101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

212 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

Time

30 minutes

Related Activities

• Stereotype [10]


• Imaginary Mentor [42]


• What if...? [49]

Procedure

1. Distribute the We Have Met the Enemy and It Is We Handout, review the example
   with the participants, and answer any questions they may have.


2. Recite the following instructions to the groups: “Think about what your problem
   would say, think, and feel about itself and its relation to its environment. What
   bugs it? What does it like? What are its major concerns, challenges, and opportu-
   nities? Write down your responses on a flip chart.”


3. Tell them to use their descriptions as stimuli to brainstorm ideas, write them on
   Post-it®Notes, and place them on the flip chart for evaluation.

Variation

• Have individual group members take turns speaking the part of whatever object is
  chosen.

Debrief/Discussion

This is an especially useful exercise for people who are good at fantasizing and being

playful. Because it requires users to suspend belief about inanimate objects talking, not

everyone may excel at using it. However, most groups will have one or two people who

can, and that’s usually all it takes. Other group members then can use their thoughts to

ignite ideas.

Consider having participants debrief using the following questions:

• What was most helpful about this exercise?


• What was most challenging?


• What can we apply?


• How would you rate the value of this exercise to helping us with this issue?


• Will this exercise be helpful in the future for other sessions?


• What did you learn?


• What will we be able to use from this exercise?


• What ideas were generated, and which ones were most interesting?

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