Here's how you can maximize Creative Problem Solving with a strong professional network.

- ?? Expand your network to include individuals from diverse industries and backgrounds. - ?? Engage with professionals who have different skill sets and viewpoints to challenge assumptions. - ?? Tap into the wealth of knowledge within your network to introduce new concepts and ideas. - ?? Foster cross-pollination of ideas by collaborating on projects or discussions. - ?? Use the diverse experiences in your network to spark creativity and innovation. - ?? Leverage your network to gain unique insights and perspectives on problem-solving. - ?? Continuously nurture and grow your professional network to stay inspired and adaptable.

In my experience - Analyze the problem to gain knowledge of its various facets. - Disintegrating the problem into sub-problems and identifying the requirement of domain expertise. - Knowing which domain of the professional network will contribute the most to solving the problem and expanding the network. - The network should have professionals from diverse backgrounds. - Engaging proactively with the identified professionals to seek their views. - Storytelling to initiate creative ideas. - Sharing of resources to gain from expertise. - Continuous engagement to keep track of the progress and sharing of lessons learned. - Subsequently, the connections are to be maintained to strengthen the relationship.

In my experience : - Find innovative solutions in your specific area of interest, like design thinking, business strategy, or social innovation. -Sharing knowledge and resources with experts. -Generate a large number of ideas without judgment -Empowering people through small loans to break poverty cycles. -Stay optimistic

Can't agree more! For me, this discovery comes very late in life. But if you pause a minute and think about it, it feels so foolish to have missed this treasure that lied within a hands reach, for so long. In the Indian context, we are so conditioned to stick to the people and ways we have always known, that it only adds to the problem. Each one of us is filled with so many unique experiences and not tapping into the diverse resources only hampers our learning and growth curve. Reaching out to new people including those from diverse backgrounds takes openness, courage, hunger for learning and humility. It may not come naturally to many of us. But we need to push ourselves out of your comfort zone and go make that contact.

Your network is a source of creativity and innovation. Engaging with individuals from various industries and backgrounds provides access to a wide range of knowledge. By seeking out these different perspectives, you can challenge your assumptions and expand my thinking.

Seeking feedback is a crucial component of personal and professional development. It involves actively requesting input from others about your performance, behaviour, ideas, or projects. Seeking feedback helps you to: Improve: Identify areas where you can enhance your skills, performance, or behaviour. Perspective: Gain different viewpoints that you might not have considered. Validation: Confirm whether you are on the right track with your projects or ideas. Growth: Encourage continuous learning and development.

In my experience as a Business Analyst, it is essential to gather feedback from stakeholders including subject matter experts. In collaborative environments, it provides the team with insights into how their actions and deliverables are perceived by others, thus fostering an open ground for continuous improvement.

It's true that seeking the Feedback is important as improving the Current Skills. As without Identifying the feedback for your thoughts you can't improve. You may need to get feedback from yourself or by others....

Maintain a consistent dialogue with reality by embracing feedback and criticism as essential grounding forces, akin to gravity, which prevent you from diverging off course. Strive for an equilibrium between imagination and direction. Disregarding your peers entirely can lead to unrealistic objectives, while adhering strictly to their guidance may result in a lackluster and conventional outcome. The key lies in harmonizing your personal insights, your team's input, and the project's goals to achieve a balanced and innovative result.

Seeking feedback is crucial as all products and all services are almost always for a selected audience; so why would we not take their feedback on board? Seeking feedback also promotes an open mindedness which is crucial for the in-demand adaptive and flexible workstyle in our current economy. I recommend to be grounded and anchored in your mission, seek feedback, LISTEN, and grow.

The secret to effective collaboration is not to think about who brings greater value to the table. Collaboration requires both openness and trust. If we are ready to learn from every collaborator, the partnership becomes organically beneficial. It is from openness that we know if this collaborator can be leveraged upon for future projects.

Collaboration is what has brought us as a species this far; and thus is a testament to growth and development. It is in collaboration that we allow for individuals to inspire each other, challenge ideas, and invest shared knowledge to create a product full of their groups potential; much larger than any of them individually.

Collaboration not only helps in just some projects or sessions but also helps in various parts of the work culture. It provides a morale boost to your work ethic towards yourself and Others.

Collaboration is also sharing. In day to day work it actually saves time and other resources when you are able to: - share particular experiences; - get or give advice on the topic; - generate ideas with others with the same topic, problem or challenge. Collaborate by sharing experiences, advice and ideas: save time and be effective.

Sharing of resources is extremely essential for creativity to flourish. As is said that two heads are better than one, two resources are always better than one. But it is important to keep the sharing two ways, otherwise it ends up looking like desperation rather than collaboration. When sharing resources, it is important to keep in mind that asking for help does not mean in any way that the person does not know how to solve the problem, rather they are seeking more expert opinions/resources to make better informed decisions.

