girdi sağlanması amaçlanmıştır.

Anahtar kelimeler: Problem çözme süreci, Problem çözme teknikleri, Amaç odaklılık, Yaratıcılık, Ekip düşüncesi

1. INTRODUCTION

The industrial age has ended and we have entered the information age. The global data volume is growing exponentially and it is predicted to reach 44 zettabytes by 2020 from 4.4 zettabytes in 2013 [1]. The services and products are changing considerably; cars are about to turn into “computers with wheels”, “shared car models” suggest new car ownership models, Facebook, WhatsApp and all similar services affected the way we communicate, link, relate with each other. Statistics show that an average of 6,140 new Android mobile apps were released per day during the last quarter of 2018 [2]. The number of apps available for download in the two leading app stores were 2.1 million apps for Android users and 2 million available apps for Apple users as of the third quarter of 2018 [3].

Today technology has reached to a point where human imagination can turn any business or life models drastically. Besides all technological developments and all increasing competition, the way we meet, relate and decide did not change at all. The use of online meeting tools, video chats, message boards, and blogs enabled distributed meetings and eased distance problem, but the very basic difficulties of group decision making are still the same.

The same meeting challenges, creativity blockers, effectiveness distractions, efficiency traps are still present. They will be present and dominate meeting outputs in future as well, because they are originating from the source; human mind itself. Companies hire people with best education, skill and motivation, clarify their strategies, and invest in systems, organization culture and teamwork. However these macro management aspects does not assure problem solving effectiveness and the creativity of solutions.

It is obvious that technology which is led by scientific approach improved our lives, whereas we humans are still heavily emotional, reactional, filled with minds full of distracting freights and desires. Why don’t we add more science into our meetings? If not in daily meetings, why not use it during our major meetings that requires higher levels of creativity and consensus?

Problem solving teams, task forces, quality circles which are all a specific type of meeting were being developed because normal meeting formats did not prove to be very effective. But let’s not miss that there are still some issues not being handled effectively. For this reason in this paper we suggest that problems which are systematic and chronical in nature should be handled, analyzed and decided using verbal problem solving tools.

Like ships using navigation charts and tools, teams and groups need better thinking and decision making tools. In Turkey during last 20 years some awareness about meeting effectiveness and respective facilitation services are increasing.

The accepted motto used is common mind (ortak akıl) highlighting the intersection of ideas, using brainstorming and voting based idea selection methods developed in 1920’s, to produce strategies and projects with participation. We rather need an integrated mind (bütünleşik akıl), and a method not only helping participation but also

• • •

creating a holistic understanding that can integrate different, conflicting ideas, enabling root cause analysis,
easing formulation of countermeasures to barriers related to suggested solutions.

Achieving integrated mind requires a system understanding, which is complex and difficult to attain, yet worth investing and thriving to learn, considering the cost of not starting to use them and continuing with ineffective, inefficient meetings that strengthen the learned helplessness of teams and system development efforts.

In some meetings, in well-established organizations, within the organizational atmosphere things might not be that difficult. But we should never forget when a chronical problem arise, during change period challenge, difficulties and uneasy situations happen. In such cases, people generally think that they need conflict resolution or communication improvement intervention, and think that they can repair it, which unfortunately is not the case most of the time.

The cost of an unproductive meeting is really much higher than one can imagine. It is not only the cost of a people’s time invested into meetings and respective travel expenses, but the opportunity cost of missing and late decisions, lost opportunities and motivations. In case a company or process produces 10 % net profit, it means that 90 % of all costs are there to create it. And therefore in case a meeting related to future plans and improvement efforts is unproductive, one do not lose only that 10 man-hours meeting time, but also 90 man-hours of work creating an opportunity.

Analiz Sentez Consulting creatively uses verbal problem solving tools since 1994 and these tools enabled the company to analyze very complex cases and develop effective business processes, strategies and solutions with tangible business results. This paper is based on this twenty five years of management consultancy experience aims explain how much verbal problem solving tools can ease group thinking and creativity development. First difficulties in team decision making and creativity will be explained, then problem solving process as an effective method to enable creative thinking will be defined. Paper will continue with explanation of verbal problem solving tools and a questionnaire developed to measure the mistakes that people make while thinking together and its pilot study results will be shared.

