Evaluating and Organizing Thinking Tools in Relationship to the CPS Framework

Evaluating and Organizing Thinking Tools in Relationship to the CPS FrameworkThis project surveyed, analyzed and organized thinking tools drawn from several areas of theory and practice within the new proposed framework for Creative Problem Solving (CPS). The tools were drawn from a diverse set of literature and organized in accordance with the new skillbased version of CPS. The literature review focused on Total Quality Management (TQM), Strategic Management, Problem Solving, Decision Making, and Creativity Processes and Methods, other than CPS. Forty-four thinking tools, other than the ‘classic’ CPS tools, were collected, analyzed, described and categorized within the seven steps of the new CPS framework, according to the main categories of divergent and convergent thinking. Implications for future studies suggested the opportunity to widen the search for more thinking tools, by achieving a higher balance between divergent and convergent tools within each step of the CPS framework, as well as the need to apply these thinking tools within the facilitation of the CPS process.