PMGT2822 Chap.3 Creativity, Design Thinking and Risk as a Lens
Creativity, Design Thinking and Risk as a Lens
Creativity in projects is disciplined variation. Divergence produces different frames and option families before evaluation narrows the field. Quantity can help, but ideas that differ only in colour or supplier do not broaden the solution space. Generate across service, process, governance, technology, timing and ownership.
Design thinking contributes inquiry into users, context, needs, prototyping and iteration.
Empathy is not claiming to feel another person's experience after one interview. It is a method of listening, observation, interpretation and validation that remains alert to power and diversity. Participation should fit the consequence and not extract stories without influence.
How might we questions can open possibility when they include user, desired change and productive constraint.
They fail when they contain the preferred solution or become so broad that no test is possible. Generate several questions from competing frames and examine which assumptions each preserves.
Prototypes are built to learn. A storyboard can test service comprehension; a role play can expose handoffs; a paper interface can test task sequence; a small technical rig can test a physical limit.
Fidelity should match the uncertainty. High polish can make participants reluctant to criticise and consume resources before direction is justified.
Risk can be a creative lens. Instead of listing threats after selecting an option, use failure scenarios to generate alternatives: eliminate a dependency, distribute authority, stage commitment, create graceful degradation or preserve reversibility.
Risk prompts should broaden design without normalising unsafe experimentation.
Assumption mapping classifies beliefs by importance and evidence. Test high-importance, low-evidence assumptions first. A prototype that confirms an easy low-risk feature may create momentum but little decision value.
State the prediction and threshold before the result to resist post-hoc success.
Worked sensor case: a team prototypes accurate condition monitoring but operators ignore alerts. Technical accuracy was not the critical uncertainty; actionability, trust and workload were.
Reframe from better detection to reliable maintenance decisions, then test alert explanation, priority and workflow integration with operators.
Ethics belongs inside creativity. Who participates, whose data are used, which harms are reversible and who can opt out? A rapid experiment can still create surveillance, exclusion or reputational risk.
Apply proportionate consent, privacy and safety controls before learning is celebrated.
A creative session needs convergence criteria and ownership of next evidence. Cluster ideas by mechanism, combine complementary elements, retain one deliberately different alternative and assign small tests.
The output is not a wall of ideas; it is a portfolio of learning commitments tied to reframed value.
Prototype evidence should state the decision it can and cannot support. A paper workflow can reveal comprehension and handoff trouble but cannot validate production reliability. A technical bench test can establish physical performance but not sustained user adoption.
Matching the inference boundary to the prototype prevents attractive results from travelling beyond their evidence.
Divergence also needs provenance. Record which frame produced each option family and which constraint was relaxed, retained or reversed. During convergence, this record helps the team avoid selecting several surface variants of one inherited idea.
It also shows whether a rejected frame deserves preservation as a comparator or fallback.
A stopping rule protects experiments from becoming advocacy. Define the minimum evidence for continuation, the condition requiring redesign and the condition requiring abandonment before observing results.
Where safety is involved, assign authority to stop the test and preserve a fallback independent of schedule pressure or sponsor enthusiasm.
What this chapter covers
- 01
divergence
- 02
prototype
- 03
assumption risk
- 04
generate distinct reframes and solution directions through inquiry, divergence, prototyping and constructive use of uncertainty
- 05
Novelty and workshop energy do not establish value, feasibility, ethical acceptability or adoption.
Prototype the real uncertainty
- 1Restate desired decision.
- 1Map assumptions.
- 1Select high-risk unknown.
- 1Choose low-fidelity test.
- 1Set threshold and stop rule.
Key terms
- divergence
- Deliberate generation of multiple different interpretations or options before selection.
- prototype
- A representation built to learn about a specific uncertainty rather than to demonstrate completion.
- assumption risk
- The possibility that a decision-critical belief about need, feasibility, behaviour or context is wrong.
Creativity, Design Thinking and Risk as a Lens FAQ
What is the main reframing move?
Generate distinct reframes and solution directions through inquiry, divergence, prototyping and constructive use of uncertainty.
What limit matters?
Novelty and workshop energy do not establish value, feasibility, ethical acceptability or adoption.
Are the cases official project prompts?
No. They are original AskSia practice aligned to the recovered 2026 unit.
How should I revise?
Rebuild the map or frame, change one stakeholder, assumption or adoption condition, and predict the new option set.
Exam move
Retrieve the frame, map assumptions and stakeholders, generate a changed option, test one uncertainty and state the adoption boundary.
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