2. BARRIERS TO TEAM BASED DECISION MAKING AND CREATIVITY

Today business world requires from organizations and individuals more value added products, processes and systems using more creativity. The developing technologies have reached to such a point that all products and services are about to change radically. The speed of this technological change is exponential. However we all know that creativity is not as easy as it is said.

There are major barriers and difficulties related to creativity. To make creativity happen we need to understand clearly at least major obstacles and difficulties. This will help us develop effective solutions to overcome challenges. Otherwise without modelling problems and their respective countermeasures, we will continue to wrestle with shadows and continue to strengthen the learned helplessness which is the accumulated memory of uneasiness form the past with less knowledge, skill and experience, trying to minimize our expectations about future.

In practice we observe nine main barriers to team based decision making and creativity, flawed conceptualization of creativity, communication difficulty, not using a step by step problem solving process, limited capturing and recalling of ideas, not having effective methods to organize a lot of idea in short time, not having tools to form a holistic understanding of the issue from collected idea, Missing the critical and priority issues with voting exercises, not handling the dialectic process advances interpersonal conflicts, unconstructive handling of conflicts.

2.1. Flawed conceptualization of creativity

Most people perceive creativity as something unstructured, unpredictable, and “from the stars”. Some perceive creativity as something against the established order, hence risky. A creative solution has nothing to disturb the actual system and its respective performance. It is simply developed near the old one and when it is ready it will become the new “need to be improved” one.

It would be much more effective if people would perceive creativity as something from this world, a reachable, tangible, a result of step by step process. In such a case it would also be easier to work on problems, commit for the best, establish a supportive organizational climate of appreciative questioning and reach it.

2.2. Not definining difficulty of communication

Listening and understanding communicated ideas is difficult. While trying to communicate their own ideas, people cannot focus their attention on listening other’s ideas. Consequently, while some miss out others’ perspectives, some feel themselves unexplained.

The communication of ideas most of the time is not concise, they are too long and complex to capture. These results in time and attention losses. It is also a difficult task to give everybody equal opportunity to express themselves.

All of the stated factors make team communication a real challenge. One who wants to handle the problem, has to overcome meeting efficiency problem first. A good metaphor for this syndrome is the saying “while dreaming to cross the ocean, being drowned in the small stream”. Therefore, we have to change our daily speaking format, we better be briefer, to the point.

2.3. Not using a step by step problem solving process

In teams some people suggest solutions, while others try to define factors affecting the problem. A team who is not in agreement on the problem definition can never formulate any effective solution. Such teams will never be able to work in harmony, the ideas won’t complement each other, and they will finally find themselves discussing the same problems over and over without reaching any agreement. Their team work will look like a skidding car.

We suggest managements and teams to plan and execute the problem solving process and thus prevent all potential difficulties in advance. Problem solving tools provide a very effective, step by step roadmap for teams to think, to question, to ideate and to decide. Any team to produce a creative solution has to visit each problem solving step in order. The meeting time of each step, number of meetings required in each step can differ, but clarifying the final objective and its respective sub-objectives can ease teamwork planning a very effective task.

2.4. Limited capturing and recalling of ideas

Anyone who wants to produce a quality decision need a method to collect ideas and opinions; Memory has its limits; to understand and remember 4 or 5 ideas is difficult, but to understand and remember more than 10 ideas or more is not possible. Therefore all the ideas need to be written out first.

In brainstorming sessions everyone would better write their own ideas and express themselves as briefly as possible, without needing to defend themselves. Verbal problem solving tools and use of self- sticky notes is a very effective method to collect written ideas.

For human mind waiting long time to express themselves is not appropriate. It is distracting and thus effects negatively the creative nature of human mind. To generate an idea and write them briefly is a very healthy exercise for the mind to better concentrate. Writing ideas concisely is a mean to focus on the question, to discharge the mind and become ready for the next idea.

2.5. Not having effective methods to organize a lot of idea in short time

In most of the meetings idea producing pace is slow, brainstorms are rare. If so the quality of language used is not enough. Why so? Do you think that with our normal communication methods, the richness of ideas inherent in participant mind can really be managed effectively? The experience shows that it is not!

