damian gordon creative techniques: in your research

Damian Gordon

Creative Techniques: In Your Research

Contents

Individual Creativity CoRT Mindmaps How to think like Leonardo Thinking about words

Group Creativity Six Thinking Hats The Wisdom of Crowds

CoRT Thinking Programme

PMI = Plus, Minus, Interesting CAF = Consider All Factors OPV = Other People’s Views FIP = First Important Priorities C&S = Consequences & Sequels AGO = Aims, Goals, Objectives APC = Alternatives, Possibilities, Choices

Introduction

Literature Review

ProjectDesign

Analysis – Quantitative &

Qualitative

Conclusions & Future Work

Thesis Structure

Project Description

AGO, CAF, FIP

CAF, OPV, PMI

CAF, OPV, APC, PMI

PMI, AGO

C&S, PMI, APC, OPV

Appropriate Techniques

CAF, OPV, APC, PMI

Mindmaps

Mindmaps

Do your supervisor a favour, and when you give them a proposal, give them a mindmap of it as well.

Literature

Design

Organisation

Technology

ResearchQuestion

Evaluation

Mindmaps

How to Think like Leonardo

Seven Principles

1. Curiosità

2. Dimonstrazione

3. Sensazione

4. Sfumato

5. Arte/Scienza

6. Corporalita

7. Connessione

Curiosità Realise your Ideal Hobby

How will I benefit from this pursuit? What are my goals? What resources will I need? Where can I find a good teacher? How much time will I devote to it? What obstacles must I overcome? How can I make money from my hobby?

Curiosità Doing your thesis

How will I benefit from this pursuit? What are my goals? What resources will I need? Where can I find a good teacher? How much time will I devote to it? What obstacles must I overcome? How can I make money from my research?

For your MSc

Curiosità Build a Lexicon

Codex Trivulzianus is full of them, define words, new vocabulary, foreign terms, neogolisms.

Arduous – difficult, painful Alpine – of the region of the Alps Archimandrite – a leader of a group

A large vocabulary is a powerful ally

e.g. you are doing research on Communities of practice

What other keywords do we need to look out for? Network of practice Virtual community Virtual Ethnography Virtual team Community-driven knowledge management

Curiosità

For your MSc

Dimonstrazione Explore attitudes to mistakes

What did you learn from school about making mistakes?

What did your parents teach you about making mistakes?

What is the biggest mistake you have ever made? What mistakes do you repeat? What role does fear of making mistakes play in your

life, your work, at home? Are you more likely to make mistakes of commission,

or omission?

Dimonstrazione Explore attitudes to mistakes

In terms of your research... If you don’t get the research answer you expect, is

this a problem? What is a mistake in research? Should I tell my supervisor if I’ve made a mistake in

my experiment?

For your MSc

Sensazione Visualization Visualization is a technique that Leonardo

used a great deal in his work, and is now used by top athletes and business executives.

It is simply a matter of imagining (practicing) a performance before you do it, to allow your brain to match the imagination.

Sensazione Visualization Use this for practising your proposal

presentation and your final presentation Use this for practising interviews

For your MSc

Sensazione Learn how to draw

Identify approaches Get good pencils and paper Take lessons or get a book Doodle Scribble Etc.

Sensazione Draw diagrams Draw models Draw technical architectures

For your MSc

Sfumato Count the number of times in a day you

use absolute terms such as “totally”, “always”, “certainly”, “must”, “never”, and “absolutely”

Consider how you close conversations, do you typically end conversations with either a statement or question?

Sfumato In your thesis avoid using terms such as

“totally”, “always”, “certainly”, “must”, “never”, and “absolutely”

Also do not use the terms “prove”, “proof” or “proven”

For your MSc

Arte/Scienza

Arte/Scienza

For your MSc

Connessione Setting goals – the SMART way

S PECIFIC M EASURABLE A CCOUNTABILITY R EALISTIC AND RELEVENT T IME LINE

Connessione Setting goals – the SMART way

S PECIFIC M EASURABLE A CCOUNTABILITY R EALISTIC AND RELEVENT T IME LINE

For your MSc

Thinking about words

29

synonyms

acronyms

polysemy

single-conceptprinciple

neologisms

monosemyabbreviations

quasi-synonyms,or near-synonyms

pseudo-synonyms,or false synonymsantonyms

phraseologism

hyponyms

hypernyms

collocation Cross-

references

UNDERSTANDINGWORDS

tautonyms

Six Thinking Hats

Six Thinking Hats in the Thesis:Make sure each chapter has:

BLUE: Introduction and overview of topic

WHITE: Facts and Figures about the Topic

YELLOW: Positive outcomes of Topic

BLACK: Negative outcomes of Topic

GREEN: Interesting outcomes of Topic

RED: Personal, emotional and people-oriented aspects of topic

WHITE: Review of new facts uncovered

BLUE: Summary and finish up

The Wisdom of Crowds


The key factor that causes Groupthink is when the crowd is homogeneous.

If all members think and act the same this can lead to groupthink, as can be seen in highly regulated organisations like the army.

To harness the power of the wisdom of crowds you really need diversity, the nay-sayers, the moaners and complainers, and the crazy optimists, the fools, the happy-go-luckies – you need the whole mix.


You are doing a taught MSc, harness the power of the group, Meet regularly as a group during the

dissertation module, e.g., twice a month Swap papers, references, and models Discuss issues in your research Compare war stories about supervisors

For your MSc

Conclusions

Creative Techniques: In Your Research

Conclusions

I’ve presented a few ways you can use the techniques we have explored for your research

Don’t be limited by my suggestions, use the techniques in as wide and as many ways as you can think of.

For your MSc

damian gordon creative techniques: in your research

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