Creativity improvement intervention in a system development work unit

A creativity improvement intervention was introduced in a work unit of system developers. The five month intervention consisted of three phases: phase I was a training workshop to establish an environment to facilitate creativity and to teach a variety of creativity generation and evaluation techniques; phase II reinforced the concepts/principles taught in the workshop, with opportunities to discuss experience in application of the techniques and test the degree to which the environment for creativity had been enhanced. Additional techniques were also introduced during this period. Phase III provided further reinforcement by reading and discussing creativity articles/papers. All personnel kept a record of their creative results, identifying 17 major improvements. In a post-test, on the average participants believed their individual creativity improved 23 percent and that the unit´s creativity improved 27 percent. They also indicated that the environment for creativity was well established, that `creativity was now a part of their culture.´