101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Idea Showers Handout

Advertising executive Alex Osborn’s four principles for brainstorming are

• Defer judgment


• Quantity breeds quality


• The wilder the better


• Combination and improvement are sought

The trick is to translate these principles into workable brainstorming behaviors. The

first principle suggests that your group should agree to think of all the ideas they can

before evaluating any ideas. If you stick to this principle, you also should be successful

with the second principle of quantity breeds quality. Separating generation from evalua-

tion has been found to increase idea quantity, with a corresponding increase in quality.

The third principle reinforces the second in that letting go and not being concerned with

idea practicality is likely to increase idea quantity. Finally, the fourth principle—combina-

tion and improvement are sought—is likely to improve idea quality. Building on others’

ideas helps improve existing ideas while triggering new ones.

Brainstorming with Related Stimuli 263

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 263