1. Defining the problem
Explore the context before deciding what needs to be resolved

2. Finding Solutions
Produce different solutions including very unconventional ones

3. Implementing the best solution.
Select a solution and ensure it is put into practice

There are many variants to the creative problem-solving method proposed by Alex Osborn and Sidney Parnes in the 1950s. All contain these 3 fundamental stages, often broken up into more steps.

At each stage of the creative process we FIRST have a phase of idea-generation or Divergence FOLLOWED BY a phase of idea-evaluation or Convergence. Each phase has its own “operating rules”.

Diverge:

- SUSPEND JUDGEMENT. Generate ideas without critique
- QUANTITY. To find good ideas we need many ideas
- BEYOND REASON. Explore unlikely, fantastic, impossible ideas
- BUILD ON OTHER IDEAS. Use ideas generated to produce more ideas

Converge:

- CLASSIFY. Place ideas in clusters
- EVALUATE. Judge and appraise ideas
- PRIORITIZE. Seek ordered comparisons
- CHOOSE. Select the best of available alternatives

Critique, in perspective:

Divergence-Convergence is not a customary way of working. Our critical education often leads us to find why an idea might not work immediately after it is produced. This leads to a lot of potentially unproductive debates in which very few options are explored. The Divergence-Convergence process is much more efficient because debate takes place only after idea generation and idea classification has taken place and all options are “on the table” before they are evaluated.