CHAPTER 10 CREATIVE DECISION MAKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

Creativity refers to the invention or origination of any new thing that has value. Wikipedia Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. Robert E. Franken The ability to look at the same things as someone else and think something different Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

THEORIES OF CREATIVITY

Psychoanalytical perspective
The general argument is that people become creative in reaction to difficult circumstances or repressed emotions

 Creativity is a preconscious mental activity Creativity thinking occurs in our subconscious thoughts and is not directly accessible to our conscious thoughts This theory argues that people are able to demonstrate creativity when they link the personal unconscious with the collective conscious.

Behavioral Perspective
The behaviorist believes a person is not an initiating force in the creative act, but rather a focal point where environmental and genetic forces come together to have a common effect. The environment acts upon the individual

 Creativity is a natural response to stimuli within our individual environments, certain combinations of stimuli can lead to more creative behavior than other combinations The genetic and environmental histories responsible for an individual's behavior and then to create an environment for creative behavior to occur

Cognitive Process Perspective

The term cognitive process means a volitional mental operation that can be learned in much the same way as solving a problem

 Creativity is a property of thought process that can be acquired and improved through instruction and practice Creativity as a thinking process implying it is a learned behavior that can be improved.

Different Ways to Think

Logical Thinking
Logical thinking is to think on the basis of knowledge, what we know, and certainties, what we can prove.

 Using left-brain Using experimental and analytical abilities to think about a problem rooted in the model-building and quantitative methods of management sciences an integral part of the design and development of a computer-based DSS

Lateral Thinking
Lateral thinking is based upon the premise that the human mind naturally processes and stores information in accordance with a specific pattern of thought and action.

 Lateral thinking is the ability to think creatively, or "outside the box" to use your inspiration and imagination to solve problems by looking at them from unexpected perspectives.

Critical Thinking
Process of purposeful, self-regulatory judgment. The process gives reasoned consideration to evidence, contexts, conceptualizations, methods, and criteria" (1990). Broadly defined as "thinking about thinking."

Opposite Thinking
a method of problem solving whereby the decision maker simply takes the perspective of someone other than him/herself

Group Thinking
an alternative way of thinking and can be used effectively to achieve group involvement in activities such as idea generation and brainstorming

Intuitive Thinking
not same as creativity but has been identified as an important element in creative decision making and problem solving Intuitive Thinking educates people to access and use the full potential of their whole brain intelligence in decision-making. Use the right-brain

CREATIVE PROBLEMSOLVING TECHNIQUES

Free association
all focused on a single goal; divergent thinking and generation of ideas It wont give you a specific answer to your problem but it will help you explore different approaches to it Association can help spark ideas to lead you to a solution. The most common is brainstorming

Structured relationships
focus on the generation of new ideas via a process where two or more objects, products, idea or concepts are forced together or combined to produce new objects or ideas Osborns Idea Checklist, Morphological forced connections, Analytic Hierarchy Process

Group techniques
focus on enhancing and fostering creativity within a multiparticipant problem-solving context exercise will naturally create synergies that generate creative ideas if they are stimulate into some form of regular and flexible interaction Nominal Group Technique, Delphi Techniques

10.3 INTELLIGENT AGENTS IN DECISION SUPPORT

To assist in organizing the characteristics of agents. Capable of performing many of the necessary decision support function formerly relegated to human beings

What is an Intelligent Software Agent?

To assist in organizing the characteristics of agents, we can conceptualize them as members of three primary divisions:
1. Agent theory answers the question of what an agent is as well as the mathematics for representing them. 2. Agent architecture conceptualizes the software engineering models. 3. Agent languages focuses on the development and deployment of software languages for programming and experimenting with agents.

Characteristics of an Intelligent Software Agents

Autonomy Mobility

Personalizabilit y

Anthropomorphis m

Characteristics of Intelligent Software Agents

Discourse and Cooperation

Graceful Degradation and Cooperation

Risk, Trust, and Domain

Classification of Intelligent Software Agents In addition to the identifying characteristics, there are other ways to classify agents:
1. Hierarchical classification Franklin and Graesser proposed a treelike structure,

Franklin and Graesser Hierarchical Classification

2. Categorical classification classification as organizational versus personal. Personal agents are more widespread, but collaborative technologies such as Lotus Notes are becoming more popular.