Convergent Thinking vs. Divergent Thinking: Why Planning Isn’t Always the Right Thing to Do You’re overseeing a project and have all the pieces in place. Your detailed timeline is mapped out. You’ve set expectations with leaders and team members. You’re prepared to keep all the deliverables organized. Halfway through the project, a team comes to you with a suggestion—they think they’ve found a better way to handle a piece of the process. Your stomach drops into your shoes. You’re the taskmaster. The organizer. The keeper of the schedule. This change in direction will only throw a wrench into the flawless plan you spent hours agonizing over. Even if it is a better way to go, you’re cringing at the idea of straying from your beloved system. Sound familiar? It’s a common scenario for project managers. When you’re the one who’s solely responsible for keeping everything on track, it’s understandable that you’ll white-knuckle your tried and true processes. But, think about this: You may be limiting the wiggle room team members need to take that project to the next level. By planning away every last inch of flexibility, you’re making it that much tougher to adapt to new information and evolving demands. So, what do you do? It’s time for project management professionals to not only think of themselves as the keepers of plans, but also the ones responsible for pulling the very best out of teams. To do so, they need to encourage and enable both pieces of the creative problem-solving process: divergent thinking and convergent thinking.