Teaching creativity to undergraduate civil engineers

There can belittle doubt that the engineering industry as well as an individual engineering firm, needs innovation to improve its performance and to put itself into a position to address the future with confidence. Of course, firms are not innovative, people are. Thus it is important that young engineers be given the tools that can help them be creative, so that they will be innovative in their future careers. Unfortunately the typical undergraduate engineering degree is already so full with technical information that must be learned and analytical tools that must be mastered, that there is no time left to introduce them to the concept of "creativity", or to the tools that can help promote it. This paper describes the way in which creativity has been introduced into a course in civil engineering management taught to final year undergraduates.