In most of the meetings a lot of ideas are unexpressed, if expressed not understood or missed by others. To complement the voicing out with writing down and visualizing instantly on the board changes a lot. Without using verbal problem solving tools effective and efficient collection of ideas is not possible.

2.6. Not having tools to form a holistic understanding of the issue from collected idea

Forming the big picture by putting different perspectives side by side is an eye opening exercise which people need most. In organizations people look from their view and cannot grasp other perspectives. This fragmentation is both the result and cause of most of the problems.

Collecting ideas is the first task, organizing, relating them and forming a holistic rhetoric from ideas is in fact the major challenge. An idea says something, the next complements it, another may support or conflict with both.

To understand any problem from all perspectives is the first step for any team to be able to form a platform for developing effective solutions.

Not to miss what the totality of collected ideas shoving us, we need a method to organize 20 to 100 ideas in 5 to 10 minutes at most. In this case we can reveal the unified meaning and communicate it and show that each voice is heard and noted, people’s motivation for teamwork will be enhanced too.

2.7. Missing the critical and priority issues with voting exercises

Not every issue has the same importance. Seeing the big picture, is possible by prioritizing right issues and with relations. In most of the workshops we find people deciding on priorities by means of voting method.

This is an oversimplification, missing cause-effect relations, result in loss of real priorities to finally favor in most of the case short term issues and symptoms. Without relying on cause effect relations no prioritization is possible. A major important contribution of accomplishing a real prioritization exercise is to enable teams consume less time and effort on less important and unnecessary discussions.

To reveal root-causes is a major step for deeper understanding of the problem and generating effective solutions. This will also assist people build consensus, systematic understanding, and help them focus on real systematic issues and diminish the ratio of time spent on short term issues.

2.8. Not handling the dialectic process advances interpersonal conflicts

We know from theory of constraints [4] that creativity is the result of a dialectic process. But conflicting ideas are also a major challenge for teams and meetings. If handled effectively, challenges do not become interpersonal, not only creativity would be unleashed, but also team harmony, efficiency and motivation would be boosted.

In normal meetings, without use of problem solving tools the conflicting nature of ideas blocks the team process. People start to defend, emphasize and strengthen their view resulting into more rigid positions.

2.9. Unconstructive handling of conflicts

Unconstructive handling of conflicts accumulates a memory of repulsion in between areas of expertise and people

From the beginning to the end of problem solving process, different personal and interpersonal psychological factors interfere in form of uncertainties, conflicts, compliance pressure, politics, competition, distractions, motivation loses, discomforts, freights. These psychological factors either capture people’s mind, not letting them produce constructive ideas, or result in interpersonal conflicts, causing the group lose its energy with unproductive discussions and feelings.

In most of the organizations flawed handled problems have a major emotional residue which creates always a negative background in people’s mind. Consequently new problems are handled in a quarrel or quarrel background, deepening the negative emotional background.

In knowledge society where interdisciplinary work is the new rule, compared to expertise silos of industrial age, we cannot continue with such meeting performances. In this new age of exploding detail and alternative, we need a more objective method of dealing with conflicts.

3. PROBLEM SOLVING PROCESS AS AN EFFECTIVE METHOD TO ENABLE CREATIVE THINKING

Management as a social science observes and categorizes, tries to understand factors related to better management practices, leading into better performances. Though it is very hard and in most cases not possible to build laboratory tests like natural sciences, it gives us clues. These clues help us not only to find our way, but also to persist in the right strategy to make the learning and change happen.

In past, some people may have succeeded in creativity themselves by developing their own tools and methods but today we do not have the same chance to learn by trial and error. In miss handled problem solving processes people lose a lot of energy, time, motivation with interpersonal conflicts and several organizational resistances. Consequently rather than focusing their mind on identifying the problem and learning ways to solve it, people become the voice of the problem.

With the development of management science and competition, especially after 60’s Problem solving process a collective learning method, is being used more widespread day by day. Like all other methods, problem solving tools, when used by experienced users are more effective. The theoretical depth and practical experience, when blended with motivation enhances its efficiency too. Apprentices and their early exercises are the source of unproductive meetings and team efforts. To overcome this, today most of the organizations use experienced catalysts, consultants to empower problem solving processes in their organizations.

