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UK Business Forum BizFace
by Published on 28th May 2011 11:39
Research on group creativity shows consistently that the same people come up with more ideas working on their own than they do when brainstorming together. But perhaps it's time to move beyond this striking yet superficial discovery. After all, having a list of initial ideas is not the end of the creative process. A new study by Nicholas Kohn and colleagues has focused on the creative task of idea combination, finding that in this context groups do have advantages over individuals working alone.
One hundred and eight student participants formed groups of three working at computer terminals located apart (this set-up was used to rule out the influence of various social factors that emerge in face-to-face situations). The participants' ten-minute task was to come up with fresh ideas for how to improve their university. Some of the groups of three shared their ideas electronically - that is, each individual could see the ideas of their two fellow team members appear on their own screen as they worked. Other groups worked alone, each individual entirely cut off from their two team members.
The next stage was about idea combination. All participants, whether they previously worked alone or not, now had access to a list of their own existing ideas and the already proposed ideas of their team members. For the next fifteen minutes participants attempted to combine these existing ideas into novel concepts, or to combine an existing idea with a new one. Crucially, half the participants (whether they previously worked alone or collaboratively) now did the combining on their own; the other half could see their team members' newly combined ideas appear on-screen as they worked.
Consistent with past research, participants who worked alone in the first phase came up with more ideas than those who worked cooperatively with their team members. However, team working was more successful in the second, idea combination phase. Although participants working on their own came up with more combined ideas, it was the combined ideas produced by participants working together that were rated by independent judges as being more useful.
Another finding was that participants who worked alone in the first phase were more likely to use other people's ideas to form novel combinations in the second phase (rather than just combining their own earlier ideas), perhaps because they were seeing them for the first time and therefore finding them more stimulating.
A second study was similar to the first except the participants were asked to form newly combined ideas out of existing ideas from an external source (ie. not generated by themselves or their team members). The topic was as before - how to improve the university. Some groups worked with ideas categorised as common, others with rare ideas. This time the collaborators sat around a table and followed a "brain writing" technique - each time they conceived of a new idea combination they wrote it down on a piece of paper and passed it to their neighbour, who rated its usefulness. The purpose of this was to make sure collaborating participants engaged with each others' ideas.
Again, individuals working alone generated more freshly combined ideas than individuals working collaboratively - this was unsurprising since the brain writing process is time consuming. However, participants working collaboratively with rare material came up with combined ideas that judges rated as more novel and feasible, than did participants working alone. And collaborating participants working with common material came up with combined ideas rated as having more impact. This result shows again that there are times in the creative process when working collaboratively has advantages.
'Our results provide a fertile basis for future studies to examine the factors that influence this process and enhance the ability of groups to generate combinations that are both original and useful,' Kohn and his team concluded.
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Kohn, N., Paulus, P., and Choi, Y. (2011). Building on the ideas of others: An examination of the idea combination process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.01.004
This post was written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.
Click here to go to see more from the BPS...by Published on 25th April 2011 15:56- Categories:
- Tips and Tricks
SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats) Analysis is a simple but surprisingly effective technique to assess an organisations positioning and begin the process of turning general ideas for market growth into actionable activities. This brief guide shows how to extend the simple SWOT concept into a ...by Published on 18th February 2011 14:01- Categories:
- Theory and Practice
MEA (Means-Ends Analysis) is an a approach that puts together aspects of both forward and backward reasoning in that both the condition and action portions of rules are considered when we decide which rules to apply. The logic of the process takes into account the gap between the current situation and the desired goal – where we wish to get to and proposes actions in order to close the gap between the two. The method uses a set of rules that enable the goal to be achieved iteratively. The rules consist of two parts: rules that are prerequisites and ones that show the changes to be implemented. MEA works by considering the present position as the current state and the objective as the goal state. The differences between the desired and the goal state are considered and actions are proposed that reduce the ‘gap’ between the initial and desired states. Since the process is working from the current state towards a goal it is said to be doing forward chaining which implies a search strategy and a procedure that regards goal achievement as success – or if the outcome of a sub-goal is failure a new search is begun (or the process terminates as not possible). ...by Published on 3rd February 2011 19:05- Categories:
- Outsourcing
Why does Outsourcing often fails to deliver any benefit?
In a recent Dun & Bradstreet report they noted that "25 percent of all outsourcing fails" completely and over 50% of all outsource deals do not deliver any substantive benefit at all. Outsourcing failures are often the result of companies rushing into transactions with unrealistic or unsubstantiated expectations of cost savings and performance improvements that cannot be met because the client does not communicate its requirements in a clear way either internally or to the potential vendors. The outsourcing of many business processes besides IT also has the same less-than-stellar results - call centre problems are almost a
cause célèbre. Some people believe you need hundreds of pages of detailed specifications as complex as War and Peace to make outsourcing work at all tying up the whole thing in a tight contract that covers every possibility - clearly not a practical proposition.
The main causes of failure in an outsource in my view are :
- The buyer's unclear expectations up front as to its objectives - poorly defined goals and requirements and a lack of outsourcing contract management capability are two of the top reasons for IT outsourcing failures.
- The parties' interests maybe aligned up front but become misaligned as the buyer's business environment or needs change over time (as they will inevitably)
- The provider's poor performance against service level agreements - which in some cases is dramatic.
- The parties do not consider each other's interests to ensure their relationship is mutually beneficial - the naturally conflicting objectives and the need for vendors to make money are often not really internalised by clients.
