Harness Creativity to Break Through Project Management Challenges

Although most would think that project management is bound by specific rules and technologies to get the job done, at least one person sees how creativity can bring about innovation and assist in overcoming obstacles that crop up while managing projects.

Author Ralph L. Kliem’s book Creative, Efficient, and Effective Project Management reveals the benefits to injecting creativity into the project management realm. The type of project management detailed in this book applies to creatively driven companies and other companies that rely on innovation and agility to achieve product success.

Kliem breaks the book into sections that include:

• Benefits of Creativity
• Opening Minds
• Misperceptions about Creativity
• Downsides of Creativity
• What Is the Relationship between Creativity and Projects

In our IT Downloads section, you can read an excerpt from this book, Chapter 7, Creativity Life Cycle Models. In this chapter, Kliem discusses the various models that can be used alongside traditional project management techniques and tools to achieve a more effective method of management. According to the author:

Contrary to popular belief, creativity requires having some type of discipline in place to allow it to be further exercised and result in something that is understandable and meaningful to others. Without some kind of rigor, creative energy is dissipated and its effectiveness becomes less than optimal. The following models are just a few of the ones that can blend well with the project life cycle and its defining, organizing, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing processes.

This excerpt can help project management professionals to increase the performance of their teams. It lends new ideas and innovative techniques to the project management arena that can help bust through potential problems and blockages to final project completion. Per Kliem, “…creativity is not reserved for madmen or people of dysfunctional behavior. Everyone on a project team has it and every team uses it to some degree or another.” The focus of this book is to harness the creative methods already in use and focus them toward productivity.