TH3001 Critical and Creative Thinking and Problem Solving(Written Communication)

Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Exemplar The purpose of this document is to provide some guidance and examples of how you can approach your Assessment for TH3001, as well as to offer additional insights on how you can apply critical and creative thinking. The document provides an additional scenario, along with sample remarks for illustrative purposes. The remarks in this document may vary from question to question. They are meant to provide a perspective on how each question could be answered; however, these remarks should not be regarded as actual responses to the questions. In other words, the remarks here are not an indication of how you should respond to the Assessment prompts. They do not meet the word- count requirements. Additionally, they may not always completely answer or address the questions. As a suggestion, to help prepare you for the Assessment, you may want to write down additional considerations. Think about other ways to solve the problems presented in the scenario. Note: The scenario presented in this document cannot be used as an option for your Assessment.

Example Scenario: A Parent’s Friend A Parent’s Friend is a local non-profit that specializes in assisting single parents in the community of a mid-sized city. The organization helps parents with employment, housing, finances, childcare, food, clothing, government assistance, parenting advice, counseling, and more. The company is broken up into two main divisions. The smaller division focuses on fundraising and community awareness. The main division is comprised of parent assistant specialists who have expertise in a broad array of issues that the organization addresses. The organization also partners with a number of local businesses in order to provide services. The organization has operated for almost 20 years, but it still does not have as much visibility in the community as it would like. At times, the organization itself is in need of assistance due to lack of funding. A Parent’s Friend tries its best to meet the demand for its services. They typically serve 75–100 families at a time, and they usually provide those services for a period of 2–4 months. Although there is often a waiting list for parents to be able to receive help, A Parent’s Friend is able to begin serving the parents within a week or two, on average. This swift response time not only benefits the parents in need, but it also helps retain the trust and confidence that donors and sponsors have in the organization, which also secures their continued support. On a typical day, a fundraiser at the organization will:

• Create and provide promotional materials

• Provide e-mail newsletter updates to existing sponsors

• Look for new sponsors

• Spread awareness in the community to those who may need the services

• Ask people in the community for donations

• Recruit other fundraisers and parent assistant specialists to work for the organization

On a typical day, a parent assistant specialist will:

• Review a parent’s finances and provide assistance where possible

• Assess a family’s need for food and clothing and distribute what they can from the reserves

• Pair parents up with counseling, childcare, and housing units in the community

• Help parents navigate government programs ranging from assistance programs like TANF, SNAP, and WIC, to managing court appearances and obtaining driver’s licenses

• Help parents with their resumes and job placement

• Facilitate parenting classes On the outskirts of the city is the headquarters and main factory for a large kitchen supply company, Kulinary Kitchens. Many of the employees live in the area surrounding the company. Unfortunately, the company recently made a sudden announcement that it will be closing its doors, effective immediately. The only form of severance that will be provided is that employees will be paid for any unused personal time off they have remaining, if applicable. This announcement leaves most employees in a bad position. Unbeknownst to A Parent’s Friend, Kulinary Kitchens also mentioned the organization during the announcement, encouraging employees who are single parents to reach out. On the day of the announcement, 38 single parents from the recently dissolved company contact A Parent’s Friend. After a week passes, that number grows to 116. The staff has to create a specialized waiting list for those coming from Kulinary Kitchens. They do not know how they will meet the demands this time, especially as they are already serving 92 families, which is closer to the higher end of their capacity. What they do know is that they have to do what they can to serve these families. This population is exactly who the organization was created to help, and if A Parent’s Friend cannot help them, then who in the community will? Additionally, although this is not the main objective, being able to successfully assist these employees could also be an opportunity to raise awareness of the organization and secure more funding. A Parent’s Friend reaches out to you to work as a business consultant. They are so busy and overwhelmed with the request that they need an outsider to help them develop some creative solutions, and they need those solutions as quickly as possible.

Applying the Assessment to the Scenario Part 1: Thinking Critically and Creatively Empathizing: In this section, you will focus on the company and people, trying to gain an understanding of their needs and wants.

• Analyze the company in your selected scenario and explain at least three initial observations you have about the company and/or the people involved in the scenario.

