Q.Why is divergent thinking important in creative thinking process?

Divergent thinking is open-ended thinking that generates many different, equally valid answers to a question or problem, and it is what produces the novel and original ideas that define creative thinking. …

J.P. Guilford distinguished divergent thinking, used for open-ended questions with many valid answers ('what are the various uses of cloth?'), from convergent thinking, used for problems with only one correct answer. Because creative thinking is defined by the production of novel and original ideas, and divergent thinking is precisely what generates many different possible ideas rather than converging on a single one, divergent thinking is essential to the process.

Divergent thinking rests on four abilities: fluency (producing many ideas), flexibility (producing varied kinds of ideas, not just many of the same kind), originality (producing rare or unusual ideas, for which fluency and flexibility are necessary conditions), and elaboration (working out an idea's details and implications). The more numerous and varied the ideas divergent thinking generates, the greater the likelihood that some of them will turn out to be genuinely original. Convergent thinking still matters at a later stage — selecting the most us …