- Poor governance structure for managing the ongoing relationship - in some cases this is left just to account management.
- Poor cultural fit compatibility of the parties - asymmetric sizes between client and vendor as well.
- Poor communication; the parties do not proactively share necessary information with each other - the relationship deteriorates rapidly when information is hidden
In another recent work I have been involved with there have been several instances of buyers and outsourcers in direct conflict and not inclined to acknowledge their own influence on outsourcing failures. The blame game starting early on in the relationship. Hidden costs, high staff turnover and poor cross-cultural communications are also some of the key causes of offshore outsourcing failures. Another big source of outsourcing failures is the way that outsourcing vendors tend to "sell high," pitching their projects to the CEO rather than to the IT staff and managers who really know how to run the business - this enrolment of 'C' level managers is often the source of great difficulty when the real discussions take place. They have bought into a process based on high level aphorism that have little practical value on the street corner.
If you choose to look at global outsourcing as an opportunity, as numerous companies do, you may quickly realize that making it work requires a carefully planned and orchestrated approach. I suggest, though, that the current failure rate of performance improvement in outsourcing is only tolerated because the full extent of failure is disguised; few organizations or individuals are willing to admit the extent of failure on a major outsource contract. Failing at this game can have career damaging consequences.
JohnBlack
See More at my Blog on BizBlogs ...by Published on 19th January 2011 06:15 Number of Views: 1497- Categories:
- Business Tips
When it comes to social networking Facebook is the largest of the social networks online – with more than 500 million registered users and the average user connected to 80 community pages, groups or events. For businesses this means that a Facebook page or other piece of Facebook real estate can be a serious way to generate social and viral traffic. There are 900 million objects that people could interact with which means in marketing terms if you want to get noticed you need to stand out. So you need to provide something that others don’t (unlikely) or what you do must be better than the competition.
First of all a caveat: One of the most common mistakes made by small businesses is believing that Facebook traffic is a quick fix; it can take months to build up a decent sized list of fans that read your content so be patient and work at it consistently.
...by Published on 19th October 2010 12:02- Categories:
- Surveys and Tests
Measuring Service Quality
When determining whether service delivery is meeting service expectations, it is useful to seek the views of service users. Quite often, an organisation will use a SERVQUAL questionnaire to gain the views of service users.
SERVQUAL (Service Quality) is a self-administered questionnaire designed to measure how customers view/judge service quality. Parasuraman et al (1994) defined service quality as the degree of discrepancy between customers’ normative expectations for the service and their perceptions of the service performance.
Parasuraman made the assumption that customers judge service quality by making a comparison between their expectation of the service that they should receive and their perceptions of the service that they actually receive.
Differences between expectations and actual performance are referred to as 'gaps'. The SERVQUAL instrument can be used to measure any or all of the following five gaps.
Gap 1: Consumer expectation - management perception gap
Understanding the difference between consumer expectations and management perceptions of customer expectations.
Gap 2: Service quality specification gap
The different service standard between management perceptions of consumer expectations and service quality specifications.
Gap 3: Service delivery gap
The difference of service performance between service quality specifications and the service actually delivered.
Gap 4: External communication gap
The difference of communications between service delivery and what is communicated about the service to customers.
Gap 5: Expected service - perceived service gap
The difference between expected service and perceived service from customers’ point of view. Based upon these gaps, five behavioural dimensions of service quality have been identified and are now used in most studies using the SERVQUAL approach.
...by Published on 19th January 2011 08:03- Categories:
- Outsourcing
Most of the success of an outsourcing contract, if staff transfers have been involved, will be around how the staff respond to the change. Yet this aspect is often ignored.
We can use this thread to discuss the issues involved, but to start with here is some information about the findings from some research we did:
Research carried out by Crosslight has shown there are long-term performance and motivation problems with staff if outsourcing transfers are not well managed. Detailed interviews with employees from a wide range of outsourcing transfers showed that mis-management is common, and that perceptions of injustice are high. This poor treatment led to difficulties in developing a good working relationship with their new employer.
Many of those interviewed said that they suffered extensive periods of low motivation; stress and uncertainty long after the actual transition had been completed. This was felt to be mainly to do with poor handling by the original employer, although the uncertain nature of their future relationships, and weak socialization in systems houses, were also found to create many problems. Staff considered themselves to feel ‘in-between’ companies even two to three years after the transfer. Staff and managers suggested that in many cases, performance had been adversely affected.
Furthermore, employees were resistant to the idea of being transferred back to the original organization due to the poor handling. This could adversely affect organizations needing to ‘backsource’ should the deal turn bad.
This research showed that companies planning to outsource their staff should take specific actions to ensure their management understand how to communicate the changes effectively to staff and manage the transfer process in a fair way, taking into account individual differences. Correct people management will help to minimise the risk of reduced performance during and after the transition.
When I started the research (some time ago now) I was really not expecting the impact of an outsourcing transition to be causing difficulties over such timescales. Further research suggests this problem is ongoing - this finding has serious implications for companies who do not manage the people side of outsourcing right from the outset.
More later!
Stephanie
Employee Engagement
- Google
Strassmann on Outsourcing - is outsourcing profitable?
In this video Prof Strassmann considers, in a very careful way, whether Outsourcing can be profitable. The short answer to this is yes if it is done corrrectly and he points to the main reasons for...
Royston 14th March 2012, 16:01