In answering the first question, try to think of your first impressions about the scenario. Does the scenario remind you of a personal experience or something you have read about or seen in the news? Some initial observations of the example scenario could be:

▪ The company is not only looking to meet their commitment to their cause, but also for an opportunity to help increase its stability and sustainability.

▪ If the organization is able to run as is on funding it receives but is also not that well known, then they could probably bring in a lot more funding by becoming more recognized.

▪ The employees that were laid off from Kulinary Kitchens are likely to be living paycheck to paycheck, so finances are probably going to be their biggest concern. The other services, such as housing, parenting classes, and counseling, are not likely to be as much of a concern for this group of people. If Kulinary Kitchens is on the outskirts of the city, it’s likely that it is less developed than other areas. It’s also likely that many of the employees live close by. Therefore, there might not be as many employment opportunities as there would be in the city.

• Identify at least three people (or groups of people) whom you would interview to gain additional information about the situation and the needs of your client. Provide a rationale for each of your selections.

When identifying your interview subjects, it is important to consider the multiple ways in which people can be affected by the issues. For example, consider the various groups of people who interact with a restaurant in one way or another: owners/operators, managers, servers, bartenders, cooks, dishwashers, one-time or infrequent customers, loyal and/or repeat customers, food suppliers, and beverage providers. Each group may be able to provide a different perspective on an issue. The following people could be interviewed in the example scenario:

▪ The parents from Kulinary Kitchens to find out what their needs are ▪ Parent assistant specialists because they could offer insight into how their

process typically works, what services parents typically need help with, and if there are any inefficiencies in the operations

▪ Fundraisers from A Parent’s Friend to find out what marketing techniques were effective in the past, as well as their recruitment methods for gaining new employees

▪ Any existing sponsors of the non-profit

• Identify at least three biases someone could have and/or assumptions someone could make about the scenario. For example, are there any pre-drawn conclusions that someone might have about the industry, groups of people, or business practices that are discussed in the scenario? (Note: It is important to identify these so that you can construct interview questions that are unbiased.)

It is important to identify biases before going into an interview. If these biases are not acknowledged or addressed, then they can influence the direction of your interview questions, which, in turn, could lead to responses that are not as accurate or valuable as they could be. In the example scenario, potential biases could be:

▪ People may have biases against non-profits in general. For example, they might think all non-profits are good and good for the community. On the other

hand, others might feel that non-profits are actually greedy corporations in disguise that do not care about the communities they are supposed to serve.

▪ There could be biases about people who live paycheck to paycheck and how they are irresponsible to live that way, especially as parents. Or, there could be biases about larger corporations that do not pay their employees well or about the lack of a response from the government to prevent such occurrences.

▪ There could be biases about people who live in certain areas of a community. For example, the scenario makes mention that Kulinary Kitchens is on the outer edges of a city, and if the employees likely live nearby, then some people may assume they live in neglected homes or trailer parks, which of course opens a whole other set of potential biases related to particular communities.

Keep in mind that, as you develop your answers for this section, you do not have to identify biases that you have about people, communities, industries, et cetera. If it is helpful, you can start your responses with, “There are people who believe that . . .”. By shifting the perspective to come from others, you may open up additional options that you would not have otherwise considered.

• Based on the above, develop at least five interview questions that you would ask of the people involved in the scenario, and explain what insights you would hope to gain from each question. Additionally, if there are any other questions that you would only ask specific individuals, identify what those questions would be and to whom you would ask them.

Keep in mind that you would want to ask questions that elicit an insightful response. Although your questions should not be too broad (which could lead to responses that veer off topic), they should not be too specific either (which could narrow the types of responses given). If you want to find out how people spend their free time, you may only get a single-word response by simply asking, “What hobbies do you have?” You will likely get a more robust response if you were to phrase the question as, “If you had a few hours to do whatever you wanted, what would you do?” Some ideas for interview questions for the example scenario could be:

▪ “What do you think A Parent’s Friend needs most right now?” ▪ For anyone working at A Parent’s Friend, a question might be: “What are the

ways A Parent’s Friend has tried to secure funding? Have you found any methods to be unsuccessful?”

▪ A question for a parent assistant specialist might be: “Tell me about the services you offer that parents respond to the most.”

