**5. The DUCTRI model**

In response to the need for tools, theories and methods to help people with creative problem solving in uncertain environments design thinking has been widely adopted in industry, and has slowly made its way into many management higher education programmes. Yet many of the existing models that are in use, both in industry and existing management education, do not incorporate the complete creative problem solving process as defined by Basadur [31] and described earlier. The three phases, each with divergent-convergent thinking, should include problem finding, problem solving and solution implementation. While most design process models do a very good job on the first two areas they generally do not include much if any detail on the

#### *Promoting Curiosity, Creativity and Clarity in Management Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102068*

final phase. In fact some explicitly stop after the first two phases, for example the UK design council's double diamond. Given implementation is where so many initiatives fail [17] this is a significant shortcoming. These three phases have some broad alignment with desirability, feasibility and viability that are proposed as needing to each be considered in designing solutions [45]. As with implementation, the viability aspects are often not a significant focus of most design thinking models.

This became apparent when the author was asked to take over a new executive MBA design thinking course which had run for a single semester in 2015. The author ran the course for the first time in 2016 using one of the typical design thinking models of the day. The student feedback from these 2 years was broadly positive about the concepts, tools and methods as used in the course but there was a common question being asked that, yes it's good in theory, but how do we implement this in our organization? This led to reexamining the tools and models that were fundamental to the course and alongside ongoing research into the mindsets innovators in industry use [16], a large gap was identified with respect to lack of focus on implementation. The author was also not happy with some of the wordy descriptions for the phases that some models employed which needed simplifying. He also felt that the models needed to highlight the mindsets that support each phase in the process, namely curiosity, creativity and clarity as described above. As a result the DUCTRI (duck-tree) model was created, shown below in **Figure 1**, in 2017 and was used for the MBA class that year. It has been used it as the basis of the course each year with minor refinements in the 5 years since. It has also been used for several consulting projects with industry, and has subsequently been adopted as the core framework for an undergraduate innovation course.

Student feedback is now overwhelmingly positive about this course, the DUCTRI process, and the direct applicability to industry situations. The course was originally an

**Figure 1.** *The DUCTRI model of creative problem solving.*

elective but has now become a compulsory course in the MBA structure. Example comments from anonymous student surveys conducted after the 2021 course completed:

*"Focusing on the DUCTRI model got me thinking outside the square and looking at things from a less bias (sic) approach."*

*"I was not aware of this method. I have realised its value and how I can use and already am using the tools and methods in my work. I feel this course has grown me in my role considerably."*

*"Loved the Design Thinking model that anchored the course learning."*

*"Going through the DUCTRI process was really useful."*

Given that a design based approach to creative problem solving should have a bias for action [45], the DUCTRI model uses gerunds, the noun forms of verbs, to describe the actions that should be being undertaken in each main phase. It also overlays the primary mindsets that should be nurtured in each phase to enable these actions, namely curiosity, creativity and clarity. These also align with the focus in each phase in terms of desirability, feasibility and viability. The model retains the pairs of divergent and convergent modes of thinking as the process unfolds which creates more options and then makes decisions on these to narrow the focus in each cycle. Repeat is mentioned at the end because while a clean linear process can be explained on paper in execution it is rarely so clear cut and loop backs are to be expected and some phases will inevitably need to be repeated, if not the whole process.

The first phase of the process is where we are discovering as much as we can about the problem, who is affected, their world, the background and context of the situation. In this phase curiosity should be encouraged and tools such as empathetic interviews, ethnography, talking with extreme users, analogous empathy, focus groups, card sorts and drawing with users can all be valuable in discovering as much as possible about what is happening. This relies on divergent thinking to explore widely.

The second phase is then understanding what is really going on, making sense of the volume of data from the discovering phase and generating insights into the issues at hand. Again curiosity is the driver and tools such as affinity mapping, empathy maps, developing persona, journey maps, reframing, two-by-two matrices, and defining jobs to be done, can all be useful to help generate insights. This phase engages convergent thinking to ultimately come down to a small number of point of view statements and guiding principles which should be able to capture the new understanding of the core problem.

