The content of creative potential development as a complex of received and independently acquired skills, competencies, abilities for creative action, as well as the measure of their implementation in the process of military service are specified. The self-assessment zones of consistent assessment of creative abilities development are substantiated: educational, as well as service-labor (practical). It is proved that at the military institute in the context of training and simultaneous implementation of military service there is a gradual transition from the use of rigid algorithms for completing assigned tasks to the implementation of creative potential in developing optimal solutions and actions aimed at eff ectively achieving assigned service tasks. The factors inhibiting the development of creative potential of cadets are revealed: insuffi cient level of provision of computer equipment; closed educational processes and partial restriction of the access to external information resources; traditional organization of classes that do not imply the development of creative abilities; ineffi ciency of the system of motivation of creative activity of students. The partial revision of traditional approaches to military education is proposed. The latter includes, on the one hand, a sharp increase in computer support for educational processes, expanding students’ access to external information fl ows, and, on the other hand, the introduction of new teaching methods, including the integrated use of simulators, virtual trainers, gaming technologies and other innovative tools that should allow modeling complex social situations and developing cadets’ decision-making skills in the conditions of social uncertainty. The importance of integrated material and spiritual motivation for the processes of self-development and increasing creative activity, developing and implementing analytical skills in the learning process, as well as implementing service and labor activities are emphasized.