▪ For the parents from Kulinary Kitchens, a business consultant might ask questions that focus on these parents’ needs.

Filling in the Gaps: In this section, you will aim to fill in some information that you may not have. You will want to do some research relevant to your scenario (possibly about the industry, the location, or other relevant aspects). (Note: Although you do not have access to the individuals mentioned in the scenarios, put yourself in their position, and consider how they might answer the questions you have constructed. You will be assessed on your critical and creative thinking and ability to piece together information, not on having the “right” answers.)

• Analyze the industry in which the scenario is based and explain some common challenges or considerations that apply to that industry. Explain how some of those insights might impact the situation in the scenario you selected.

In order to address this question, you could start by analyzing the industry, such as non-profits in general for the example scenario (e.g., “How do they operate?” or “How are they funded?”). You could get more specific and try researching similar organizations, such as non-profits that offer the same services as A Parent’s Friend. You could do further research on the aspects of the employees’ jobs, such as the fundraisers and parent assistant specialists (e.g., fundraising, counseling, social services). It would be unlikely that you would spend much time researching companies that are unrelated to the proposed solutions, such as Kulinary Kitchens. In this example, if you researched non-profits similar to A Parent’s Friend, you might discover some insights such as the following:

▪ There are different types of non-profits, as well as different rules on how tax- deductible contributions are handled, which is important to know from a fundraising perspective.

▪ Many non-profits have to work with limited resources. While attempting to secure more funding, it is important to remember that there are other organizations that would also like to secure that funding.

▪ Many non-profits secure most of their funding by either earning money (charging fees, etc.) and government grants. Donations are often not the main source of funding. This would be helpful to know as solutions are being developed.

• Return to the interview questions you developed and do one of the following: o Create a “transcript” of each subject’s interview, including the exact response you

imagine each interviewee giving if you had actually conducted the interview. o Create a comprehensive notes section that includes major points you would have

documented from your interviews. This could be a bulleted list of points or a narrative summary about each interview.

When developing a transcript, consider it to be similar to a script for a movie or an interview format that you might read in a magazine. Taking this approach will likely require more imagination than if you were to create comprehensive notes, but the process could also lead to unexpected results. After you ask your original interview question, place yourself in the position of the person being interviewed and try to answer the question from their perspective. Refer to the resources or do research on interview techniques so that you can continue with the questions as you would naturally do in a real interview setting. When the interview subject says something intriguing, part of your role as an interviewer is to help them elaborate. For example, if you were to take the first interview question for the example scenario, a transcript of the interview might look something like the following:

Me: “Tell me about the services you offer that parents respond to the most.” Rebecca Johnson: “As a parent assistant specialist, I think the program that has the most impact has to be the counseling. Of course, financial assistance can

often be the most critical, especially when the parent is struggling. But, when I am able talk to a parent a year or two later, it’s usually the help that they received through counseling that they thank me for after all that time. Oh, also the parenting classes. Same type of response.” Me: “You mentioned financial assistance and how that can be the most critical. Can you tell me more about that?” RJ: “Yes, in order for counseling to be effective, the person has to be ready for it. If the base needs aren’t being met—food, clothing, housing, health issues, and so on—then parents probably aren’t going to be in a place where they can focus on other issues that are less critical to their family’s well-being.”

One last consideration if you are to develop a transcript: Remember to keep the conversation focused on your interview questions and information that will be relevant to the scenario. In real life, there would likely be introductions, small talk, thanking the interview subjects for their time, and tangents. Do not include these interactions in your transcript. If you plan to include comprehensive notes instead, the information you provide will be more condensed and stated more generally than it would be in a transcript. For example, if you were to make a comprehensive note for the example scenario (covering that same interview question), you could write something like the following:

▪ For the question “Tell me about the services you offer that parents respond to the most,” the responses from parent assistant specialists indicated that counseling was probably the program that had the most impact, as well as parenting classes. When parents return a year or two later, they most often bring up the benefits offered by this program. Parents are not usually receptive to these types of programs if their basic needs are unmet. Therefore, it is critical to ensure they are in place first.