The third phase is creating where creativity should be unleashed and divergent thinking is employed to generate a large number of options for how the problem could be tackled. How might we statements provide the springboard for tools such as nominal group technique brainstorming, lateral thinking, question storming, five whys, walking for creativity, mashups or working in reverse.

The fourth phase is testing where a sub-set of the range of potential solutions are actively tested to generate further insight and converge on the most feasible solutions. This phase still utilizes creativity where prototyping is used with experimental techniques such as A/B tests, storyboards, wizard of Oz prototypes, role plays and dark horse models may be used.

The fifth phase is resourcing which is a divergent phase because by engaging with open innovation [18] the range of options available for gathering resources, including

#### *Promoting Curiosity, Creativity and Clarity in Management Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102068*

economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital are significant. Such approaches include crowd sourcing, crowd funding, strategic partnerships, prizes or competitions, and engaging with incubators. Tools such as business model canvas [46] and pre-mortems [47] should be used to promote clarity and define required resources including fit with existing business models and overall viability.

Finally implementing is a convergent phase where change management considerations should be designed into the solution to enable successful implementation to take place. Again this requires clarity. Tools and models such as the switch framework [42] with the components required to direct the analytic rider, motivate the emotional elephant and shape the path, including nudge theory [44] and behavioral insights [48], help with this phase.

As with any theory, tool or model it is important to acknowledge its limitations. The DUCTRI process is well suited to complex or chaotic problems where cause and effect relationships are unknown, difficult to untangle or have complex interrelationships. The process does take time and effort particularly in the early stages to try and get to the deeper understanding of these causes. So in situations where the cause and effect relationships are well understood then this may be an inefficient process to solve those types of problems.

#### **5.1 An illustrative case**

In order to encourage curiosity and diversity in class projects the author employs a method called the project marketplace [49] where all students pitch a problem they are passionate about to the whole class prior to forming project teams. The class then all vote on the problems they are most interested in helping solve and groups form around the most interesting problems. During this process in the 2021 MBA class, one student who works in diabetes health pitched a specific problem from her experience that many people when diagnosed with diabetes suffer from avoidable complications due to treatment inertia. Simply put, they delay treatment of the condition and often suffer irreversible damage to their health because of this delay. A number of her classmates were also curious about this problem and so a group of four students with diverse backgrounds including education, marketing, emergency services and health, formed around the problem.

They started by discovering as much as they could about this issue. They engaged in empathetic interviews and spoke with healthcare professionals, diabetics, members of the public and a close contact who had a chronic health condition but not diabetes. They delved into exiting research and data on diagnosis and treatment rates. In total they carried out 51 interviews and gathered 297 individual statements, problems, opportunities or pieces of data.

From their broad and deep discovering work they started to build a greater understanding of the core issues behind the problem. In the understanding phase they created a persona, "Alex", to help define the characteristics of the human at the center of their problem. They used affinity mapping to collate the swathes of data into 20 overarching themes covering issues such as "Prognosis", "Why me?" and "Motivation." They created 12 guiding principles that any solution must try and cover, such as "Reduce stigma", "Demonstrate the seriousness", "Link in my support network." They also developed a new point of view statement based on their new understanding of the core issue, "Alex needs a way to understand what is happening now, and is likely to happen in the future because there is damage being done to their body that could minimized."

To engage their creativity and start creating lots of potential solutions, the group generated an opportunity statement, "How might we enable Alex to live a full and healthy life with Type 2 Diabetes?" They use nominal group technique to generate ideas individually and then collectively. They also employed question storming and created 39 potential solutions. These ranged from the weird and wonderful; such as a "naughty food taser" and "diabetes dog"; to technology based solutions, such as "a support app" and "diabetes smartwatch"; to various support services, such as "call center" and "personal assistant."