An experienced consultant is someone who confronted with various types of resistances, from bottom, top, inside, and outside, lived unlucky situations and somehow managed to accumulate an experience of sailing in negative, unsupportive, unbelieving, indifferent atmospheres. A good problem solving catalyst is the architect and skillful implementer of problem solving process.

With his expertise he first formulates the winning, difficult to apply formula, than collaborating with a small group of believers, can motivate people for not giving up their efforts up to having the first positive results. Therefore we can see an experienced management consultant as a silent, humble catalyst of creativity.

Working with experienced catalyst managers and experts can learn how to better tackle problems and organizations can transform the unproductive part of their organizational culture.

The problem solving process is as sound and strong mechanism, even though its utilization is not as widespread and effective as it should be. Any creative solution starts with a need for better, with a problem definition, becomes into an effective after following steps; root cause analysis, solution alternatives, hindering factors and countermeasures.

In this paper I suggest to add all meetings some structured form of problem solving process, and not to wait to choose the topic as a problem solving case to be able to tackle it adequately. Structured meetings will also be much more effective in terms of time efficiency and organizational harmony too.

3.1. Major five steps of problem solving process

Problem solving process can be explained with five major steps.

Step 1: discontent with the current situation. Creativity starts either proactively with a need for better or reactively with the realization of any problem. Perception is selective; one sees what he/she tends to see and omits the rest. In case someone else points the omitted than one generally tends to reject it. Therefore it is extremely difficult to realize the need for the better. Environment with many and changing impulses, attention distraction, conflicts, and habits, support the reluctance to accept the call of the new.

People, to reject the call of the new, generally say “not invented here”, “prove it to me” and “we already tried/know it“. In case you join them to your problem solving process their mind will tell you a lot of ideas about obstacles and barriers around. Hence acceptance of the problem, is the first step together with what is being lost in case the problem continues. With this definition everybody in the organization should clearly acquire the need for the change.

Step 2: problem definition. Human attention is easily distorted, yet one needs to focus, isolate the issue from distracting ideas, so to be able to identify the problem. Problem solving tools makes this process more manageable, ease the collection of observations, thoughts, causes, interactions and results with better formulated expressions. When one becomes familiar with the topic, he/she will understand why and how the problem exists, how it preserve its existence and its associated cost.

Step 3: root cause analysis. When the idea collection process becomes mature, assimilation starts and create the holistic understanding. Mind working and communicating about the problem will start to understand the priority dynamics, inputs, elements, interactions and outputs. The participation plays an important role for the quality of this holistic understanding, enabling richer perspectives, expertise and more elaborate feedbacks about the problem as a model.

Step 4: solution formulation. Problem solving process is like a pyramid, the top is limited with its base. In case one has a missing root cause analysis, the solution will be short too. One have to enumerate several solutions for each root cause first. To formulate strong and effective solutions we have to sail from first and easily captured ideas, to silently emerging and appearing ideas. A good method that problem solving tools ease, is to list all barriers to collected solutions and think about their countermeasures.

Step 5: reality check. Applying all formulated solutions, one will find the chance to evaluate his/her work and improve it. Any team will be very curious to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of their proposed solutions. And also this will create an important learning opportunity which can be seen as an award itself.

To adapt meeting the process to a problem solving process one has to prepare a list of questions. Examples to these questions can be found in Table 1. These questions are typical questions and one can increase this number. The example questions will be useful for apprentices, however the most benefit will be gained after having more experience, and building the skill of formulating the unique questions, to unique cases.

Table 1 The problem solving process: The preparation

For each question one will have to use one or more problem solving tools. The important thing is the design and clarity of the question. Once the steps of the problem solving process is understood, one has to list all the ideas, and clarify the outcomes expected, than one will be able to revive which tools can suit better to one’s needs.

As a general approach we can say that in each step of problem solving process, there are different and specific verbal problem solving tools suitable to the nature of each step. In the table below you can find the summary of tools and steps. Considering that each tool can be used in several steps, in combination actually the Table 2 can become more complicated. But keeping it simple will be more helpful at the beginning and as one becomes more experienced more complicated versions can be developed.