Define the Problem: In this section, you will narrow down the information you have so far and define the problem in simple terms so that you will be able to move on to the step of addressing it.

• Create a list of all the known and potential issues from the scenario. For each item you list, explain how critical it is to address it, if at all. Then, narrow down the list and choose which issues are the main ones.

In the list of potential issues, you will want to try to think of as many potential issues as possible. At this point, you do not need to consider whether or not they will be applicable to the main problem because you will identify the main issues next. Here is a brief list of what the potential issues would be for the example scenario:

▪ A Parent’s Friend has a visibility problem. It is not well-known. ▪ The organization struggles to secure funding. ▪ There is usually a waiting list for assistance, although it is usually not long. ▪ Fundraisers have to continually look for new sponsors and spread awareness. ▪ Kulinary Kitchens is going out of business. ▪ Many of the Kulinary Kitchens employees were left in a bad place financially,

without much savings.

▪ There are over 100 single parents who were negatively affected by the company’s closure.

▪ There is now a specialized waiting list. A Parent’s Friend is overburdened. ▪ A Parent’s Friend needs to find a way to help the single parents from Kulinary

Kitchens. ▪ For the continued growth and success of the organization, A Parent’s Friend

also needs to turn this issue into an opportunity to grow its presence in the community.

In the previous list, some items are critical to the situation, whereas some are minor or unrelated. For example, the visibility issue is not as critical as the fact that A Parent’s Friend needs funding. While Kulinary Kitchens going out of business is an issue, it is not relevant to the situation. From the list above, the main issues would be:

▪ The organization struggles to secure funding. ▪ There are over 100 single parents who were negatively affected by the

company’s closure. ▪ A Parent’s Friend needs to find a way to help the single parents from Kulinary

Kitchens. By listing the main issues, it will be easier to identify stronger solutions.

• Analyze what potential consequences and/or benefits could result from either addressing or failing to address the issues that are faced in the scenario.

To identify the potential consequences, you could refer to the main issues you identified and ask: What would happen if these issues are not resolved? For the example scenario, the potential consequences could include the following:

▪ For the families coming from Kulinary Kitchens, the consequences could be severe if they are unable to get the assistance they need. People could lose their homes, be driven into poverty, or accumulate an unsustainable amount of debt. Some parents’ employment status could be used against them in custody situations. Kids could go hungry due to a lack of food or have to wear clothing that is falling apart because the family cannot afford to replace it.

▪ For the other families that A Parent’s Friend is currently serving or would serve, their services could be disrupted or even suspended altogether.

▪ For A Parent’s Friend, the biggest consequence of failure could be that it failed in its core mission. This could cause employees to quit or donors to stop providing funds.

For the example scenario, potential benefits could include the families who benefited becoming supporters of A Parent’s Friend once they get back on their feet (e.g., donating money, volunteering, spreading the word). The standing of A Parent’s Friend could grow in the community, as well as their potential for increased funding.

• Compose a 1- to 2-sentence statement that defines the business problem presented in the scenario. In other words, how would you phrase the problem in a relatable way?

In this statement, it is important to remember to make a statement that focuses on people. It should be broad in the sense that there is room for solutions to grow, but at the same time it should not be so broad that a solution cannot come into focus. An example could be:

▪ We need to help the community from Kulinary Kitchens because they should not have to suffer through an unnecessary hardship.

Or: ▪ How might we help the community from Kulinary Kitchens while also

increasing our visibility in the community?

Part 2: Solving the Problem Ideate: In this section, you will use multiple ideation techniques to develop and narrow down ideas for addressing the problem. As you use these techniques, focus on ideas that involve promoting positive social change for your selected business.

• Using the brainstorming technique, assemble at least 10 ideas to solve the problem you defined.

Brainstormed ideas do not have to be perfect or in a finalized state. Here are some brainstormed ideas for the example scenario:

▪ Hold a yard sale fundraiser event that allows all families to bring in unwanted items to raise funds. It could be held in the Kulinary Kitchens parking lot possibly. They could also ask for donations or sell food and drinks, too.

