What is creative problem solving?

Creative problem solving (CPS) is a structured approach to tackling complex challenges in ways that go beyond conventional thinking. Rather than relying on familiar solutions or linear analysis, CPS uses deliberate techniques to generate original ideas and develop them into workable solutions.

The method has its roots in the 1950s work of Alex Osborn—the advertising executive who popularized brainstorming—and was later formalized by Sidney Parnes into a repeatable framework. Since then, it has been refined and applied across business, education, government, and design. Today, CPS is recognized as both a mindset and a methodology.

What makes problem solving "creative"?

The word "creative" in creative problem solving is sometimes misunderstood. It does not mean that solutions must be artistic or unconventional for their own sake. Rather, it refers to a specific cognitive stance: approaching a problem with openness to possibilities that are not immediately obvious.

CPS is grounded in a distinction between divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking means generating many possibilities without evaluation. Convergent thinking means assessing, selecting, and refining those possibilities into a clear direction. Most everyday problem solving defaults to convergent thinking almost immediately—we identify a problem, recall a familiar solution, and apply it.

CPS deliberately slows this process down, requiring teams to spend time in divergent thinking before convergence. This creates the conditions for more original and effective solutions.

The CPS framework

While different versions of the CPS model exist, most share a common structure with three core stages.

Clarify

Before generating ideas, teams must develop a thorough understanding of the challenge they are addressing. The Clarify stage has three components:

Explore the vision — Teams identify what they are ultimately trying to achieve. This is not a problem statement but a desired outcome: what would success look like, and for whom?

Gather data — Teams collect information about the problem from multiple perspectives. This may include user research, stakeholder interviews, data analysis, or simply structured observation. The goal is to surface facts, feelings, questions, and constraints that are relevant to the challenge.

Frame the problem — Teams synthesize what they have learned into a focused problem statement. In CPS, problem statements are often phrased as open-ended invitations: "In what ways might we..." or "How to..." This framing is chosen deliberately to prompt generative rather than evaluative responses.

The quality of the problem statement directly affects the quality of the ideas generated. A well-framed problem opens up productive territory; a poorly framed one leads teams to explore solutions that miss the real issue.

Ideate

With a clear problem statement, teams move into structured idea generation. The Ideate stage applies divergent thinking techniques to produce a large number of candidate ideas before any evaluation takes place.

Common techniques used in the Ideate stage include brainstorming, brainwriting, SCAMPER, and forced connections—pairing unrelated concepts to generate unexpected combinations. The facilitator's role is to maintain the conditions for productive ideation: deferring judgment, encouraging quantity, and ensuring all voices are heard.

At the end of Ideate, teams use convergent thinking tools to identify the most promising ideas. Techniques like dot voting, the evaluation matrix, and paired comparison analysis help groups make this selection in a structured, transparent way.

Develop

The most promising ideas from the Ideate stage are rarely ready to implement as conceived. The Develop stage involves strengthening these ideas, identifying potential obstacles, and working out the practical details needed to move toward implementation.

Teams assess the strengths of each idea and consider what conditions would need to be true for it to succeed. They anticipate resistance and generate strategies for overcoming it. This stage bridges the gap between a compelling idea and a feasible plan.

Some versions of the CPS framework include a fourth stage—Implement—that focuses on executing the plan and building buy-in among stakeholders. Others treat implementation as outside the scope of CPS itself, since it depends heavily on organizational context.

CPS tools and techniques

Several specific tools are associated with the CPS process:

Affinity mapping groups related ideas or data points into clusters, helping teams see patterns in large amounts of information. It is particularly useful during the Clarify stage when teams are making sense of research findings.

Assumption storming challenges teams to list all the assumptions embedded in their current understanding of a problem, then ask what would be different if each assumption were false. This technique surfaces hidden constraints and opens new lines of inquiry.

Evaluation matrix is a convergent tool used to assess a list of ideas against a set of criteria. Teams rate each idea on dimensions like feasibility, impact, and alignment with goals, producing a structured basis for selection.

Forced connections involves randomly pairing two unrelated objects, concepts, or domains and asking how one might inform a solution to the problem at hand. The constraint forces associative thinking that bypasses habitual patterns.

How CPS differs from design thinking

CPS and design thinking are complementary rather than competing frameworks. Both emphasize divergent thinking, iterative exploration, and the separation of problem understanding from solution generation. However, they differ in important ways.

Design thinking places human empathy at the center of every phase. Research into user needs—observations, interviews, usability tests—drives all decisions. The framework is specifically oriented toward designing products, services, and experiences.

CPS is domain-agnostic. It can be applied to any complex problem: organizational strategy, scientific research, policy development, or product design. Its techniques are drawn from cognitive psychology and creativity research rather than from design practice specifically.

In organizations with strong user research capabilities, CPS and design thinking work well together. Design thinking methods—user interviews, journey mapping, usability testing—can enrich the Clarify stage of CPS with deep qualitative insight. CPS ideation techniques can, in turn, expand the range of solutions explored during design thinking's Develop phase.

When to use creative problem solving

CPS is most valuable when conventional approaches have failed or when the problem is genuinely novel. If the challenge involves high uncertainty, multiple stakeholders with conflicting perspectives, or constraints that rule out obvious solutions, CPS provides the structure to navigate that complexity productively.

It is less well-suited to problems with known, well-proven solutions, or where speed matters more than originality. For those situations, applying a familiar playbook is often the right choice.

The discipline of CPS lies not in the techniques themselves but in the commitment to fully exploring a problem before settling on a solution. Teams that are willing to sustain that discipline—especially under time pressure—tend to arrive at solutions that are both more original and more effective.