Related Activities
- Picture Tickler [17]
- Rorschach Revisionist [18]
- Ideatoons [26]
- Doodles [37]
- Drawing Room [59]
Procedure
- Distribute the Get Real!! Handout, review it with the participants, and answer any
questions they may have. - Instruct the participants in each group to brainstorm ideas for approximately 15
minutes. - Tell them to write down each idea, individually, on a Post-it®Note (one idea per
note) and place it on a flip chart for all to see. - Have the group members select the two or three stupidest, most impractical, and
most unworkable ideas from among those posted on the flip chart. - Direct the group members to examine each of these ideas and see what smart,
practical, workable ideas the original ideas might stimulate. - Tell them to write down any ideas on Post-it®Notes (one idea per note) and place
them on flip charts for evaluation.
Debrief/Discussion
This can be a fun and interesting exercise, especially for participants who tend to be high-
ly judgmental. It can be surprising to see how supposedly “bad” ideas actually can be
used to spark creative solutions. This information can be useful for training in creative
thinking if participants will transfer it to other problem-solving situations. Ideas do not
always have to be the perfect match for a problem; they also can be springboards to more
practical ones.
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?
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