101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Handout

• What Is It? Handout

Time

45 minutes

Related Activities

• Essence of the Problem [38]


• Turn Around [52]

Procedure

1. Distribute the What Is It Handout, review it with the participants, and answer any
   questions they may have.


2. Tell the participants to describe their problems in at least six different ways that
   capture the “essence” of their problems (see the handout for examples).


3. Instruct them to use their descriptions to prompt ideas, write them on Post-it®
   Notes (one idea per note), and place them on a flip chart for evaluation.

Debrief/Discussion

This activity differs from most in its emphasis on human emotions and how they drive

our creative abilities. It can be especially useful for new product development because of

its ability to uncover consumer needs and supply ways to meet them. However, it also is

extremely versatile in its ability to provide diverse problem perspectives by helping

uncover hidden or unwarranted assumptions. You might ask participants to compare its

ability to generate unique ideas with a an activity that relies on unrelated stimuli such as

words, pictures, or objects.

Also 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?

242 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

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