Concept and Application of a Software Tool for Creative Problem Solving in Groups

Creativity and effective problem solving are key challenges in all business environments. In recent years, the new area of Computer Aided Creativity (CAC) has become an innovative means for supporting creativity and several tools emerged on the market. However, most of them fall short in actively supporting groups in being more creative. This paper presents CreativeGroup, a groupware tool for cooperative, creative problem solving. The tool is designed for usage in a meeting room environment, supporting the creative interaction of collocated, synchronous working groups. It is based on the concepts of anonymity for idea collection, individual and simultaneous access to the idea pool, shared and private screens, and support of different creativity techniques. The paper names the specific requirements for supporting creativity in groups. The conceptual approach for meeting these requirements with a groupware tool and new multimedia technologies is explained. Architecture, interface and usage of the tool are presented. Empirical results from a first evaluation test in a real problem solving situation are used for assessing the tool and the underlying concept.