Whether you are working as a sole or in a group on your work or some projects, you will need some help, even though there is little requirement you need to share your thoughts so that you can work efficiently.

Here's one of my favorite strategies: I belong to several communities where I access resources and inspiration, which I collect in a repository I call my "raw material notebook." I revisit this notebook whenever I need ideas or want to connect dots. In these communities, I also open threads to gather concepts, information, and perspectives from others that can help me with the challenges I'm facing. I encourage you to seek out permanent sources of inspiration and to join communities that add value to your discipline.

One thing I've found very helpful is shared resources. A strong professional network possesses shared resources as people within share these resources to enlighten and learn from each other. Shared resources improves creative problem solving ability and reduces the time required. This can be achieved by being part of a professional network as people have different experiences due to different challenges which they have encountered and have developed certain skills and methods for solving these challenges which becomes a readily available resource for you or others as part of the network. Imagine spending 5 hrs on a problem and its resolution when you can do same in 30 minutes with shared resource.

It is an important aspect to learn the diversity in the work culture or business environment. There may be some time where you often feel anxiety towards your work behaviour. In such a case diversifying your thoughts can improve your relationship and working skills to come over your complexity.

Diversity is the fast track to learning about the world, the people in it, and yourself. In a space where difference is present but often not embraced, diversity allows for the wonderful opportunity to learn. Diversity maximises your chance at reaching the clearest answer. Use difference and encourage the clashing of ideas, as, in a healthy and safe environment; this is how we reach breakthroughs.

The promotion of diversity in the problem-solving system takes our critical thinking towards a problem to a higher level. In traditional settings, diverse viewpoints can challenge assumptions and encourage comprehensive analysis, leading to well-rounded, innovative solutions. In agile environments, the inclusion of varied cultural, educational, and professional backgrounds promotes rapid ideation and adaptability, enhancing the ability to pivot and refine solutions quickly. This blend of diversity creates a dynamic problem-solving culture that leverages collective intelligence, driving creativity and effectiveness in addressing complex challenges.

In writing my next book on parenting, I include a variety of races, economic statuses and educational backgrounds among the parents I interview. While I may not use all of what I get, the diverse data offers me better perspectives of what is the reality on the ground. This helps me decide what to include in my book as well how I position my content.

Diversity challenges the status quo because it brings new perspectives ideas to any team, and it could also help to boost productivity and decision-making. However, if not effectively managed, it may lead to slower decision-making due to communication challenges amongst the team. In addition, discrimination remains another concern that may also hinder productivity. In my experience, one of the best approaches to counter the downside of diversity is to promote an inclusive culture within the team/organization

Building a strong professional network is a continuous investment. Nurturing these connections over time will unlock the true power of collaboration. Breakthrough creative solutions often will come from collaboration with professionals from different disciplines, schools of thought, diverse experience and knowledge.

Maintaining relationships is absolutely essential in a professional network. Engaging a diverse group of people enhances creative problem solving from different angles and becomes a platform for many innovative ideas.

I wholeheartedly agree with this article. For your own personal growth this can be a game changer, but if you're striving to push this beyond yourself and implement this into your team, there is something I would add. There must be skill/trait similarities each person possesses. I call these “Untrainable Skills/Traits.” Examples of these are: Initiative, Curiosity, Adaptability, & Achievement Drive. Without these skills/traits, you are left with a complacent team of diverse people that eventually will fizzle their problem solving capability. I have had great success with my teams in 2 completely different industries based on this. When you combine these skills/traits with the topics in this article, you mold a team that becomes unstoppable.

The points highlighted in this short article are linked. For me it is key to “Try to think outside the box”. The best way to do it is by connecting and talking to other people with a different experience and getting unguided input. This could be colleagues from other functions (who have a different thinking hat on) or connections from other industries to collect different input and ideas. Instead of asking for feedback on my own idea, I try to ask them open ended questions and try to understand how they would solve the problem in question in the first place, before I share my own ideas. Like this you receive competently different / unguided input. It’ll help you to truly think outside your own box.

Go to real ?? Take the network connections to the next level of engagement and meet onsite. I did that thanks to Grzegorz - founder of Agile/Scrum onsite group in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The group functions now in other cities in Poland and meetings (with photo ??) are announced on LinkedIn before and after. Everyone is always nice welcome, meetings are open and we encourage people to join us via LinkedIn advertising. The group means giving support to each other, share experience, inspire ??. Thanks to live discussion every 2 weeks we are more connected and open. Choose a nice cafe, pub, restaurant and organize informal meeting. Enthusiasm of others will charge your batteries ?? Network in real - that’s the power!