A Creativity Strategy Modelled from Walt Disney – Imagineering

The SWWE Regional Network were very pleased to welcome back to Bristol, Tim Lyons, of APM’s People Interest Network, to talk about creative problem solving using an imagineering approach. This event was held on 25 September 2024.

Tim started with a quote from Albert Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

Effective problem solving requires a more creative approach.

Robert Dilts, a pioneer in Neuro Linguistic Programming, NLP, recognised how Walt Disney personally approached problem solving. Disney adopted three roles to think about problems from different perspectives. He had the ability to do this on his own, and even had different rooms in his house to focus his thinking on each of the 3 perspectives.

The imagineering approach involves 3 roles, the Dreamer, the Realist, and the Critic.

The Dreamer focusses on the What. What would we like to achieve, using our imagination with no boundaries, what would an ideal solution to a problem look like, what is out vision and purpose.

The Realist focuses on the How. The plan to deliver the ideal solution, the resources needed, time scales, etc.

The Critic focusses on Why (not). What could go wrong, the risks, checks and balances, playing devils advocate. Evaluate the potential issues, compliance to standards and regulations. The critic also identifies and keeps +ve byproducts.

The process always starts with the Dreamer, then the Realist and finally the Critic, and there can be a number of iterations if needed.

There is a 4th role, that of the Integrator, to generate an action plan to solve the problem and to note the side issues / byproducts.

The process can be quick, 2-3 hours of team working. The whole team work on each role together, and ensuring that the roles are kept separate in their minds and there is no leakage!. It is essential in the Dreamer stage that no ideas are dismissed too early.

A big advantage is that the team then owns the resulting solution and action plan and will be motivated to deliver it.

Tim outlined some challenges to be aware of.

Dreamer – be aware of assumptions being made. Record them if possible.

Realist – be aware of any risk of confirmation bias.

Critic – keep note of any points that arise that should be added to the risk register.

The audience was then asked for a problem to work on and it was agreed to work on a problem about how a client could deal with a difficult relationship between a prime contractor and subcontractor who owned project critical Intellectual Property Rights.

The audience worked together on tables and were asked to start with the Dreamer and identify 3 things they would like any solution to do on note sheets. The sheets were swapped with the next table and the solutions looked at with the Realist hat on, and notes made, Finally, the sheets were then passed again, and the tables then critiqued each idea: what could go wrong, risks, organisational silos, new regulations, etc.

The final step as a group was the project manager role, as an impartial integrator to develop a plan to deliver the chosen solution. Capturing the ideas that could be used and any by-product ideas.

Identify ideas that cannot be done – discard. Identify any lessons learned

Identify realist ideas for an action plan

Identify new insights, the valuable by-products.

Ideas that were identified by the audience included:

The IPR holder has all the cards!

The prime contractor could hire staff that had left the IPR holding subcontractor, but that would not solve the IPR problem.

The Client could buy the IPR owner! – probably unrealistic!

Find a new technical solution that does not need access to the IPR. But would be cost and time implications.

Give the time constraints of the evening, we did not manage to find a perfect solution, but hopefully some useful ideas for the audience member who shared their problem.

Tim summarised the imagineering approach. It is fast and enables ideas to be captured quickly. A balanced approach is needed, all three roles are equally important. Allow enough time, space and have the right people, (diversity, key stakeholders), and resources available. The outcome should be an action plan of how to proceed which can be presented to decision makers.

We finished the evening with a Q&A session and networking.

As usual the sides will be available on the APM Slideshare channel and also embedded below, together with a video of Tim’s interview with Robert Dilts which was not able to be shown tonight.

Martin Gosden
SWWE Events Co-ordinator