▪ Subcontract some of the services to other organizations. ▪ Assemble a team of volunteers. ▪ Temporarily suspend non-essential services. ▪ Organize a community event involving local artists. ▪ Conduct traditional marketing and social media campaigns. ▪ Hire a lot more people; take out a loan to cover initial costs. ▪ Reach out to similar organizations in surrounding areas to see if they could

lend their resources, including their employees or volunteers. ▪ Start an account on a crowdsourcing website and try to get funding that way. ▪ Make a creative video that challenges celebrities to donate to the cause and

try to make it go viral.

• Using an additional ideation technique (e.g., worst possible idea, S.C.A.M.P.E.R., zero draft, etc.), develop at least one additional idea. Describe the process you went through to develop your idea(s), including:

o The name of your selected ideation technique o The steps you took to perform the technique, including the results of each step o The final result of the technique (i.e., the idea[s] you developed) o Your thoughts on the process for the technique

Using the “worst possible idea technique” for the example scenario, you might follow some of these steps:

▪ Come up with as many bad ideas as possible, such as “shut down all operations and call it quits” or “charge the needy families $5,000 each to cover the services.”

▪ Explain why those are bad ideas. For example, closing operations would leave over 200 families in need.

▪ Try to think of what the opposite of those ideas would be, which could be “open a new non-profit.”

Using this process could lead to this idea: Perhaps a new organization could be formed to focus on a specific service that A Parent’s Friend offers. Maybe it could have a different legal structure (e.g., as a for-profit or a charity) in order to operate more efficiently. Personal thoughts on the technique could cover how you feel the process went, if there are any ways to improve the process, and if you are satisfied with the end result.

• After developing your ideas, classify them into two categories: ones you will develop and ones you will discard. Explain why you decided to develop the ones in the first category and explain why you discarded the ones in the second category.

The ideas could be categorized as follows: Ideas to develop:

▪ Subcontract some of the services to other organizations. ▪ Assemble a team of volunteers. ▪ Temporarily suspend non-essential services. ▪ Hire a lot more people; take out a loan to cover initial costs. ▪ Reach out to similar organizations in surrounding areas to see if they could

lend their resources, including their employees or volunteers. Ideas to discard:

▪ Hold a yard sale fundraiser event that allows all families to bring in unwanted items to raise funds. It could be held in the Kulinary Kitchens parking lot possibly. They could also ask for donations or sell food and drinks, too.

▪ Conduct traditional marketing and social media campaigns. ▪ Organize a community event involving local artists. ▪ Start an account on a crowdsourcing website and try to get funding that way. ▪ Make a creative video that challenges celebrities to donate to the cause and

try to make it go viral. ▪ Form a new organization to focus on a specific service that A Parent’s Friend

offers. This could be done in many ways, but you could categorize the ideas this way if you wanted to focus on the core of what the organization does. The people in the organization are not experienced (and may not be skilled) in fundraisers, community events, social media campaigns, or viral videos. Keep in mind—you do not have to try to incorporate this list exactly. In your prototype, you do not have to fully implement a “develop” idea, and you should not avoid an idea because you said it should be discarded here. For example, “traditional marketing” is in the discard section, but part of the solution may involve some form of marketing.

Prototype: In this section, you will develop your prototype plan to deliver to the stakeholders in your scenario. They will take this information in and base their decisions off of it.

• Develop a plan to address the business problem in your scenario that incorporates your ideas from the ideate phase. In your plan, address the following:

o Describe your proposed solution, including how it incorporates positive social change.

o In order to feasibly implement the solution, analyze what would need to be considered. For instance, what resources (people, financial, etc.) would be involved? Or, what internal and/or external organizational changes or efforts would need to be undertaken (restructuring, hiring, etc.)?

o Analyze what those within the organization can do to increase the odds of the plan being implemented successfully. For example, what could they put in place to ensure success?

For a proposed solution, you could suggest the organization focus on rapid growth, incorporating the various ideas developed in the ideate phase. For feasibility, the organization may want to consider professional networks that are common to the non-profit field. Another important factor could be the timeline (how long before Kulinary Kitchens parents are in trouble, how long to hire, how long to train). To increase the odds of success, one thing the organization could do is dedicate or hire someone to rapidly put together some comprehensive training materials and plans, which could be used to bring people on board as fast as possible.