Creativity in software development

Software	None
Covers	Software development process, cognitive psychology
Skills Required	Good understanding of software development, interest in creativity and cognitive science
Challenge	Conceptual ???? Technical ?? Programming

Brief Description

Developing software systems, especially for non-standard applications, involves mental challenges for clever people, in figuring out requirements, developing the design, and coming up with solutions to technical problems. But where in all this is the creativity?

Many people who don't have technical educations, and some who do, don't think of software development as a creative activity - but these same people have ignorant and wrong views of what creativity is. By contrast, psychologists and creativity researchers tell us that creative thinking is all around us, and we do it all the time, and doing clever stuff like designing software will involve creativity. But imaginative creative leaps can be hard to track down in systematic development processes in software development and engineeing, and the trend to more systematic procedures is to some extent intended to eliminate the need for creativity in the creation of innovative products.

The challenge of this project is to relate research on the psychology and sociology of creativity to current practice in the design and development of software systems, to see what sort of creativity is involved, and where it is needed and why. Questions you can consider include whether systematic methods can substitute for creativity, and if so when and how far; or if systematic methods can focus and enhance creativity; and how creative thinking might be fostered and enabled in the situations where it is desirable.

A good place to start would be with the writings of Margaret Boden, especially her classic The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (2nd ed, Routledge, 2003). For a broader range of perspectives The Handbook of Creativity edited by Robert J. Sternberg (Cambridge UP, 1998) would be a good source to begin with.

Variants

This project could take a number of different forms depending on interest and access to data.

Examination of what is involved in carrying out particular stages of the development processes, using particular methods that the student has experience with.
Close study of one or a few episodes of programming (that have been filmed so that the sequence of events can be examined in detail), applying the techniques of cognitive psychology to see what is really going on and if any of it fits any definition of creativity.
Case study of a software development process that the student is participating in or has close access to, based largely on interviews, looking to see what real life problems real developers solve and where they apply creative thinking; this might focus on just a small part of the development process.
Examination of one or more software development methodologies to see what assumptions they make about the kinds of thinking the development process does or should involve, and how they provide (or fail to provide) scaffolding for analogical reasoning or creativity.

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