In 2001, Gerald Haman stormed the corporate world by generating 454 000 ideas in 60 minutes delivering "Thinkathon", which he defined as the “world's greatest brainstorming tool”. Easily replicated, Singapore corporate leaders saw the “Thinkathon” as a 'quick fix' to jumpstart mass ideas for Innovative Initiatives in the perennial search for that critical sustaining differentiator for the city state to compete regionally and ever more now, as a developed nation, globally. However, the “Thinkathon” merely provided a good harvest of ideas, but saw no gains in innovative breakthroughs. Alex Osborn (1953), the father of brainstorming, initiated brainstorming as a 3 phase program of fact-finding, idea finding and solution finding but “Thinkathon” provided only mass idea-finding. This thesis sets out to address the gaps in salvaging the effectiveness of mass brainstorming “Thinkathon” if organizations in Singapore still opt to engage this “perceived creative tool” as a jumpstart for Innovative Initiatives. / Since the original “Thinkathon” did not provide a literary foundation, in this thesis we re-examined the evolution of cognitive mental thinking processes from self to group and finally to creative mass brainstorming, to help failsafe the “Thinkathon”, rendering it literally structured and “ideaworthy” to be used independently as a jumpstart Innovative tool. Adapting the original “Thinkathon”, it was put through an empirical series of pilot runs that came along with feedback observations, ultimately metamorphising into a structured 4-step creative ideation approach by-product called “Thinkathon II”. The new Thinkathon II was injected with a new process “Co-Operacy” (Hunter, Dale 1977) which until then was a mere untested philosophy but had proven effective in 'mass consensus decision'. This was useful in filtering mass ideas from a quantitative to a qualitative stage, without premature eradication or adulteration to the original generated ideas, a process which was not available in the original “Thinkathon” by Gerald Haman. / After a series of successful pilot runs which endorsed its efficiency, Thinkathon II was marketed to the public which further reaffirmed its effectiveness as an innovative jumpstart tool for Innovative Initiatives. The final acid test came at the 7th International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Conference held in Singapore on 25th August that gave an added opportunity to showcase the Thinkathon II, sampled by worldwide Facilitators who welcomed the new 4-step structured mass ideation process. / Thus, this thesis, which resulted in a new by-product, the “Thinkathon II”, not only closed the gaps originally created by the founder of Thinkathon, it also provided literature on the art and science of mass idea brainstorming which until now was uncharted. It also disproved the claim made by Tony Proctor (1995) “that large numbers of ideas cannot find a place for quality”. This achievement was also acknowledged by the originator Mr Gerald Haman who saw the added value in rendering his original Thinkathon more "solution-focused". Hence, “Thinkathon II” is now a founded new approach where corporate leaders can use this new “mass idea brainstorming” process, which is worthy of its definition as an innovation tool to jumpstart any Innovation Initiative. / Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2005.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267422 |
| Creators | Butterworth, Michael Simon John. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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