Table 2 The Problem solving process and the suitable verbal problem solving tools

¤¤¤ ££¤£ ¤

£¤¤ ¤£¤

¤¤

¤ Signs showing the power of relation between parameters:¡Low;£Moderate;¤High

Verbal Problem Solving Tools

Affinity diagram

Relations diagram

Tree diagram

Matrix diagram

Prioritization matrices

Process decision program chart

Activity network diagram

4. VERBAL PROBLEM SOLVING TOOLS

Verbal problem solving tools such as affinity diagrams, cause-effect relation charts, activity network diagrams, flow diagrams, matrices, prioritization matrices, and risk analysis tools developed in The Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) in 1970’s [5] suggest a very effective approach to above mentioned problems.

Verbal problem solving tools by visualizing and prioritizing all contributing factors to difficulties and requirements, clarifies also conflicting issues. The best way to handle conflicts is to visualize, clarify and to reveal all details. These tools with their visual nature, easing participation, can handle crowded idea flow and ease decision making after synthesizing all data. It is much probable to find a real, working solution to a real conflict then. Verbal problem solving tools provide us an endless steps to form the thinking process, opens always a new door when we think that we are squeezed.

We actually have a difficulty with collecting and synthesizing a lot of ideas, from a group of people, in a given time. To ease this challenge the decision making process, listing and ordering all the interests, relating them to 5 stages of problem solving process and selecting which tool to use is necessary.

To one who wants to implement this approach we would advise to use the below listed methods. This way one will realize how they are with the problem solving process. Verbal problem solving tools enhances creation, organization, comparison, relating, prioritizing, and summarizing ideas. Each tool has its own specific form and questions triggering and guiding group thinking process.

In Table 3 we have summarized basic information about problem solving tools, together with a small depiction shoving how it might look like. These tools are verbal and visual at the same time. After collecting ideas when you organize them considering similarities, differences and relations the outlook of the study becomes catchier to eyes.

Verbal problem solving tools start by putting questions at the start, ease idea creation process during collecting, grouping ideas, relating grouped ideas, highlighting major relations, summarizing the collected insight. Then analyzing priorities, noticing missing perspectives, detail and questions restarting idea generation and organization process, a holistic picture can be obtained.

In all of the information processing steps a group of people has to start by criticizing an issue, collect a lot of ideas, make observations about interactions and finally summarize all the collected information which is a very complicated task.

During all thinking process at any point it is very probable that conflicts arise and people might take it personally. When difficulties occur it is not easy to;

1. concentrate on an issue, generally many other ideas come in our head,

2. encode any thought briefly,

3. listen and understand someone, especially while you are thinking about a question,

4. keep the concentration more than 15 to 20 minutes, while there are so many things to say anyone

   wants to declare about any problem,

5. remember more than 4 to 5 ideas any given time, while during 30 minute meeting people may

   put on the table upto10 to 30 issues,

6. make a good summary of all the mentioned ideas.

In any problem solving process a skillful moderator is needed. Sometimes this moderator can bear more responsibility and become a catalyst too. He/she has to take care all the difficulties by means of problem solving process and tools. Someone who is not skillful with these tools can only order speech order and emphasize time constraints.

After formulating questions for each problem solving steps, deciding which tool to use and considering the above briefed moderation hints one can start with the recipe presented here.

Table 3 Verbal problem solving tools, definition and figures

Source: S. Mizuno. (1988); S. Shiba, A. Graham, & D. Walden (1993); T. Çelik (1995)

5. MEETING EFFICIENCY AND PROBLEM SOLVING TEAMS

Meetings and problem solving teams have both things in common and different. In fact a problem solving team/process is a specific type of meeting, consisting of series of sequential, complementary and planned meetings. All difficulties and problems prevailing in meetings, also surface during problem solving teams and processes too.

In teams even though some brainstorming tools may also be used, generally whiteboards and agenda kind of tools are employed, none could increase the quality of expressed ideas and help to focus on synthesizing collected ideas. However, problem solving teams use a better planned process and respective problem solving tools to overcome team and creativity challenges.

