![]() So better planning will improve workplace communication even if it wasn't the primary goal. When you create a solution to your project planning procedure, it can result in better budgeting. Lack of communication may have contributed to your budget overruns, but if poor project planning played a bigger role in your budget woes, then it’s the cause you should go with. While it’s possible that more than one cause led to your budget overruns, convergent thinking requires a focused approach to solving your problem, so you’ll need to choose the cause you think is most problematic. Use convergent thinking when narrowing down the potential causes of your problem. Now that you have all the possible causes of your problem, you can move on to the next stage of creative problem solving, which is to define your cause. Lack of communication between team members Possible causes of budget overruns may include: But when you use divergent thinking, you consider all possible causes of the problem. This begs the question: Why does this keep happening? If you used convergent thinking to answer this question, you might jump straight to a conclusion about why these budget overruns are happening. When you have a problem at work, the first step is to discover the cause of the problem by considering all of the possibilities.įor example, you may have had multiple projects run over budget. The first stage of creative problem solving is discovery, and in this stage, you’ll need to use divergent thinking. You’ll need divergent thinking to impress clients or customers and set yourself apart from others. Divergent thinking can also help you:įast results and predictability may work some of the time, but this way of thinking won’t help you stand out from competitors. Divergent thinking can benefit you as a project manager because you’ll adopt a learning mindset. However, working too quickly can also cause you to make decisions within your comfort zone instead of taking risks. You may think that if you don’t come up with a solution right away, you’ll disappoint your clients or customers. Projects have deadlines and it’s important to make decisions quickly. It can be difficult as a busy project manager to slow down and think divergently. ![]() Read: Turn your team into skilled problem solvers with these problem-solving strategies The benefits of divergent thinking However, if you completely avoid divergent thinking, you’ll have trouble developing innovative solutions to problems. There are many instances in project management when you must reach solutions quickly. There’s nothing wrong with using convergent thinking to align teams, create workflows, and plan projects. The benefits of convergent thinking include:Įncourages organization and linear processes Because convergent thinking embraces structure and clear solutions, it’s natural for project managers to lean toward this approach. You may use convergent thinking in project management without being aware of it. They would then determine which solution is most suitable.Ĭonvergent thinking in project management One option may be to call a technician, while other options may include looking up a DIY video on YouTube or sending a company-wide email to see if any team members have experience with fixing copy machines. In practice, here’s what these different types of thinking might look like:Ĭonvergent thinking: If the copy machine breaks at work, a convergent thinker would call a technician right away to fix the copy machine.ĭivergent thinking: If the copy machine breaks at work, a divergent thinker would try to determine the cause of the copy machine’s malfunction and assess various ways to fix the problem. We’ll also discuss the importance of using both types of thinking to improve your decision making skills. In this piece, we’ll explain the differences between convergent and divergent thinking in the problem-solving process. While you may naturally be more analytical or creative, you can learn to think in both ways. One thing this test will tell you is if you make decisions more objectively (thinkers) or decisions more subjectively (feelers).Ĭonvergent and divergent thinking resemble that aspect of the Myers-Briggs test. Have you ever taken a personality test like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? If so, you’ve likely answered a bunch of questions for an algorithm to tell you how you interact with the world around you. We’ll also discuss the importance of using both types of thinking to improve your decision making. Divergent thinking is the opposite of convergent thinking and involves more creativity. Convergent thinking focuses on finding one well-defined solution to a problem.
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