Creative Problem Solving is a proven method for approaching a problem or a challenge in an imaginative and innovative way. It’s a process that helps people re-define the problems they think they face, come up with breakthrough ideas and then take action on these new ideas all with the same innovative spirit.

A noted CPS educator and practitioner, Ruth Noller, describes Creative Problem Solving as the sum of its parts:

• Creative means having an element of newness and innovation, and relevance.
• Problem encompasses any situation that presents a challenge, offers an opportunity or is a concern.
• Solving means devising ways to answer, to meet or satisfy the problem. It can also mean either adapting yourself to the situation or adapting the situation to you.

CPS is a comprehensive system built on our own natural thinking processes that deliberately ignites creative thinking and produces innovative solutions. Through alternating phases of divergent and convergent thinking, CPS provides a process for managing thinking and action, while avoiding premature or inappropriate judgment. It is built upon a flexible framework that is capable of incorporating many creativity tools and approaches.

At the same time that CPS is a structured process, it’s also a very flexible one. When you begin to use and internalize the CPS process, you find that it’s cyclical. You begin to see how to move from step to step, and how to jump back and forth between steps. When using CPS becomes part of your own way of thinking and working, you can use one step at a time, as you need, when you need. It’s so powerful because once you understand the fundamentals of how CPS works, you can adapt this process to every situation you encounter.

 

The way that CPS has been understood and described has changed over the past fifty years of research, development and practice.

In this most recent development of the CPS model - CPS Thinking Skills - each step of the process is associated with a particular kind of thinking process that can be learned and developed as a unique set of thinking skills.

Therefore, learning and practicing CPS can help to build the mental and process skills that allow an individual to become more creative and flexible in their lives.