When we focus on increasing meeting performance

First of all, effectiveness is related with the objective of the meeting and always leads efficiency which is about the relation in between the output and input. Briefly saying to be efficient you have to be effective first. Meetings can be categorized under four basic groups with respect to their objectives;

1. To inform participants about an issue (either problem or a new solution, decision)

2. To collect participants’ opinion about a known issue

3. To initiate participants to a new issue

4. To establish routine or need basis communication platforms about issues

   Table 4 Meeting – communication categories and the verbal problem solving tools’ suitability

   ¤X¤¡X¤ X¤¡¤¤X X¤X¤¤X

Communicatio n categories

One-way

Two-ways

Multi-directions

Suitability of verbal problem solving tools

A brief presentation is best

In two way communicatio n case meeting recorder is needed, together with an introductory presentation

In multi- direction communicatio n cases, all verbal problem solving tools would be very effective

A brief presentation is best

X Not good, but still one has to describe objective, scope and constraints; ¡ Low; £ Moderate; ¤ High

Collecting information developing standard forms, as matrix diagram would be very effective

In both communicatio n cases all verbal problem solving tools would be very effective

A brief presentation is best

In addition to these a meeting can have one-way, two-way or multi-direction communication process with respect to its objective. Consequently we can have 12 (4 objective categories x 3 communication categories) alternative meeting types. The verbal problem solving tools can have different contributions for each of these meeting types. Table 4 summarizes when the verbal problem solving tools can be most useful and increase efficiency. As can be seen from Table 4, in one-way communication meetings no problem solving tool is needed. However as much as participation level increases the contribution of verbal problem solving tools increases.

In case right tools are not used in right type of meeting, than difficulties are much more probable. One can see meeting inefficiencies, stress as the result of poor method use.

6. APPLICATION

To be more specific about the difficulties that frequently occur during the meetings, we have developed a questionnaire. As the first stage of the questionnaire development process, a brainstorming is conducted – to enumerate the most frequently observed difficulties – to a group of seven judges. Judges are chosen from people with expertise in moderating meetings and management consultancy.

During the brainstorming 30 frequent and major problems are highlighted. Then the judges are asked to sort and categorize these items. During this study 4 major categories are developed. Categories are named

1. Before meeting preparation phase,

2. Participant related difficulties,

3. Meeting manager, moderator originated difficulties,

4. Problems occurring from the inappropriate use of tools.

These 30 items sorted in 4 categories are then developed into a questionnaire. 30 item questionnaire is asked on two separate 7 point-scales: “how frequently do you face the below items during meetings in your company” and “how important are the below items with respect to the efficiency of the meetings”.

The questionnaire is later employed in an organization which was in need of improving team based, concurrent engineering processes. The survey is conducted to 22 people from mid-level management team. Since the organization was in a reformulation process of its basic processes, and since meeting effectiveness was an important part of this change management process, respondents were ready and willing to answer the questionnaire.

The questionnaire items and the descriptive results of the application are given in Table 5. As can be seen questionnaire is negatively worded so that people can relate the items with their experience in meetings carried out in their organization more easily.

This questionnaire aims to show which phase is more problematic so one can improve the situation. In this application, we see that the company has to plan better and focus more on outcomes at first look. In Category 1 the most important issue is objective clarity and planning the meeting as steps leading to final output. The actual scenario looks like trying to produce a film without any scenario. In Category 2 we see that participants should better learn to concentrate and contribute with an objective attitude. In Category 3 we see that not to dominate the discussion is a must. In Category 4 we see that meetings are subject to disperse moderator failing to focus speeches on the topic and not to organize and summarize the collected ideas.

Table 5 Meeting difficulties questionnaire: items and descriptive results

1. Not being clear enough about why the meeting was needed 2.The purpose of the meeting not clearly defined
3.Too many objectives and issues loaded into the meeting 4.The content and the steps of meeting unplanned

5.No time plan related to meeting agenda 6.Intended outcome of the meeting not defined 7.Meeting environment physically inappropriate 8.Timing of the meeting inappropriate

9.Participants do not join the meetings with prepared mind 10.Disturbances created by late participants
11.Participants do not concentrate and contribute to meeting 12.Out of objective conversations happening during meetings

13.Loosing effective meeting time with unproductive communication patterns
14.Too much conflicts arise during meetings
15.Learned helplessness is felt frequently

