101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

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Law Breaker

Background

Just as most societies have laws, so do most problems. Societal

laws prescribe and govern social behavior. Similarly, problem

laws govern the assumptions people use to perceive and define

problems.

Our assumptions about the way we think things should be

influence the way we generate ideas to solve problems. Unfortu-

nately, most of these “shoulds” constrain our thinking and result

in less creative ideas. Moreover, shoulds limit the number of

solution categories we might consider. For instance, if we accept

the notion that chocolate candy should be sold only in bars, all

our ideas for chocolate candy will be based on bar products.

To overcome this creative thinking obstacle, Doug Hall (1994)

designed Law Breaker as an activity to generate ideas by break-

ing assumptions about the way things should be.

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

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