101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

150 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

31. Parts Purge

Background

If you like to free-associate, you’ll like the Parts Purge technique. It originally was devel-

oped by VanGundy (1992) as Attribute Association Chains. You can use this activity to

generate ideas by listing problem attributes, free-associating from each attribute, and then

using the free associations as stimuli for ideas. It’s as simple as that: free-associate on

problem parts and generate, generate, generate.

Objectives

• To help participants generate as many creative ideas as possible


• To help participants learn how to use the activities to generate ideas

Participants

Small groups of four to seven people each

Materials, Supplies, and Equipment

• For each group: markers, two flip charts, and masking tape for posting flip-chart
  sheets


• For each participant: one sheet each of three different colors of sticking dots
  (^1 ⁄ 2 ” diameter) and one pad of 4 x 6 Post-it®Notes

Handout

• Parts Purge Handout

Time

45 minutes

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