To narrow down their range of possible solutions and begin testing some of the ideas the group used a two-by-two selection matrix to organize the ideas according to likely effort and likely impact. They also compared the most promising ideas against their earlier guiding principles to ensure there was alignment. From this process they selected two ideas to prototype and test with their user groups. The first being a new "Live well with diabetes" app. This would be a place for the user to record, measure and share their treatment related information and habits. The group created a sketched wireframe using a freely available template to show the possible user screens with the options available to a user accessing it on a smartphone and how they might flow from one aspect of the app to another. They tested this by putting it in front of a small range of some of the participants from the discovering phase research. They conducted one iteration to add in some ideas from the first round of testing and engaged in a second round of tests. In doing so they received further feedback and ultimately came to the valuable insight that:

*"The patients identified as likely to use the app solution were not the ones who most needed help and guidance. Effectively we had targeted those patients already concerned about doing the right thing. This would not solve the problem we had set out to solve."*

The second idea the group decided to prototype and test was coined "Glucose Guardians." This would be a free to the user, telecare health coach service where the user is checked on regularly by a trained guardian. A guardian could help with goal setting, motivational and emotional support, help remove any other barriers for example connecting with transport or financial support services. They would not be a replacement for the primary medical care which would remain with existing healthcare professionals. The group created an infographic as a mock pamphlet for the service and tested the concept with a range of participants from the earlier discovering phase. This met with very positive reactions and highlighted issues such as having good cultural connections between guardians and users which would be invaluable. The team leader who had initially proposed the problem was able to take the prototype to a national health conference and gain additional feedback from a broad base of healthcare professionals, who were also very supportive of the concept. Based on this testing the group progressed with the "Glucose Guardians" concept.

In the resourcing phase the group needed to identify with clarity how the service could be funded and also how it might leverage existing social capital of other organizations already active in diabetes health. They uncovered complications related to the different funding models of different regional health authorities which meant that in some regions they may be able to access funding for initiatives such as this, but this was not possible everywhere. They identified how the role of the guardian would be trained and staffed. They also identified how referrals from healthcare professionals would work. They build two business models with different resourcing options. One

*Promoting Curiosity, Creativity and Clarity in Management Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102068*

where as a stand-alone service they would need to attract some funding, and proposed a small pilot requiring only three guardians to be funded. A second business model was also created where the service would fit within the existing national support organization for diabetes and be largely staffed by volunteers from that organization's network.

In the implementing phase the group needed to consider how the service would be adopted in practice. They employed the switch framework [42] to identify aspects of clearly communicating and directing the rational mind of the users by having very clear and simple outlines and infographics showing clearly what the service would and would not do. They also tried to motivate the emotions of the users by having relatable coaches that would reduce the barriers to engagement. They also tried to shape the environment to nudge the behavior in the positive direction by making sure the service was connected with existing health professionals so they would be able to refer users directly to the service.

The group were passionate about the problem and so devoted significant effort into this project and were able to achieve a great amount in the relatively short 12 weeks of the course, only a portion of which was available for the project. Subsequent to the course finishing the leader of the group reports that the concept has progressed further into implementing but has evolved into a different format, integrating with another new health coaching service that was created mainly for other long term conditions.

### **6. Conclusion**

In helping managers and leaders understand and manage the process of innovation in VUCA conditions we need to empower them and their organizations with the tools, techniques and mind-sets needed to solve the complex problems they face. They first need to have an appreciation and desire to engage in problems with curiosity. They then need to be able to unleash creativity in themselves and those around them. Finally, they need to be able to find and communicate with clarity on the solutions that they implement. The DUCTRI model described here was designed to give structure to a process of innovation that has proven to be successful in not only generating creative solutions that deal with the core problems in the world, but also designing them to be implemented and therefore being able to have an impact. It has proven to be a successful means of helping leaders and managers from a wide range of disciplines bring effective innovation to their organizations. The author is hopeful this encourages other management educators to adopt and adapt this process as necessary.

### **Acknowledgements**

My thanks goes to all the students who have taken an active part in helping refine the DUCTRI model over the past 5 years in the various courses it has been a part of. In particular thanks go to team "The Keytones" for giving permission to use their project as an illustrative case of how this can be applied in practice.

### **Conflict of interest**

None.

*Creativity*
