| Collaborative Creativity |
Most people have worked in teams and know there are significant pros and cons of working in groups - that many factors are at play for a group project to be successful. You may also have experienced that special feeling of synergy when the group starts thinking and working in sync. As Keith Sawyer, author of 'Group Genius' writes, "The challenge of innovation is always this tension between individual creative vision, and the collective genius of the group. Neither path alone is assured of success".1 There are however, a wealth of examples demonstrating the power and potential of group collaboration. Sawyer studied the group genius in action through improvisation as practised in music and theatre. He also examined the motion picture industry, where companies like Pixar Animation Studios manage group innovation and collaboration between 200-250 people for any one project. Moxy believes that such large scale, and perhaps even larger, collaborative models can be highly successful at solving complex problems - because sometimes the problem, like that of global sustainability, is just too big for any one group to solve. An important step is to bring down the barriers to participation.
Sawyer provides these words of advice on how to build a genius group:
Another example, albeit one based on extrinsic motivation, is the Netflix $1 million competition to improve the company's movie recommendation system. Two teams ended up achieving the goal of improving recommendations by at least 10%. The first team to do so was BellKor. When they announced that they had exceeded the 10% mark, other competitors merged into a group called the Ensemble which now claims to have passed BellKor's performance by one-hundredth of a percentage point. Netflix has yet to announce the official winner. Both teams found that "The biggest lesson learned, was the power of collaboration. It was not a single insight, algorithm or concept that allowed both teams to surpass the goal... instead, the formula for success was to bring together people with complementary skills and combine different methods of problem-solving".2
There are many models for how groups collaboratively innovate. Brainstorming has been the traditional approach, although innovation experts like Drew Boyd, believe this is an overused and underperforming technique. He advocates for a more structured approach to innovation - what is known as systematic creative thinking (SIT).3 SIT originated from the research of Russian engineer Genrich Altschuller; he analysed the patterns between over 200,000 patents to develop a theory of innovation known as TRIZ. From Russian, TRIZ translate into English as 'The theory of solving inventor's problems'.4 Systematic inventive thinking is built on the belief that "inventive solutions share common patterns".5  Example of Systematic Inventive Thinking - SIT Ltd.
Open Space Technology (OST) is another example of group collaboration, providing a self-organising method for running meetings with anywhere from 5 to 2000 people.6 Their web site provides examples of successful open space meetings involving hundreds of people coming together.6 Harrison Owen, a major contributor to OST, explains that "the creation of OST has been a collaborative project involving perhaps 1000 people on four continents over a period of eight years".6 On the surface, OST looks chaotic, as there is no agenda or central leadership. Participants come together, break into self organising groups, and are expected to move to other groups if they are neither learning nor contributing. Descriptions of how OST meetings are run bring to mind Drew Boyd who wrote “Innovation is a team sport”.7
Innovation is of particular significance to organisations, and many strive to encourage and develop collaborative creativity for product design, problem solving and other complex business processes. Sawyer believes that exemplary organisations embody emergent learning and innovation through these strategies:
Moxy is developing an open collaborative system for modelling the transition to a low carbon economy. We are taking best practice concepts from successful open collaboration projects to ensure that data, information and knowledge are accessible, reusable and transparent. We believe that with the right tools and people, our project will create an environment where the 'group genius' can thrive and evolve.
Sources:
1. Sawyer, Keith. Group genius: the creative power of collaboration. http://keithsawyer.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/the-problem-with-groups/ 2. Lohr, Steve. "Netflix Competitors Learn the Power of Teamwork". New York Times. July 27, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/technology/internet/28netflix.html
3. Rae-Dupree. "For innovators, there is brainpower in numbers". New York Times. December 5, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/business/07unbox.html
4. "TRIZ". Wikipedia. September 10, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ
5. "Method: general". Systematic Inventive Thinking. http://www.sitsite.com/app/methodGeneral.asp
6. Open Space World. http://www.openspaceworld.org
7. Boyd, Drew. "Sooner, better, bolder". Innovation in Practice. September 14, 2008. http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/2008/09/sooner-better-bolder.html 8. Sawyer, Keith. "Harvard talk on learning and innovation". Creativity & Innovation. September 27, 2008. http://keithsawyer.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/harvard-talk-on-learning-and-innovation/
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