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The profusion of creativity techniques that have been proposed and used is based on a much smaller set of active ingredients, devices that promote idea generation. This paper reports the results of a study that identified these active ingredients through an analysis of 172 idea-generation methods. Fifty idea-generation devices of three typesstrategies, tactics, and enablerswere identified and organized in a formulary.Research results facilitate the evaluation of idea-generation methods and the selection of methods suited to particular ideageneration tasks.

Teaching students how to think is a universal goal of educational institutions. Business schools have addressed this goal by injecting critical thinking activities into their programs, and by offering courses on managerial decision making. This paper reviews these efforts, and concludes that they are not adequate to the challenge of teaching business students how to think effectively. It proposes a comprehensive thinking skills program that includes critical thinking and decision making content, but also addresses the many other thinking tasks managers perform. The paper discusses programmatic issues and provides pedagogical advice pertaining to the teaching of thinking skills in business schools.

Problem-based learning (PBL), widely employed in medical schools, has much to offer management education as well. This article presents a comparative analysis of PBL’s likely benefits for medical and management education. Its considerable value notwithstanding, researchers have argued that PBL does not develop medical students’ problem-solving skills. The article considers PBL’s likely effects on the problem-solving skills of business students and proposes an augmentation that should significantly improve student thinking.