Your company is stressing a new philosophy: “Problem-solving is our business.” Artists use problem-solving on a daily basis. For example, a painter might have a problem of depth within a picture plane. He/She would first need to recognize the issue, then visualize a solution and execute it. As problem-solving requires critical thinking and critical thinking requires creativity, you realize you will need to keep tremendous focus if you want to excel at your job. That means idea creation, and with that, you will need to exercise those parts of the brain that stimulate new ideas. To do this, you will create hypothetical scenarios and try to solve the equations, so to speak. By engaging in this process, perhaps you will find similarities in the problem-solving paths that connect to your own life.

1. Identify three problems that people might encounter in their everyday lives. These can be even the most basic of life’s inconveniences. For example, changing a tire.
2. For each of these scenarios, create a timeline that maps out how to overcome these issues.
3. For each scenario, provide three possible outcomes for each.
4. Connect the problem-solving process of one of these scenarios to your own experience.
5. Recognize and describe some obstacle you might encounter in your process idea creation.

In the end, you should have three problems, nine solutions, one problem of your own, and possible obstacles.