ABSTRACT
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure. It could be argued that this is still predominantly the case in business and project management practice. Design thinking, such as described above, can be applied to other complex projects where there are wicked problems' with contradictory goals or changing requirements. As Hillson argues risk management without innovation merely rehearses and records the inevitable the risk process must embody innovative and creative thinking in both risk identification and response development, proactively seeking potentially significant uncertainties and addressing them appropriately'. Experienced project leaders use creative thinking in many ways in order to: Senior project managers surveyed in our original study valued creativity or thinking outside the box' as one of their most important skill sets. Research into how designers deal with wicked' problems provides some insights for project leaders.