16.Participants are not active enough in suggesting solutions, alternatives
17.Participants do not define problems objectively using evidence

18.Participants do not attach importance to being objective about discussed issues
19.Failure to comply to planned meeting times
20.Different and new ideas generally not appreciated 21.Difficulty of expressing problems openly as they are

22.A person or opinion can frequently dominate the meeting 23.No equal speech opportunity for each participant

24.Ineffectiveness of meeting moderator to (re)focus speeches towards meeting objectives
25.Meeting being dispersed after having different opinions 26.The failure to manage crown of ideas

27.Difficulty of grouping ideas considering both the commonalities and differences
28.Disintegration and elongation of meeting
29.Unable to form a concise summary of meeting

30.After meeting actions remaining undecided

6.09 0.97 5.05 1.50 5.68 1.13 5.27 1.08 5.50 1.34 6.32 0.89 5.64 1.14 6.05 1.05 4.82 1.33 4.68 0.99 5.59 1.30 5.09 0.87 3.91 1.41 2.27 1.28 5.36 1.09 5.05 1.21

5.50 1.14 4.18 1.37 2.41 1.30 2.45 1.01 5.64 1.14 5.14 1.25 5.45 1.14 4.95 1.40

5.55 0.96 5.91 1.02

4.18 1.33 4.23 1.07 4.86 1.36 5.27 1.12

5.59 1.1 5.09 1.77 6.18 0.91 5.68 1.13

5.64 1.14 6.14 0.99

4.23 1.31 2.86 1.42 5.18 1.18 5.27 1.32 5.73 1.20 4.68 1.25 6.00 1.20 5.27 1.45 5.32 1.17 5.05 0.95

5.68 1.13 5.36 1.18

6.00 1.07 5.91 1.15 5.86 1.28 5.68 1.09

5.55 1.06 5.41 1.33

5.50 1.01 4.86 1.32 5.73 1.28 5.73 1.03 3.95 1.70 5.18 1.14

7. CONCLUSION

Here in this paper we wanted to share our accumulated experience and explain how much verbal problem solving tools can ease group thinking and creativity development based on twenty five years of practice in consultancy.

There is still a lot of room for improvement in organizations, and in collaborative processes which meeting is one of them, there is a continuous improvement going on. Looking to the past with a couple of months perspectives or years one may not perceive any difference, but looking back to 20 years or more one can see how much change has happened so far.

To strengthen the improvement of team work process and meetings, we have to use problem solving process and respective tools effectively. Combining the analysis presented on Table 5 and verbal problem solving tools one can increase the meeting effectiveness.

We have to plan meetings better; starting to clarify the objectives. We cannot do this alone, we may list objectives and using a relations diagram first, prioritization matrices second we can clarify the objectives. We can do the same application for the outcomes too. Once objective and outcome is clear, using verbal problem solving tools we can identify phases and steps of problem solving process. Once we plan a better and more planned thinking process, it is now participants turn to put their efforts, concentrate fully, without hesitation on whether or not their ideas will be supported, accepted or not. One of the major blockers seem like dominating voices. We have to communicate these dominating voices and put their concerns in form of questions. This way using problem solving tools you can convert any negative energy into a question and carrying an effective session you can enrich and deepen the understanding within the organization. The final issue is to be able to collect the result of thinking process. In case a multitude of ideas created, not to disperse the discussion is the first priority, second all collected ideas should be synthesized effectively. People need to see very clearly that in case any good idea is presented, it will not be lost somehow. Verbal problem solving tools again will prove to be very effective in this stage too. The affinity diagram, relations diagram, matrix diagrams, tree diagrams, process decision program charts, activity network diagrams will all have a high level of contribution to collect, package, present and share results of the thinking process.

Here we also presented a newly developed questionnaire on difficulties that frequently occur during meetings. The aim of the questionnaire is to collect data on how frequently some complications occur as well as how important they are to company workers. The questionnaire was tested on a very limited sample so far, therefore it should be applied to larger samples and tested for its psychometric properties before finalizing it. Later our purpose is to measure the effect of the verbal problem solving tools in overcoming problems revealed by the questionnaire. Thus, we intend to provide an input for future research.

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