Florida International University Business Development Creativity Questions

You work as the project manager for a company. While reviewing this quarter’s profits your company realizes that your product is not selling as much as your rival competition. Compared to your rival company, your product is just nowhere near as popular as theirs.

Due to this, your boss asks you to put together a marketing team. Your boss hopes that your team can come up with a marketing campaign to outsell your rival and turn a profit!

You are quite concerned with this undertaking. However, your boss is confident that this plan can work. He wants you to recruit at least two other two team members on your marketing team. He stresses that your group will be working overtime for this project (over their 40 hours a week shift). To incentivize the team’s productivity, he says to tell them that they will be getting paid extra for their longer hours and receive a bonus for producing lots of marketing ideas. The more ideas, the more money they will earn!

Your boss is sure that this will result in a successful new marketing campaign. You, on the other hand, are less convinced. Many in your company do not find the marketing project itself appealing, but the extra money has piqued some employee’s interest.

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TASK: Unlike your boss, you have a degree in psychology, so you know a little something about successful problem-solving and creativity. Use your knowledge from Chapter 11 to accomplish the following things:

1. Identify the problem your boss is trying to solve. (2 pts)
2. Consider the incentive plan your boss want to implement for your marketing team. What would you tell your boss about the approach being taken to form your creative group? (4 pts)
   • Do you believe your boss’ approach will work? If so, why? If not, how would you recommend finding employees to join your team?
   • In your response, identify the type of approach your boss is using to get creative solutions from your employees.
3. What is the definition of a creative solution? (4 pts)
   • What type creativity does your boss’ plan resemble?
   • What are pros and/or cons of your boss’ creativity approach for your team?