Comparative study of creative process among tasks: Business planning, hardware development and software development

Abstract

This study compared creative process of three tasks: business planning (n=400), hardware development (n=424) and software development (n=364). A model of improving creative performance including team diversity, external network, and multiple perspective-taking (Takeda, forthcoming) was examined with the three task groups, and no significant differences were found in the mechanisms. The levels of creative performance, multiple perspective-taking, external network, and team diversity, however, were different among the group. Both business planning and hardware development achieved higher creative performance than software development. Multiple perspective taking, variety of external network, and functional diversity of team were the highest in the business planning, followed by hardware development and the lowest in software development. Although business planning and hardware development were required a high level of novelty from the organization, the attributes of novelty was supposed to differ between the two tasks. In business planning, strategically positioned taskforces were required to explore new business possibilities with rich communication, while hardware development was required to meet the needs of existing customers and reduce costs with close communication. Software development tended to be operational teams with the lowest novelty requirements and the smallest amount and variety of communication.

Keywords

• creative process
• multiple perspective-taking
• diversity
• business planning
• hardware development
• software development