101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

• Idea Links [41]


• What if...? [49]


• Phillips 66 [64]

Procedure

1. Distribute the Idea Showers Handout, review it with the participants, and answer
   any questions they may have.


2. After reviewing the handout, emphasize the importance of each of the four princi-
   ples. Stress that the number one rule is to defer judgment.


3. Ask the groups to select a problem statement in the form of: “How might we... ?”
   For instance, “How might we better market our product or service?”


4. Instruct them to spend 15 minutes generating ideas to resolve this problem, with
   each person writing an idea on a Post-it®Note, after suggesting it verbally.


5. Call time and tell them place their ideas on flip charts for evaluation.

Debrief/Discussion

Ask the participants to discuss the following questions:

• Why is deferring judgment so important?


• Is it more important than the other three brainstorming principles? Why or why not?


• How feasible is it to defer judgment in practice?


• How might groups overcome obstacles to deferring judgment?


• Why are the other three principles important?

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?

262 101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving.Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley &

Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. http://www.pfeiffer.com

09 VG 247-294b 10/6/04 12:22 PM Page 262